The War of Undoing

Kyland Falls #1

by Alex Perry

‘My name is Tay Raining, and this is my brother Ellstone. I wonder if you’ve heard of us… I have a birthmark shaped like a question mark on my hand, I think it might mean something but I’m not sure what. My brother is probably important too, though I can’t imagine how. I’m rambling now, sorry. The point is… the point is, we are the Rainings, and we’re here to save you.’

War is brewing in Kyland, as the shadowy, spell-weaving vumas rebel against the human government, but both sides have secret weapons at their disposal. The humans’ secret weapon: a plan that could be the undoing of the world. The vumas’ secret weapon: three young humans abandoned in the smog-shrouded town of Tarot – Tay, Ellstone and Miller Raining. The Rainings could be the key to winning the war, but first they’ll need to work out whose side they are really on…

The War of Undoing takes readers on an exciting journey into a world on the brink of tearing itself apart. It is the first book in the Kyland Falls fantasy series, and is Alex Perry's debut novel.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

618 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Alex is a writer living in Edinburgh. He tends to write quite slowly, but in 2015 he actually got something finished: The War of Undoing, a fantasy novel which is currently a finalist in the 2017 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off!

When he's not working on novels, Alex sometimes produces podcasts, writes songs and helps his friends make short films. Some of the results can be found in the links below, along with his author website and scattered social media profiles.

AUTHOR WEBSITE
Website: http://www.alexperrywriter.co.uk/

SOCIAL MEDIA / AUTHOR PAGES
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoleThrower
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexperrywri...
Amazon author page (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00W9M5I72
Amazon author page (US): https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00W9M5I72
Smashwords author page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

OTHER CREATIVE PROJECTS
Everything v Everything (podcast): http://everythingveverything.wordpres...
Rainy Day Adventure Club (podcast): http://rainydayadventureclub.wordpres...
Sonic Triangle (music): http://sonictriangle.co.uk/
Beyond Studios (short films): http://beyondstudios.co.uk/

Reviews

[Petrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

The War of Undoing is a great example of why sometimes you should not judge a book by its cover.

The War of Undoing is Alex Perry's debut novel and it's the first book in the Kyland Falls series. This book completely took me by surprise with how enjoyable it was to read; the story is quite unique and different from most books in the genre these days. It is, of course, still high fantasy. Focusing on the conflict between human and vumas, or creatures, with a hint of science vs magic behind the scenes, I found this book to be a slow burn that was character driven with compelling narration, even when there’s not a lot going on in the story.

By narration, I really meant narration, because this story is presented as a retelling from the perspective of four main characters: the Raining siblings, Tay, Ellstone, and Miller, plus another side character named Kisli Thomas. The four of them are recalling the events leading to the time of writing the diary. Of course, everything is not as it seems and the readers get to find out about it with each story progression.

“Stories make sense. There’s justice in them. There’s none in real life.”

There are two minor issues I had with the book. The first one was that I found the first 40% of the book to be a mix of high and low points. The story wasn't really interesting during this part and I felt like it was too lighthearted at times, even though the author seems to be trying to go in a serious direction. Obviously, I could be wrong about this; it's just what I perceived, after all. The other issue and probably the most dominant one was that these characters didn't have any distinctive voices in this section. Most of the time it felt like I was reading only one or two POV’s rather than four because the characters' voices sound very similar in the narration. I need to tell you though that this book is told in multi 1st person POV, which is a very rare experience for me so my issue could also be because of that.

That said, this applied only to the first 40%. Once the book reached Part III, it only gets better and better until the end. During the second half, when the characters started having more development, the previous issues vanished. Like I said, it’s a book that gets better as you progress; even when the characters were just talking the book was hard to put down and eventually, it all leads to a rewarding climax that felt so conclusive that I forgot this was actually a series.

