Synopsis:
In the wastes beyond the Last City, all is quiet. Everyone has heard of the Hundred Blessed. Of the Final War between the Empire of Blue and Green and the Empire of Red and Ivory. Of what they did.
But the war is never over.
You can’t outrun your past.
And you can’t hide from what you’ve done, no matter how hard you might try.
All you can do is walk the Path the God has set out for you. And try to shut out the screams, and the sound of bones breaking beneath your feet.
Review:
*I read this novella as part the judging group The Secret Scribes for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS). The following review is strictly my personal thoughts as each novella will be reviewed by two judges to be as objective as possible.*
The Path of Pain and Ruin is driven by a broken protagonist and a unique magic system, but is also, at times, constrained by both.
The premise of this novella was interesting as some years prior, there was a war between two empires and a religious military force of 100 arose, capital “B” Blessed by the god of this world. The Blessed were given two magical powers (called Paths) that were the physical embodiment of a concept. Rot, Pull, Hope, Jump, etc. And the Blessed won said war, brokering a peace. But they also broke the way of the world with their blessings. Fast forward, and our main protagonist survives an assassination by one of the corrupted Blessed, setting out to discover what happened.
The magic system is wholly unique and I really liked how some Blessed were really badass with their Paths and others were pretty useless. Our MC had the Paths of Kindle (fire) and Foresight, and these were put to great use throughout this novella. What I also really enjoyed was that the Blessed characters had fun names based on their Paths. Like North Wind, Cricket, Tempest, Silent Killer, Drowned Man. The world and backstory of the war, and our MC’s role in it, was told via flashback/memory and itself was interesting. And the climax, on the whole, was action-packed and fun.
However, I had a number of issues that either pulled me out of the story or just didn’t work for me.
In terms of characters, this is where I struggled the most, especially the main character. While she had a distinct voice (which I actually liked a lot) and we learn about her role in the Blessed army, we never learn who she is. We are never told her name (although one character does call her ‘Red’ due to her coloring). And to be completely transparent, I didn’t even know the MC was female until about 30% into the story because not only do we not get her name, there really is no mention of her gender outside of a surreal dream sequence in chapter 2 where someone says, “Girl.” Then on top of that, all the Blessed refer to each other as ‘Brother’, even to the MC. So I was confused, and even after finishing the novella, I went back and reread the first 3 chapters, and it still wasn’t terribly clear. I don’t need to know a character’s gender identity, but because this story is told via 1st POV, I do need some sort of identity to base the voice in, and the concept of the Blessed didn’t cement itself early enough for me to connect to. And while some of the other Blessed we meet along the way have fun powers, we don’t really get much of anything resembling connection to our MC other than being told, therefore I had a difficult time feeling for our MC for most of the story.
And that was the main issue that pulled me out of the story, too many times we were told, not shown things. Or even told at all. I fully understand telling a story via flashbacks/memories sets the tone for a lot of exposition, but I also felt it was a missed opportunity to help better connect the side characters to the MC. The MC has a best friend named Teio, we are told that countless times. But when we finally meet Teio, there really wasn’t much there to show me they were all that close other than a hug and a shared smile. And while I liked the concept of the Blessed and the war, we barely see any of that lore. The flashbacks/memories are all about the MC getting to said war. We never see her become Blessed. We never witness how they actually become Blessed. We barely see what the Blessed actually did in the war. I think that might have made the story far stronger, especially in terms of our MC.
Normally when I read an indie book, prose, pace, and editing can be forgiven as long as my enjoyment in the story never wanes. The prose in The Path of Pain and Ruin is very strong and I enjoyed it a lot (I quite like descriptive prose), but I will say it won’t be a style for everyone. There is a lot of repetition in phrasing that might turn some readers off. For example:
‘I thought about that. Thought about my Path. The wending trail of my life, how it had carried me here. About how, when I’d been in this town before, I’d been lost. So lost. About how my feet had carried me to Sharay. About how I thought my Path was to love her, to be forgiven by her. To be with her until the end of my days. To be with her until the end of hers. About how I was, about how my Path stretched out in front of me. To walk alone. Alone. Always alone. And the tears, the tears made their own paths down my cheeks, until I slept.’
But seeing as I am judging this novella for a competition, it can be difficult to not look at the grammar mistakes and the pacing. I know this sounds harsh, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in capitalization (‘Brother’ v ‘brother’, ‘Path’ v ‘path’, etc.) and missing punctuation (mainly in dialogue). And the pacing suffers from the fact this is a novella with a lot of backstory to fill. There just never felt like there was enough time spent after a reveal of history. And then when we get to the climax, while very tense and action-focused, things just felt rushed. I also don’t really understand what the ending was trying to convey or why it ended the way it did. It just sort of ended for our MC.
Again, I understand much of the above sounds harsh or pedantic, but I had to balance my enjoyment v. judging, and I wanted to share the whys behind the overall score. My enjoyment with this story was quite high, as I liked a lot about this story/world and could find a longer arc quite interesting to read. I would definitely recommend The Path of Pain and Ruin to anyone who likes dark character-driven stories.
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