Synopsis
Holy war. Magic rooted in empathy and transcendence. Fantasy creatures as never seen before.
The Kingdom of the Eternal will awaken when the Way of Edan holds sway over all of Eormenlond. So say the prophecies. With unrivalled power in the gift, the Supreme Priest Bledla leads Torrlond and its mighty army to convert rival kingdoms by the sword and by the fang.
Among the gathering resistance is the sorceress Sequara, whose mission is to protect her island and her Andumaic faith from the Torrlonders’ aggression.
As holy war looms over the kingdoms of Eormenlond, a chance encounter bestows a terrible curse upon a young man. Dayraven’s curse may decide Eormenlond’s fate. But first, with the help of unlikely friends, he must survive the shattering of his world.
Equal parts epic and lament, The Way of Edan is the lyrical opening of The Edan Trilogy.
Review
The Way of Edan is a perfect example of a classic fantasy tale done well, written in an engaging style which will appeal to a modern audience. Built around the standard fantasy ‘chosen one’ trope I was unsure what to expect at first. However, as the story unfolded I soon realised that this was an ambitious novel, tackling a number of themes which added real depth to the tale.
There are various points of view, supported by a wider range of interesting characters, whilst the action takes place in an expansive and well-realised world. The hero of the tale, young Dayraven, has a believable friendship with the carefree Imharr and I liked how the two stuck by each other throughout the book, even when it cost them. Sequara’s mission to protect her kingdom and faith from the invading Torrlanders was a good contrast to their adventures. Dayraven tends to be swept along by events, whilst Sequara was a much more active character, who tries to shape them and is willing to take risks in order to achieve her goals.
The baddies in this book are delicious. Bledla is driven by his religious fervour to the point of righteous insanity as the Supreme Priest of Torrland, although Chase gives him just enough self-doubt to make him intriguing and elicit a degree of sympathy from me as the reader. Bledla is allied with Earconwald, King of Torrland, whose ambition for power at any cost drives events forward, often with brutal consequences.
A key theme in this novel is the manipulation of religion to justify evil actions, something both Bledla and Earconwald exploit. The Way of Edan refers to the Torrlanders’ religion and the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy is the justification behind an invasion. However, this aspect is handled with a great deal of subtlety, and it soon becomes clear there are several different vying factions within the church. No one can be trusted and the plots within plots, both in the king’s court and within the church itself, are intriguing.
You can see this is such a labour of love for Chase, and he’s invested so much time into creating the history behind his story. There’s lots of lore and Chase used the conceit that the Dweorg (dwarf) Gnorn and Dayraven love this stuff. The two are constantly swapping stories to fill in the reader, even though it drives their companions to distraction, which was a nice touch. Chase is also comfortable writing action sequences and there are some intense fights for survival and stirring battle scenes throughout the novel.
Overall, Chase’s prose is beautiful, rich and descriptive, which is perfect for this genre and translated well in audiobook format. His writing is brought to life with an excellent voice acting performance by Allen Walker, a remarkable feat considering the size of the cast and the fact this was his first audiobook production. Walker has an excellent acting range, although some of the voice choices did grate on me a bit. However, I can fully appreciate this would have been a real challenge for any narrator when faced with such a big cast.
The other aspect of this being an audio production that I, personally, found a bit annoying at times is there is a lot of chanting whenever magic was used. This would have been fine when reading the book, since I would simply have skipped this, but on audio there was no escape! I’m quite sure that Chase will have built his own fantasy languages behind those words but of course they didn’t make any sense to me! Overall, less chanting would have been good.
However, that’s a minor gripe on what is, overall, a very impressive debut. I soon became immersed in this world and its characters and looked forward to each chapter. This was a book which left its mark on me once it was over, as I missed these characters and found myself thinking about them afterwards. Fortunately, there are two more books in the trilogy left to enjoy. I’m planning to listen to the rest of the series on audio and I’m very much looking forward to returning to Chase’s fantasy world soon!
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