This novel has enough world-building and there are plenty of resonating themes such as poverty, penance, bullying, adventure, love for books, the fight for freedom, and the conviction to change one’s life. However, when it came down to it, I found that the main theme the author tried to convey the most was familial love and how it should always take the number one spot.

Finally, I need to also mention that the prose is very well-polished. Throughout the entire book, I spotted only one or two grammatical errors and there no typos whatsoever. Even though the prose was very straightforward and simple, I still consider this an achievement in self-published books which, most of the time, are quite filled with typos.

Overall, The War of Undoing is a great debut, I’m pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this was, and judging by comparison with the previous books in the competition (I still have one more to read and review) that I've read, this is definitely the most decent one so far.

Side note: I hope the author will consider changing the cover. This is a great book and that cover really doesn’t do justice to the content. I'm just stating the fact that it's really hard to get readers to try a new book from an unknown author when the cover doesn't grab their attention, doesn't matter if it's traditional or self-published. If there's any book that deserves a cover revamp, it's this.

I reviewed this as one of the judges for the finalist of SPFBO (Self Published Fantasy Blog off) 2017. Everything written here is my honest opinion of the book, and there are possibilities that parts that work for me will not work for others and vice versa. I wish Alex Perry the best of luck in the final round of the competition.

You can find this and the rest of my Adult Epic/High Fantasy & Sci-Fi reviews at BookNest

[James Tivendale]

DNF @ 47%. This is a quick casual review as I didn't complete The War of Undoing.

This was a difficult one for me as it gave me very mixed feelings.

The writing is tight, neat and the book has no errors that I noticed. The editing seemed pretty top quality too apart from certain chapters that dragged on a bit too much. It's original and interesting. The prologue was really enticing and sets up the narrative well. The magic system seems pretty well worked mixed into two sorts. Magical capabilities wielded by vumas, and the brotherhood of lightning, and enchanted powerful weapons that are used by humans in this war of the ages. The history seems pretty deep and well worked. Descriptions and the world-building weren't bad either and Perry created a heightened imagery in the well-crafted environments such as the forest of Hob.

I made it to approximately page 280. My issues with this story were that I had to work hard to get emotionally engaged enough to pick the book back up. It really does have some excellent set-pieces here and there but with chapters only lasting about 10 minutes, unfortunately, it didn't take too long until a scene arrived though that just wasn't exciting at all. However smooth the writing is, it included four points of view perspectives which were all written in the first person. Three of these were siblings often talking about each other and it came across as the same voice for all of them apart from they all had a unique trait. One was a book reader, one was an adventurer, one was a scientist, and the other who wasn't a sibling was a wide-eyed soldier. It made the voice and presentation all a bit blurry and I couldn't get engaged with any of the protagonists.

There is a lot for some people to enjoy here especially if you enjoy more old-school, straightforward fantasy in a richly created world. It all seemed a bit too obvious and simple for me when personally I love complexity and depth. One of a few examples I noticed of using what seemed too simple to progress the narrative was when one character said she had no money and her dream was over. In the next chapter, a stranger brings a random jewellery box to pawn that happened to have enough money to help the girl with her adventure. This isn't a bad book at all but at 620 pages, knowing even if it had an amazing ending I would only maybe rate it 1/10 higher I just decided I didn't have the time and there are better books out there. I'm not going to give it a formal rating on Goodreads and I'm giving it a 5/10 rating for #SPFBO which isn't bad to say I didn't complete it.

[Mark Lawrence]

I've not read this book yet, but it's the first finalist in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 2017.

So there's that!

Review here:
http://www.pornokitsch.com/2017/07/th...


More about the SPFBO here:
http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk...

List of finalists here:
http://mark---lawrence.blogspot.co.uk...

[Esme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot:

This is another sibling story, I’ve gotten a bunch of those recently. Three kids are living alone in a city called Tarot and its not a very nice place to holed up. The kids hate being there and they are desperate for a way to get out – and lo and behold a secret message is sent in a very sinister kind of way, and the first decision for the kids had to be made. Do they stay in Tarot and continue on with their lives, struggling for food and money with absent parents, or do they follow this mysterious letter out into the world of their enemies, the vuma’s.

