More a D&D campaign log than a novel proper, this is the story of a band of heroes recruited from across the known world to fix a cosmic misalignment that has opened a portal through which infernal pests have started an invasion. From what I can guess, there are apparently two planets that must never come into contact, and the key to keeping them isolated is to guard two big clocks that must always remain mismatched. However, the richly evocative worldbuilding is relegated far into the background, because our confusingly named and therefore easily confusable heroes must roll for initiative in almost every chapter. There are tantalizing allusions to the nature of this universe and the various creatures and intelligent beings that inhabit it, but the author was more interested in describing complex (and admittedly well executed) fight scenes than in telling a story.

The whole storyline is too fast and confusing. It has the potential to be a really great fantasy, but with the entire world being introduced in such a short amount of time, it just feels... smushed together. And yes, I'm aware this isn't exactly a word, but I'm sticking to it because it accurately represents what I want to say.

The first introduction to the main characters, the different species and their backgrounds, was too fast and not really repeated again in the story (something I realize now may be a necessity for a fantasy book as it helps to picture them). I had trouble differentiating the characters later in the story and picturing what they looked like.

Another thing that felt rushed was the whole journey they took. Literally every single scene had something going on, an attack or another. Something that may go well in a film, but I now realize once again, just doesn't work in a book. Those prolonged scenes where they're just travelling and describing the scenery - all the boring scenes you sometimes want to funnel through - you need them to fill the book. One attack to another battle just doesn't work that well.

I'm giving it 3 out of 5 stars, because there were some good things sprinkled in there, and the idea is solid. However, the author unfortunately didn't execute it well. I believe this book will be one of those that isn't necessarily bad, just forgettable. I'll probably come across it sometime in the future and most likely won't be able to remember a single thing from the story.

2.7

------------------------------------

*Received an eARC from netgalley for an honest review. Thank you!

I commend the author for their writing style. There was little reptitiveness and the author's vocabulary suits the fantasy genre very well.
I was immediately hooked from the first few pages and the concept of two worlds opening to each other if they existed synchronously was really captivating to me.

However, I wish I could praise the book more beyond that. While the initial concept was amazing, the execution left a lot to be desired.

The string of events were too linear and expected. The main characters faced obstacles that had little consequences, and while it seemed like they were in dire situations at times, they're all fine and dandy moments later. There wasn't much suspense to hold my interest very long and the worldbuilding beyond the initial concept was lackluster. There were moments where the main character is having an inner monologue through the third person narrator about each race's history and it felt like I was reading a history textbook. I'm not opposed to info dumps, but it wasn't delivered with much style, making it a drudge go get through. Which is unfortunate because I wanted to know more about the world and it's inhabitants. Sallindar, for instance, is cool, knowledgeable and keeps to himself, and it's made blatantly clear that little is known about him and his race. Keeping me in the dark about a character for sake of drawing out my curiosity is fine, until I reach the end and I still know nothing about him. This applied to most of the characters, which is too much for me to ignore.

With that in mind, this book felt like it needed to be much longer to accomplish what it set out to do. It needed more time and pages to develop.

The characters and their relationships with each other were also lacking much depth or personality. Some characters were more solemn and others were comical, but it was all incredibly surface level. With that many characters introduced, it's hard to get a personable impression of them within a short book. Even the main character was bland and became the group's personal punching bag. As the only woman of their team, I was hoping she would stand her ground more as the story progressed and prove that she's an essential member, but she unfortunately proved to be the opposite. Most of her dialogue consisted of bickering with the other characters after they threw tasteless insults at her.
Their banter with each other was dry, and rather than speaking to each other, they spoke at one another. I was expecting them to develop themselves beyond their initial prejudices, which was made apparent in the first few chapters, but they all seemed to still be derisive of one another. Additionally, the relationships that were meant to be endearing and heartfelt had little substance and growth. The romance had little to no chemistry, and the main characters concern for her family and friends became a quick afterthought.

While I was disappointed in the story and character development, I hope the author continues to create concepts like the ones introduced in this book and spends more time developing them further.

A kind of book I enjoy from time to time is something that, while feeling a lot like D&D, isn't just D&D. That's the kind of book this is; the various intelligent species, monsters, spells, and character classes are not just the familiar D&D ones (whether for copyright reasons or otherwise), but they have the same kind of vibe to them. For example, the main character has the ability, by a kind of meditation or concentration, to use her cloak to make herself hard to see; she then lays about herself with a staff. She's not exactly a monk, but she's not exactly not a monk either, just as the guy with the antlers isn't exactly not a ranger, the huge guy isn't exactly not a barbarian, and the little old crotchety guy isn't exactly not a wizard (nor is he exactly not a gnome).

They've been assembled by a council of near-immortals for an important quest. The world they live in is kept separate from a dimension of monsters/demons by a pair of magical clocks, which, when they're set an hour apart, prevent travel between the two - but someone has synched the clocks. Their mission is to fight their way to the tower where the clocks are and de-synch them again. This calls for plenty of courage and determination, a number of pitched battles in which they get significantly battered (with minimal magical healing available, and what there is doesn't restore them to full health), and some clever tactical decisions. A good many of those decisions are made by the main character, who has to prove that humans are not lesser than some of the other stronger or longer-lived or more magical peoples. There are personal stakes, there are questions about loyalty and commitment to the mission, there are interpersonal squabbles and personality clashes, there's character growth, there's even a romance subplot. It's good stuff.

While I did like the freshness of the world in many ways, it also was one of the drawbacks, because I couldn't just go with "Oh, he's an elf, I know what they're like"; I had to put in some effort to remember what each of the different party members looked like and could do, which since they were all introduced in a single scene was initially difficult. Likewise, since all the monsters were new and their names didn't convey anything about them, it was sometimes hard to keep them straight. But on the whole, I think having a fresh take on the world was more of a benefit than otherwise, even if I had to work harder as a reader to imagine it clearly. I also enjoyed the fact that the sky didn't have the usual astronomical bodies, but swirls of light and colour, different ones for day and night, and that this ended up being a plot point as well as a decorative piece of worldbuilding.

I had a pre-release version from Netgalley, and it was in better shape in terms of editing than most books I get that way. The author does need to learn when not to use a comma between adjectives (when the order of them couldn't be swapped without it sounding weird, basically, though there's a bit more to it than that); how to punctuate a sentence that has a dialog tag in the middle of it (no capital when the same sentence resumes); and how to choose the correct one among a few easily confused homonyms. But these are minor issues, easily taken care of by a good editor.

Overall, the book scratched an itch that I have more often than I find capably-written books to satisfy it, and I would read more from this author.