Heckova Book Review #3
Book: Memorias: Deep in the Arnaks
Author: Charles Serabian
Rating: 4/5
The first installment of the Memorias series focuses primarily on the captivity of Orrin and Valor, two brothers confined in a remote mountain prison run by a race of vicious wolf-men known as “ferals”. The novel begins with a lengthy prologue, making its intentions clear from the start, this is an unapologetic work of epic fantasy. Potential readers will find the prologue an excellent litmus test, anyone turned off by it is unlikely to enjoy the novel, whereas anyone interested by it will find themselves compelled to read on. I found myself in the latter group, intrigued by the world building on display. Harmenor is a world as wide as it is deep, from the militant Spade Kingdom, to the mercantile city-state of Kashrii, to the savage a’tashi peoples, and the mysterious horrors known only as the nameless things.
However, the grander backdrop of competing nation-states and ethnic groups in Harmenor is counterbalanced by the book’s focus on the comparatively narrow story of Valor and Orrin’s trials and tribulations in a mountain prison hidden deep in the Arnak mountains. The boys have a complex relationship with the prison’s warden, Lobosa, who seeks to turn Valor and Orrin into instruments of destruction by way of his own personal tutelage. Despite their mistrust and dislike of him, Lobosa serves as something of a cruel father figure to the two boys, rivaled in this role by the kindness and wisdom of Jeryll Trought, a disgraced human knight living alongside Valor and Orrin in captivity. Despite a history of disastrous escape attempts, hope for a life free from Lobosa's influence is never far from the boys' minds. The window for their escape is closing, however, as Lobosa is cleaning house of his human slaves and preparing to migrate his feral people out of the Arnak Mountains. The move will almost certainly mean war and threatens to seal Valor and Orrin's fate as Lobosa's personal bodyguards. A final chance at freedom presents itself to the boys in the form of Armun Murleia, a powerful old mage who has been sent on a mission to infiltrate Lobosa's prison in the Arnaks and liberate the legendary knight Jeryll Trought from slavery.
Memorias is a gripping story, however, my main criticism of the novel has to do with its uneven pacing. The book indulges in the chapter by chapter changes in viewpoint that have become a staple of the epic fantasy genre. Normally, I don’t mind this tactic, but in Memorias’ case, the pacing of the story shifts noticeably along with the change in viewpoint character. There is one such memorable occurrence of this issue where the novel shifts from the perspective of the captive knight Jeryll Trought as he plots to overthrow Lobosa, to the mage Armun’s lackey Iliana as she sits alone in the desert thinking about how bored she is.
In addition to its pacing problems, as a self-published work, Memorias suffers from the occasional grammatical error and typo. Readers particularly bothered by such mistakes may find themselves distracted from the story when they occur.
Despite these faults, there is much to love about Memorias. The book’s protagonists, the brothers Orrin and Valor, are likable yet distinct from one another, and their quest for freedom is both relatable and engaging. There are also many hidden gems of originality in the novel. One such example is its aura based magic system, where mages must master control of their own sphere of influence to conceal their powers from the magic sensitive.
Overall, Memorias is a refreshingly original work of epic fantasy that will appeal to fans of the genre who have tired of reading rehashes of the same old tropes. It boasts a motivated and likable duo at the center of its story, however, it does struggle with uneven pacing when shifting between viewpoint characters, and is marred in some places by grammatical errors and typos that readers unaccustomed to self-published works may find distracting.
-C.J. Heckman