This decision actually splits up the trio, with the oldest sibling staying and working in Tarot, while the younger two siblings follow a vuma guide out into enemy territory on an adventure to Eldermoon. The trek takes sort of forever, and it’s really dangerous, everything from enemy vuma to sinking mud pits that can kill you. They aren’t entirely sure they can trust their guide either, is he really leading them to be trained, or is he leading them into a trap?

The oldest kid gets in some trouble in Tarot and has to figure out what he’s going to do and where he’s going to go because he can’t stay where he is.

Kisli is a character that’s not one of the siblings, and she has her own subplot going on in the army.

We actually start the story with a prologue of a vuma character that comes back and gut punches you around 70% through the book, I love when prologues are actually used in the meat of the story and connects rather than just floating on its own at the beginning.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Characters:

Miller – the oldest Raining child, he works at a shop identifying magical objects and their uses, he doesn’t get paid much but he’s good at what he does.
Tay – the middle Raining child, struggling to find work in Tarot and help support her family
Ellstone – the youngest Raining child, from the start a clear nerd/academic lost in books of history, culture, science, magic etc.
Kisli Thomas – a soldier in training, seemingly unconnected until about 50% through
The characters were well done in this book for the most part, at first I had a little bit of trouble distinguishing the different characters because they have a similar way of speaking and seem kind of the same, Miller and Ellstone are both academics but Ellstone is a little more…. angry? Ellstone has been picked on a lot, so it’s possible he’s much less trusting of people and vumas and life in general because of it, while Miller is a little more light hearted. Tay is the one who really stands out from the siblings as the one who’s the most adventurous and has the most easily identifiable voice for me.

Kisli is sort of off on her own at first and it doesn’t seem like she’s relevant to the story, but she is, and I actually enjoyed her chapters the most because it was getting a look at the opposite side of the story, two characters are off in Vuma, one character is back in Tarot, but you get to see the army and other important characters through Kisli’s POV.

As with many young characters, these guys make a lot of dumb choices for their own reasons, but they do grow and learn from it which was neat to see.

Final Score: 6.5/10

World Building:

I liked the world building it was light but consistent and made sense, it’s not going to beat you over the head with info dumps and expansive lords and ladies and houses, it’s not that kind of story. The back story for how the vuma’s came to be and how they are different from the humans was nice. Vuma blood is actually used in enchanted items because their blood works like a magnet for magic, funneling in ambient magic around them allowing enchanted items with vuma blood never to lose their potency.

I also liked how magic and science worked in this world, magic is sort of a field of study in science and I’m always down for a world like that.

For the most part the humans focus on tech and the vuma’s focus on magic, but the kids are being trained how to use magic and get into other peoples minds.

The government for the humans is known as The Ninety and they come into play in Kisli’s POV.

The vuma’s have this cool order called The Brotherhood of Lightning and it’s a revamped version of an old cult that was feared throughout the world because they were known to do horrible shit.

One of the creepiest things a mindwalker can do is get into the mind of a dying person, one of the characters described watching someone die from inside their own head is like “watching a fireworks show”, I don’t know why that stuck with me so hard but it did, what an intense thing to do to someone, invade their mind as they’re dying and watching their most private memories and thoughts.

Final Score: 8.5/10

Pacing/Prose:

The book is long, and it can wander a bit but it always pulls itself back and even during the slower bits there’s still enough intrigue to keep you turning pages. Slow burn isn’t always a bad thing, but maybe a little bit could have been cut to make it go a little faster where it needed to.

The prose are rather utilitarian, but not so much so that you’re going to feel like it’s amateur writing, a lot of my favorite authors have a more utilitarian style that lets the prose get out of the way of the story.

The story is written as a memoir with each chapter being written by a different person, at first this was a little confusing, but at the top of each chapter it tells you who’s talking.

