The first novel in the Godserfs series.

This is a pretty fun start to a new fantasy series. There's action, some classic fantasy elements and slight twists on certain popular tropes. Dolkart's writing is well-composed, and it was easy to get acquainted with the characters and the world.

I finished this interested in reading the rest of the trilogy -- AMONG THE FALLEN and A BREACH IN THE HEAVENS are out now.

This is the kind of book that pretty much represents everything that I both like and dislike in the High Fantasy genre. It's pretty standard, with just enough interest to keep one reading. There's a group of mismatched people questing together, a large world with many different cultures, good and evil with shades of gray in between, weaponry, magic, and gods. All of those elements are put to good use here, and the different POV's are written in a way that manages to capture quite different personalities.

There's a big problem with pacing, unfortunately, and the majority of the book plods along slowly -- not because nothing happens, but because of the speed at which things do or do not take place. An action scene may take up many pages, and the next thing you know they've spent long, under-described months on the road. In short, there are some good sections but overall I found this book somewhat boring.

I appreciate that all of the heroes and heroines are people of color, as they are all from the same island where people are dark-skinned. They face some prejudice on the mainlands but it doesn't seem to stop them much. There's also some, I guess one could say proto-feminism in there, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. The gender relations in this book are actually pretty weird, erring on the side of typical bog-standard Medieval World style wherein women are oppressed as a rule. And while the heroines of our group break the mold, even the "wild" one literally raised by wolves ultimately wants to get married... to the boy who is abusive towards her, even though he is also one of the heroes.

The magic and divinity systems are intriguing, though I wish they'd been a little more thought out in that its not clear in-story whether certain beings actually exist at all, or if the characters are just religious the way that real people are: with no proof! For some time I was even assuming that "There are no gods!" would be a big reveal in this book, but I think it was just a case of unclear world-building.

I'm not at all sorry to have read this, but I probably won't read the next installment.

In January, Silent Hall made Fantasy Faction‘s list of ‘Most Anticipated Fantasy Novels of 2016,’ which was how I discovered it. I’m not quite comfortable calling it “young adult crossover” because doing so shaves off audience for this debut. Dolkart has written an epic fantasy adventure of the swords and sorcery type that although it follows a group of young adults or new adults, if you will, is a story for everyone. It is a tale of adventure, discovery, and hard decision making. When asked to describe the novel, Dolkart suggested “Malevolent gods. Refugees from a cursed island. Giant freaking ants.“