Fireborn

Heights of Power #1

by James Dwyer

The world of power is turning to ice... and when its keeper, the great Amadis Yeda disappears, armies of magic begin to war, creatures of darkness come into the light, gods walk among men, nations plunge into chaos, and the lives of four friends are changed Kris, a warrior who struggles not to kill every man, woman and child he meets, is sent to stop the new tyrant, Aerath, from turning the world to ice. Thisian, a man who loves only gold, women and himself, takes advantage of the new found freedom a world without order has created. Phira, the youngest and only female general her nation has ever known, is on a mission to uncover the secret behind Aerath’s new power and how to stop his oncoming armies. And Dallid, a man who has spent his life among those far greater than him, is given all the power of the gods. He must struggle with the responsibility cast on him, he must show the world what strength of flesh and heart can be when a mortal man is given limitless power. He must show the world what it is to be Fireborn.

Genres: Fantasy

724 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 19, 2015

About the author

Writer and martial arts instructor, when not spending time with my family, I like to spend every minute reading, writing, or fighting

Reviews

[Cyril Patrick Feerick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fireborn, is a fantastic read by author James Dwyer. His novel follows four friends in a world of wars, gods and chaos. The plot is also amazingly done well, we have wonderful characters and by the end, all their stories are cleverly intertwined. Dwyer's writing style makes the plot stand out with his ability to form sentences that are able to reel the reader into the novel and hook them. The characters, whether human or divine are not black and white but many shades in between. So many novels have bad characters who have no redeeming features, or good characters who don't have anything out of place, but not here. The settings are well developed, adding a deep richness to the narrative. Could have been a bit shorter in parts but I aint going to hold that against it :D

[Bruce Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book I read from James Dwyer, after first reading his and his brother's awesome video-game-city book Cult Fiction. It had been a while since I'd read a fantasy book, but Fireborn brought me back to all the reasons I loved them! Gemmel, Jordan, Erickson, even R R Martin's before the tv show stopped him from writing books, they were all filled with stronger-than-life characters faced with impossible situations. This is exactly what James Dwyer has done here in Fireborn, bringing it back to four heroes (five? do we include Amadis? probably not) so four normal warriors and all they have to do is stop the entire world from turning to ice, to stop Aerath and his entire mountain, to stop that crazy fire demon who I can't pronounce but who keeps getting stronger the more he burns, to stop all the meddling gods and oh yeah, to stop that white monster Jherin - you know, that guy who killed every single god and all magic every known all those centuries ago - that guy! Can't decide if Kris or Thisian are my favourites, and definitely can't decide who'd win in a battle between Kris and Phira! Love this book

[Eóin Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply one of the best fantasy fiction books i've ever read. The characters are incredibly deep and you want to follow them all the way to Surlas and back! (You'll get it when you read it). The world is so vast and the races of peoples so well thought out that you just want to know more about everything! The characters go on an incredible journey and the end is so emotional that you don't want it to end. Definitely the greatest book I've read in a very long time. It's begging for a sequel! (And a film!!)

[Therese Lyons Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

review to feature on thearcade.ie

[Tomas Grizzly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, this is a book that was good story, but I had some troubles at the start. It picked up in a way that made me wonder if I missed something, but over time I was able to make some order in it.

In the end, I had lots of fun with it, often thanks to Thisian's crude humor while as well enjoying the inner struggles of Kris - but not just that. This just stood out.

[Max Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. These characters, this world, it's just so kick ass, a must read for all fantasy fans out there

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this and the ending was not what I expected at all

[Ed Forde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing. I was so impressed with the universe that I was immersed in. The characters were nicely diverse, I can't believe they were all friends, but when you read through the back stories of all of them it makes complete sense. The sense of duty that they all have is admirable [except for thisian!] and leads to a brilliant story line for a war of magic between fire and ice. On the surface the fire worshipers vs the ice worshipers is a nice start, but it's made so complex with all the other races of magicers, thieves, and rich mix of races that make up the world it's set in. It was a massive read, and I was totally immersed. Some of the twists and events are still very hard to deal with, but I can't wait for a sequel to this. THERE HAS TO BE A SEQUEL TO THIS BOOK! What opens up in this world is definitely going to lead to much much more. I'm dying to talk about this with someone and talk about what's happened to the characters! AND I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! Brilliant book.

[Jako · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start off my review, I want to make it clear: PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! The characters are funny and unique, with each acting as great foils for the others. The story is captivating, and the world is rich and imaginative. The author does a great job of exploring the larger world and its history through short storytelling sections, and there are some great twists.
Now, for the reasons, I rated this as a 3 instead of a 5. There are, unfortunately, some glaring issues with this book. I assume most of these stem from the author being new to writing, and I am genuinely looking forward to reading his other books and seeing if he has improved.
- my biggest gripe was the baffling use of punctuation and curious sentence structure. This clearly shows the lack of a (good) proofreader or editor. There are also many broken sentences, extra words, and simply bad grammer that should have been picked up by a few rounds of proofreading.
- the author tries too hard to create a large, intricate story and a) wastes a ton of time on story lines that are clearly meant to stretch into later books but just convolute this one and b) creates a confusing web of interactions that dont have nearly enough relation to the main story.
- the books simply goes on for too long. It could have been greatly improved by cutting at least 200 pages.

[Terry Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An epic first book in the Heights or power series. This Irish writer James Dwyer really hit the Fantasy scene with a fine big hot bang. It's set in a fantastically imaginative world of feuding nations, where Gods walk freely amongst the flesh-born and interfere when they like, mainly to help themselves. Along with a very manageable group of main Characters, the reader is immersed it a world of elemental magic and warring factions so well described that you could smell the pages burning as you tare though this adventure. The colloquialism of the swearing is so brilliant that I found myself swearing using the author's own words after only a few chapters. This book pulls no punches when it comes to magic, war or violence with just the right amount of humour to keep you going through this 700+ pages tale. I loved every page of it and jumped straight on book 2 (The Masks of Moi'dan). I've read a lot of books in this genre and my only disappointment with this book is that I didn't discover it sooner.

[Mixalos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can not believe the ratings. We are talking about a book that is so poorly written that, had there been 0.0001 star ratings I would have been 1000 times more happy with my rating. There are many unexplainable and irrational things, many deaths of main heroes, absolutely no characters depth and so many boring parts where I had to read about sexual fantasies of characters.... Total waste of my time.

[Sofia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very well done. Original ideas and characters. It was refreshing to read and I particularly enjoyed the back stories to help you understand how the characters got to where they're at.

[Kitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Older style of sci-fi and fantasy writing. Event heavy rather than character studies. Though perhaps that happens later in the books.
Fun to support Irish writers!

[zanny taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am surprised with how thick this boy is how fast i read this book. however, the reason i gave it 4 stars cause even though i really enjoyed it at times i feel like it could of been shorter.