Pacing Final Score: 6.5/10

Writing Final Score: 8.5/10

Originality:

I don’t read many books that are about siblings as all of the POV’s, it was interesting to read about their journey despite it being somewhat similar to other things I’ve read.

Final Score: 7.5/10

Audience:

People who like a lot of magic
People who like coming of age stories
People who like seeing two sides of a war
People who like multi POV
People who like sibling stories
People who like longer books – 609 pages
People who like second person writing

final score 7.7/10

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 4.1

The War of Undoing participates in SPFBO 2017 contest and it’s made it to the finals as the Pornokitsch choice. The book is long and that’s the reason I postponed starting it. As the first phase of SPFBO comes to an end and bloggers choose their finalist, I have no more excuses.

I’ll start with the cover. It’s…well, it’s, mildly speaking, not outstanding… I’m pretty sure that if SPFBO goal was to pick up the book with the worst cover, The War of Undoing would win hands down.

The purpose of a book cover is to attract the reader who would enjoy the book inside the cover. This cover, however, may discourage potential reader who may assume that cover quality reflects book quality. Judging by the cover, this book should be atrocious.

But it isn’t. It’s a good book, one that I enjoyed a lot. I do realize that outsourcing the cover is expensive but it really matters, especially if the author actually wants a reader to pick his book.

The War of Undoing is a big and juicy fantasy novel set in Kyland, a continent on a world called the Sphere. It’s Alex Perry debut novel and the first in a series called Kyland Falls.

War is brewing in Kyland, as the shadowy, spell-weaving vumas rebel against the human government, but both sides have secret weapons at their disposal. The humans’ secret weapon: a plan that could be the undoing of the world. The vumas’ secret weapon: three young humans abandoned in the smog-shrouded town of Tarot – Tay, Ellstone and Miller Raining. The Rainings could be the key to winning the war, but first, they’ll need to work out whose side they are really on…

The Rainings, after being given a chance to change their miserable life in the city of Tarot, are separated. While Tay wants to believe they have some special destiny, chances are they’ll be just tools in the hands of opposing fractions.

The book is quite long and slow burning. Chapters are told from four POV’s – Tay, Miller and Ellstone Raining and Kisli Thomas – soldier in training. A huge conflict that may change everything and even undo the world takes place a bit in the background. The Rainings play a role in history-changing events, although they don’t really participate in breakthrough moments.

It’s not a book about chosen one. It’s not a book about overpowered heroes. It’s not even a book about those who create history. It’s a book about people being thrown in the middle of a violent change, their choices and beliefs.

Even small choices can have disastrous consequences and we’re shown it few times in an interesting way. People make mistakes. We all do. The War of Undoing focuses on what happens next. It touches issues such as trust, grief, forgiveness. It does it in a way that made me want to turn the pages. Parts of the book were light, parts quite heart-wrenching. I would say the ratio between them was well balanced.

Sometimes the story may feel meandering, but it isn’t. Alex Perry managed to connect all loose ends in a compelling way. Pay attention to the prologue as it’ll come back later in the book to punch you in the gut.

Characters were done well. I believe their voices could be more varied but I think that after few chapters a reader we’ll get the feel of who is who and what to expect of him. Elsstone is an academic type who loves history and gathering data. Sadly he lacks imagination and he’s very attached to his beliefs. Tay is adventurous and full of life. And anger. Miller is a brooding, academic type who works as enchanted items identifier and has a knack for this job.

The characters are likable. There were times I really wanted to smack Ellstone in the face, but I came to like him in the end. While bad characters weren’t too complex and may feel a bit cartoonish, secondary characters were done remarkably well. My favorite one was Gramor – sometimes clinically mad, sometimes efficiently terrifying.

