The Century's Scribe

This is a high-fantasy book that has some epic world-building in it. There are three storylines going in this novel and I appreciated them all.

Dreden, Gerrika, and Chanin live in Kroonsaed and are university students. Their home is dealing with the ever-encroaching Sunitan Sea. It is known to kill people if they breathe it in! One night after Uni, the friends go for a walk by the ocean and are attacked by figures who emerge from the very sea they've been warned about their entire lives.

Cipre is an editor...but she's beginning to find the stories she reads ... boring. There aren't any new stories and she is looking for something more exciting. A series of earthquakes open the ground and Cipre ventures inside when she thinks that she has seen a reptilian creature in the darkness below ground.

I enjoyed the varied characters in this story. From the main characters to the supporting cast, all are very well developed and individual. Gerrika was a favorite of mine. He is an aveho, a bird-like fellow with unique skills! The descriptions of his species are lovely and detailed... I could read an entire book about the aveho alone! As a rare species in the world of humans, Gerrika has faced a lot of discrimination. Very timely if you ask me!

As the book progresses, the storylines begin to come together. Be aware that this book doesn't wrap up the story! There's a second book coming.

A fast-paced, high fantasy story with a very compelling parallel universe storyline.

I enjoyed many of the characters on this especially Dreden and Minkompa (a dragon who loves to read)

It was great to see how Dreden moved through both worlds with his two best friends Chanin and Gerrika.
And how the 'new world' and the people in it Eg. Morell can affect each of them differently.

Wow, the world building alone is extraordinary , together with the truly unique characters makes The Century's Scribe a Must-read for anyone who love Adult Fiction and High Fantasy stories.

It seems, this was book 1 of a series, or at least a duet. There wasn't a complete resolution to the various plotlines . Got to say, a second or third book will be entirely welcome; as this story has legs and wings to expand.

I would like to thank this book for gifting me with this image of a book-loving dragon: “Excited, he clutched the book against his snout, devouring the words with his tail flapping like a puppy’s.” My life is ever so slightly better for having read that sentence—I smiled from ear to ear.

I have a soft spot a mile wide for good dragon stories.

This book offers some really compelling world-building as it follows and intertwines three distinct storylines and two different worlds. We start out with a dragon, perfectly content with the life he’s leading and the stories he reads. We meet Dreden, a university student who is starting to tire of the depiction in his life as he hangs out with the same two friends and does the same few things in endless repeat. We meet Cipre, an editor whose love of reading is being tested as every new submission seems like a paler rendition of themes done better and more vibrantly by authors who came before. How do their lives and stories fit together across the space between worlds?

The characters:

Minkompa is an excellent dragon who loves books.

Dreden is a student at a university where his father teaches as a professor. His two best friends are fellow students Chanin and Gerrika.

Chanin is a human woman (a but unfortunately, the text tends to focus a bit heavily and negatively on the fact that her appearance is not traditionally feminine)

Gerrika is a Aveho, a species of sentient avian-like creature.

Cipre works for a major publishing company that’s been on a slow slide away from being major—with profits falling month after month—and though she loves books, she is starting to get burned out by the lack of originality it the submissions that she reviews.

I want to thank NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for granting my request for a review copy of this book.

Implicit Bias Note:
Could do without the “the color of his skin was closer to the brown of mud than to the white of snow” the phrasing has unpleasant racial connotations - would be enhanced by less weighted terms or at least without the juxtaposition with whiteness. A minor quibble, but one that threw me off a bit. It is clear that such a tone isn’t really in keeping with the narrative, as the book makes a clear effort at creating diverse and inclusive worlds, with nods to the ways that it’s minorities, like the avehos, fit into this world (for instance, “I swear, even for a town like ours, they seem to forget that avehos have written plays too. Everything is always by a human.”).

4/5
*Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review."

I really enjoyed this book, especially the world-building. I was very impressed because this "world" felt very unique to me. Many times in fantasy/sci-fi novels I am unimpressed with the "world" because they become to similar to me, but I was blown away by this book.

Characters: I really loved the characters. I am a sucker for books told from the perspective of different characters and characters who are kind of jerks. Luckily for me this had both!

Pacing: This is a problem that I have been having with a lot of books lately. It started out pretty slowly for me and was kind of hard for me to get into.

Romance: INSTA-LOVE, uuuggghhh my worst enemy. I really did not like how fast the romance started, but I did like the characters. I wish that there had been more buildup, but... beggars can't be choosers.

I overall did like this book and would recommend it to fans of sci-fi and fantasy.

The world building was absolutely fantastic. It was so nice to read something with a fully fleshed out and really unique magical setting (too often I see a lot of high fantasy that lacks in this area). The perspective shifts between a diverse cast of characters, which I really liked, however the pacing in the first half of the book was very slow. It took me a long time to get through and I admit I skipped over parts. It picks up towards the end and the three main plot lines resolve nicely (considering this is likely the first book in the series). Overall a really enjoyable read if you like high fantasy.

Dreden Sharpstand and his father are poor. All the humans and avehos of Kroonsaed are hardly getting by. If not for the bright, enigmatic sea of gas called the Sunitian Sea, life and resources in the town would be prosperous.

But the Sea has secrets of its own...

An unusual story. I liked that it upended my expectations.