Synopsis
For a thousand years, The Old Town has stood as humanity’s last bastion against the maalkonis, malignant black mists that reduced the rest of the world to ash. They are kept at bay by rusty machines on the town’s walls. In order to survive, the dwindling population depends on one another.
Since a young age, Justīne has embraced the harsh responsibilities that accompanied her apprenticeship on the last farm in existence. Her younger sister, Anna, is beginning her own apprenticeship as well. Learning engineering was not Anna’s first choice, but the town’s last mage fell to the maalkonis years prior, leaving nothing behind but confusing books and strange runes.
When food runs low during a particularly harsh winter, distrust spreads like a plague, and Justīne is blamed for it. As hunger leads to violence, she and her siblings are forced to flee The Old Town, embarking on a perilous journey into the very mists that had formed their cage. Their fight to survive in the dark develops into a hopeful mystery as they follow the breadcrumbs of a mage’s efforts to save the world. Meanwhile something pursues them through the maalkonis…
Review
Bought this on audio as another in my quest to read all my fellow authors in The Book of Spores Anthology. Veronica Rotar did a good job with the narration; I enjoyed the main characters and the various accents used for the side characters.
A world that has mostly ended. A town stands alone. Surrounded by a malignant mist that is only held back by the teamwork of who’s left. Justine, a farming apprentice, and her sister, Anna, an engineering apprentice, must stick together through thick and thin. After the death of the ill farmer, the responsibility falls on Justine to reorganize and notify the townsfolk that rationing will be needed in order to make it through the winter. Discomfort often leads to anger. Starvation often leads to desperation. Mix the two together, and you’ve got the makings of a rebellion.
Now I don’t know much about the folklore, or if this was just accents chosen by the narrator, but this seemed to be at least, in part, some kind of Slavic inspired. I was unsure of why the kids wouldn’t have similar accents to those that raised them, but it may have been a stylistic choice to differentiate between the generations? Either way I really enjoyed the slight differences between the main sisters the most.
This reminded me of Ryan’s The Feeding with its walled off bastions of civilization, of Sansbury Smith’s Hell Divers with its unknown creatures in the mist feel, of Glukhovsky’s Metro 2033 with its showcasing of vestiges of civilization holding on through farming, community, and history. But unlike the three of those, this feels much more so in the world of fantasy. Even with its dystopian, post apocalyptic themes, it felt somewhat otherworldly to me. Probably because of the talk of mages, the mist, and the supposed creatures within it, but I suppose this could be an urban fantasy leaning scifi story as well. I think those possibilities are one of its strengths, not just in wider appeal, but its ability to deliver on an intriguing level of mystery.
My favorite part of this was the siblings. The sisters and their stepbrother, although all different and from differing educations/backgrounds, they stick together like a true family unit when things get bad. Even through all the doubt, they remain tight knit. Even when the worry pushing them to arguing, they are still 100% there for each other. I think it was really well thought out too that each has something different to offer. One an engineer, who created the device that pushes back the mist, another a town guard, fighter, and protector, the last a leader and wholly devoted to keeping the others alive. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a story like this where the cast is actually all siblings, but I certainly enjoyed it. I mean … even with some comps offered above, I’ve never read a story like this in any sense actually.
Not only is this unique, but it’s also a short enough story that you can enjoy it without bogging down your TBR too much. I’m a fan of chonky books as much as the next person, but sometimes a well written, well paced shorter story to fit in between just feels right. This will hit for fans of genre blends, dystopian or post apocalypse stories that still feature hope, and fantasy and scifi readers alike.
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