World-building is done well but it’s not overwhelming. We learn as much as we need to follow character arcs. The world is inhabited by two races – humans who focus on technology and vumas who have some insane magic skills (mind-walking, levitation, lightning-zaps). The world is permeated with natural magic, that flows through a mysterious portal called Snailsarch. Some money can be made by selling magical artifacts. I would say that world-building is simple and easy to understand. The focus of the book lies elsewhere.

The prose was simple and never got in the way of the story. I haven’t spotted any spelling or grammar errors. There’s little of what you might call purple prose. I enjoyed the writing and I felt motivated to turn the pages all way through. There were few places that felt slower, but I didn’t mind as I felt engaged in the storyline.

So far The War of Undoing is my favorite SPFBO finalist. On the other hand, I read only three of four titles announced as finalists. Six more books should be chosen this month. Therefore my opinion can change and probably will. Having said that, I think it’s a book that deserves much more attention than it got so far. It’s well written, engaging, at times heart-wrenching, at times quite funny. It needs new cover in a bad way. I can practically hear the Rainings screaming curses for having their engaging stories enclosed between cover more depressing than their room in Tarot.

Seriously though – give this one a try if you enjoy high fantasy with the strong focus on characters, their growth and increasing understanding of the world around.

TL;DR – atrocious cover, excellent book.

Edit: There's a fun interview with Alex Perry on The Nerd Book Review Posbean - check it out

[Kitty G Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the finalist for the 2017 SPFBO which I am a judge for, and I certainly enjoyed reading this one and ended up giving it a solid 3.75*s which equates to 7.5/10*s in the overall SPBFO rating system.

The tale of the three Rainings children is told in diary form through the course of this book. We see Miller (the eldest boy), Tay (the middle child), and Ellstone (the youngest boy) as they grow up in Tarot, a town which is dank, nasty, and hard to live in. They are orphans to all appearances, but they know the truth, their parents are alive somewhere, and they just didn't want to deal with the children, so shipped them off one by one to Tarot and sent a bit of money for them every now and then. We pick up the story following Tay as she goes to collect the money from the bank, only to find that her parents have not only abandoned them in tarot, but now cut them off entirely and they have no way to survive. It's quickly clear that they are in a dire situation, and with a war looming too they need to figure something out fast...

What I liked most about this book is the fact that it's a really fun style of narration. When I was reading the bookit reminded me at times of a children's book, or at the very least a book which focuses on fairly young children (Tay is 14, Miller, 16 and Ell is 12). It also had that strange innocence and fascination that children have, and really reminded me of the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket at times too. I do think that at first it take a while to really get to know each of the children in the story, and think of them as individuals, but by the end you have a strong sense of who's who from their actions and choices, and it's a lot of fun.

We also have a 4th character called Kisli who is a young girl in training to become part of the Kyland army against the Vumans. There are two types of people in this world, humans, and Vumans who are quite similar but have claws and they can cast spells. Kisli is a bit of a misguided character, but from her pov we get to see the preparations of the humans, and she also meets one of the children later on too.

The magic of this story is certainly a central theme with enchanted items, magic spells, mindwalking and Vumans being major points of the plot. We follow Miller as he works as an identifier, figuring out what magical enchanted items may be used for. We then see a bloodbird message (a bird literally coated in blood), and we see plenty more after that.

Overall, I found that some parts of this story were a bit predictable (whilst other bits did surprise and enchant me) so that's my reason for docking a star and a bit, but on the whole this was a very enjoyable read and it was one where I found it easy to get sucked into the action once the plot took hold. 3.75*s from me.

[Jared Shurin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The War of Undoing is, at first appearances, a pretty straightforward book. The humans and the vuma live in an uneasy (and clearly temporary) peace.

[ominous thunder]

With that established, cut to...

Three children - the Rainings - living alone, unchaperoned, and in poverty in the unwelcoming city of Tarot. They receive a mysterious message saying that they're needed for a Great and Magical Cause. This gift horse seems like a truly spectacular chance. They can leave the city, pursue their capital-D-Destiny, and maybe even find - and bollock - their absentee parents.

