The Digital Renaissance: Review: Eluthienn: A Tale Of The Fromryr

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Review: Eluthienn: A Tale Of The Fromryr

Eluthienn: A Tale Of The Fromryr by Sam Middleton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another Vampire story with a twist.

After a slow start to introduce the two (2) PoV, the action picks up quickly and continues almost nonstop, making this hard to put down once it ramps up. First up is Lyander, a disgraced exorcist (aka demon hunter) for the universal church of the Fromryr, an alliance of peoples (humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, et al.) that control most of the ancient magic and technology of a long vanished, advanced civilization that carved out the extensive caverns and tunnels deep below the surface world. Demons and their ilk get their power from the Immuratic dimension while some other monsters, such as vampires, are from the Aeturnic dimension … so when Lyander comes across a corpse that could be a living myth, he teams up with a sarcastic witch hunter to get to the bottom of it all, despite apparent antagonism from church authority, as the whole world seems to come apart at the seams. Along the way, we see the second PoV following Brazier, and his surviving crew from an ice mining ship lost in the vast caverns of Formoria, converge to help build a rich and extremely interesting fantasy world.

Woven into this well executed plot, is some amazing world building on top of a dystopian fantasy trope. Through the entire story, it is clear that we only see the tip of the iceberg here with the potential for discovery adding the the intense action … and for me … it all made sense … from the magical force that comes from the gyre ice (ref ice mining) to the dysfunctional politics to the steampunk like tunnel ships … it was all well done and awesomely fun (can’t wait to return to this world).

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Eluthienn #BookSirens #KindleUnlimited

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My Ratings Explained ...

[ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
[ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
[ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
[ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
[ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.