Of course, things are never really so simple - not even in even high fantasy. The Rainings are quickly separated, and head down their own paths, making new friends (and enemies) along the way. More worrying, what they assumed was their Destiny is perhaps someone else's. The three children learn that being the instrument of a Great Cause is less about being a hero and more about being, well, a tool.

This is a long - and often quite meandering - book. There's a slow start, followed by a lot of quiet, discursive tangents. Several of Undoing's plots and 'hints' don't coalesce until the very end, and certain momentuous occasions and world-changing events - which would be the very heart and soul of other fantasy novels - are downplayed, and shifted to the background. As a result, The War of Undoing can feel frustrating at times. But, and I can't stress this enough, stick with it: this book simply has different priorities.

The War of Undoing uses a deceptively simple premise and a by-the-numbers fantasy world to great effect. It isn't a book about what happens, where it happens, or, in some cases, even who it happens to. It is, instead, a book about the why - the choices we make, and what drives us to them.

The 'undoing' of the title clearly refers to one of the book's pivotal events, but, more broadly, this is a book about mistakes - about people doing the wrong thing for personal, emotional, rational, good, or bad reasons. At some point in this book - like in life - everyone fucks up. And this is, ultimately, a book about what happens next: trust, forgiveness, grief, and penitence.

And, of course: agency - The War of Undoing is also about individuals aggressively defying the will of others, and refusing to be constrained by notions of blood (literally or symbolically), race, history, fate or destiny. All of that (waves hands broadly) - plus the encouragement of free-thinking, the thoughtfulness, the internal and external debates, the eschewing of absoluteness - is going on.

For fans of Chaos Walking - especially The Ask & The Answer (which is, coincidentally, my favourite book of Ness' series). Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now also tackles some similar themes. Alwyn Hamilton's Rebel of the Sands has a similar vibe, but is a bit more traditionally Chosen-y in how it executes. Setting aside my well-documented feelings about The Wise Man's Fear, there's a lot of what's good about Rothfuss in The War of Undoing: the ambitious shifting of priorities, the quirky protagonist, the thoughtful re-use of hoary high fantasy tropes.

[A longer version of this review originally appeared on Pornokitsch, as part of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off competition. The War of Undoing was my finalist in this competition - selected from a pool of 31 books.]

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars - This is an SPFBO finalist

http://www.bookwormblues.net/2018/03/...

[Katherine Hetzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but I didn't love it. As a reader, I felt it lacked pace in places; found myself thinking that the author could've been much more succinct in his writing without losing any of the storyline. There are also four main POV's, and unfortunately I didn't feel that the voices were unique enough at times to aid transition between them.

The world built is fairly convincing, with some nice touches - particularly in the world of the vumas, with floating castles, towers of fire, and enough magical weaponry to keep any fantasy buff happy.

A finalist in the SPFBO, I'm not sure that it will get close to winning because the writing doesn't feel polished enough compared to other self-pubbed works I've read. I found myself skipping over characters explaining things to each other or descriptions of the landscape, so I wouldn't call it a page turner, more of a slow burner.

Worth taking a punt on, though.

[Alanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, I think it’s important to say I enjoyed this book. When I first picked it up, I was expecting an epic, complicated fantasy, but I’m not sure that’s what I got.

It’s obvious the world and its’ Kyland history has been well considered and as a prolific fantasy reader, that’s one of the aspects I enjoyed the most (especially ‘native’ phrases and names). I think I struggled interpreting the tone of the book. Whilst the momentum of the story was good, the humour and silliness seemed oddly placed in some parts. This was also true for some of the dialogue between characters; conversations read younger than I anticipated, having a sort of naive and cliched feel to them.

With each chapter being told from a different sibling perspective, I developed stronger reactions for certain characters and their individual stories. This worked really well and helped with the pacing, as I found myself interested in specific threads, wanting to read ahead to see how things would develop.

It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t manage to find a single spelling or grammatical error, despite them usually being so obvious in self published books. So, having finished and considered the book overall, I think this should be marketed and read as a young adult book. At the heart, it’s a fun adventure story, exploring some interesting themes surrounding relationships and family, without ever taking itself too seriously.

[James Latimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a book that will divide opinions. On one hand, the narrative structure and the different narrative voices are very well done, and I enjoyed the slow-building, slow-revealing mystery with various intertwining threads. However, the characters themselves are often childish (being children and all) and the worldbuilding is quite a mixed bag of high concept, the overly-simplistic, and some rather jarring anachronisms. Whether it's misunderstood genius or fatally flawed, I'm glad I read it, and I'd encourage you to take a chance.

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the SPFBO, this is the seventh book I dove into once we had our shortlist of ten. And it was good.

We have three siblings – Miller, Tay and Ellstone – abandoned by their parents and with only each other to keep themselves going. Early on in the book they’re bid to travel for a great cause – which fits perfectly with what Tay has always expected. Born with an oddly shaped birthmark she’s always dreamed of being a chosen one of some sort… and with war brewing, and nothing left for them in the town they’ve grown up in, she jumps at the chance and takes Ellstone with her. Miller stays behind, though there’s no bad blood here – hedging his bets, he stays behind as the one with a job, to save their tiny room and keep earning just in case it all comes to nothing, so they have something to return to.

Up until now it’s been rather intriguing. You have this magical group of people who are persecuted and slowly rising up together as one, and this is who the war will be against. But then we arrive in the town Tay and Ellstone are travelling to and meet the fourth main character… and it becomes noticeable that the two female characters – Tay and Kisli – are really a bit too much alike. (Much like how Miller and Ellstone seem to have the same voice, too…) And that the whole chapter made it hard to suspend disbelief as it makes little to no sense for a man (husband or not) to dismiss the work of a Commander picking their troops (thus undermining their position), and then for the very average fighter to distract a supposed excellent fighter by knocking over some paperwork and then knocking their sword from hand… after seconds of contemplating doing such a thing. Sorry, but war is coming and you have warrior-hopefuls to assess… Who the heck cares about paperwork? I highly doubt Commander Menx would. This chapter pretty well threw me out of the novel and it took a while for me to get back into it. I get that it was trying to use the old ‘if you disarm the leading officer you get permanency trope thing’, but it was delivered fairly poorly… and it also makes little to no sense for someone who apparently ‘hates hurting people’ to manage to use that to then be accepted as a worthy fighter.

Anyway. That aside.

Overall the writing itself is of pretty good quality. There were only two or so typos and a few easily glossed over grammatical errors, and they did not detract from the novel – about the same as you get in a Big Five published novel these days. Overall the novel felt polished in what it was hoping to achieve. (Possibly not so much in the pacing aspect, but for a longish book at 600+ pages it’s still a quick read somehow, so plus points for that.) The worldbuilding was there but not shoved down throats, and it was handy having a character who loved books that helped with a few history lessons, managing to not make it seem or feel at any stage like an info dump.

It’s to the credit of how well written it is that it’s almost easy to forget that some of the characters feel a bit samey – that to write in first person personal makes it doubly hard for the author to make each character’s voice shine through, whilst also keeping quite a grim and serious ‘war is coming’ and ‘here are the chosen ones’ feel a bit light with some dark humour. Each character seems to have the same tone in response to life and bullies in general… but, hey, it’s well done, so it’s possible to get over this issue.

Another part I liked is how it’s also a bit closer to YA than the heft of grim-dark we get in SPFBO, which is refreshing. It takes a fairly cliche-driven path and manages to surprise the reader. And that the issue that Tay especially has at the start is seen to, and we get that seen to in a fairly realistic way – not entirely satisfying, but I couldn’t have imagined that it would be in real life – this isn’t a fairytale after all.

All in all, I enjoyed this one.

[The Nerd Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alright it’s about time to head out for Christmas Eve stuff so I will have to leave a proper review later.
The book started off slow for me and I really disliked one of the POV characters for the first 40% or so but I think it really came together in the end and was an entertaining novel that had some depth and meaning behind it. The ending was very satisfying and I recommend giving it a shot.

[Mihir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the review over at Fantasy Book Critic (along with 3 other mini-reviews)

Overall rating = 2.5 stars

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The War Of Undoing is an interesting fantasy title as it deals with several different characters and the aftereffects of an ongoing conflict. Chief among them are the Raining siblings but the author goes one up and gives us a deep look into almost every character that’s highlighted within (case in point is its prologue). What I enjoyed about this title was its writing, the author has constructed an inherently in-depth plot which unfolds exactly as the author intended. Suffice to say this in-depth characterization and plot are certainly the highlights of this book.

For me however this book didn’t work as much as I hoped it would. The biggest drawback personally was its tepid pace, however this wasn’t on purpose but due to the story’s rich characterization. The author’s writing style, prose and descriptions leads to a storyline which takes its time to get set up which will work for some readers and might prove detrimental for some. For me though this book while being so fantastically written, just didn’t strike a chord because of its pacing. The author builds up the various plot threads, amasses several conflicting issues and then ends it on an epic note. So the eventual payoff certainly is worth the slow start and therefore the author’s plan makes sense.

The War Of Undoing is an ambitious debut that showcases Alex Perry’s deft skills and they are quite something but this debut didn’t win me over. So while I would be interested to see when he takes the story in the sequels, the story will have to up its deficiencies. The War Of Undoing seems to be a debut that will have its defenders and detractors and the twain might never agree about their choices.

[Julia Sarene]

I won't rate this, as I didn't make it past 100 pages.
It isn't a bad book, it just didn't really click with me.
I didn't much like most of the characters. I didn't dislike them - I just didn't care about them either. And they would do things that would me go "Really?" then rolling my eyes and putting the book down. On next pickup I would think "It isn't so bad after all!" and read for a while, until I came to the next eyeroll... So after some back and forth, and not getting any real reading done (Those 100 pages took me about two weeks... I usually read that in 1-2 hours...) I decided this one wasn't for me.

[Tom Loock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one because I considered it one of the more promising finalists in the '2017 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off' and I'm very glad I did because it is a great book!

An original magic system, an interesting world (humans versus vumans - and it's not as simple as humans = good guys) and intriguing characters - three siblings 12, 15 and 16 years old who also serve as switching narrators.

It's a first novel and as such of course not perfect: the plot meanders and goes off on a tangent and the ending could have been ... better (but I think the author was thinking sequel-of-sorts more and more towards the end).

I am looking forward to the next Kyland-novel.

Recommended.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pornokitsch’s SPFBO review originally put this on my radar, and I thought it delivered. The book does a great job of exploring how hate and anger can perpetuate themselves in a conflict, spurred on by some bad-actor leaders, in a way that sucks in innocent and decent people and ruins everything for everyone; and of complicating the rather tropey Orphans With A Destiny and War Between Humans And Elf-Things premises it starts off with in ways that come across as clever and thoughtful. There’s a keen sense of tragedy that pops up in places that both ties in well with the themes and leads to some really emotionally compelling moments. Admittedly, the first 40-50% of this is a slog at times, and there are sections that are frustrating to read due to the characters’ stubbornness (the story is told via four first-person POVs), but this is great once it starts to come together. Judging from the author’s website, the chances of him writing another book don’t look all that high, but if he does at some point, I will definitely read it.

[Belinda Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining story but told in an overly meandering fashion from multiple, not very well differentiated, POVs.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic, but sympathetic characters. Not sure I go for a second installment but as a stand-alone it was a nice read

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out choppy, settled down and was sorta interesting, but just never popped. Put it down at the 77% mark because I'm just bored with it at this point.