Forging Divinity (The War of Broken Mirrors Book 1)

Forging Divinity is the first installment in what promises to be an entertaining and complex new series. This debut novel follows three primary POV characters, two of which are spies for rival organizations. Caught in the middle of this unlikely pair is Taelien, a young swordsman wielding a supposed sword of legend, about which he knows very little. All three leads are well written (though I'm rather partial to the half-blind Jonan), and clearly have their own agendas and eccentricities. There's something to be said for a male author who is capable of writing from a female perspective, and Lydia is definitely a successful example of this often rare skill. Rowe also does a good job of exploring many of the gray areas produced by political intrigue and a "for the greater good" mentality. Where Rowe really shines is his world building, presenting the reader with a well-developed and intricate magic system, further augmented by a diverse political and religious landscape. It's certainly a unique spin on the typical fantasy genre. The plot itself also presents the reader with some unexpected twists and turns, and the novel features perhaps one of the best fight scenes I've encountered to date. All and all, this debut piece is an entertaining introduction to a world and cast that will likely become even more engrossing as the series progresses.

"Certainty in the face of variables is a sign of insanity." I loved this as much as I didn’t, which is why it fell into my LIKED vs. my LOVED rating. I felt like a pendulum trying to decide, but in the end there were a few more negatives than positives. But it didn’t get close to my INDIFFERENT rating, so that should say how much I liked it. I couldn’t really summarize this as the story revolves around three characters all on their own mission that ended up overlapping one other. I’m afraid if I tried I’d accidentally give something away. So the book blurb is going to have to do. The world was nicely developed, in my opinion. I never felt cheated. Matter of fact, in the beginning there’s a lot thrown at you. And I never felt like it let up. Not in a cool way, but in a let’s-get-all-this-out-now way. Normally I can go along with info dumps when it’s worked into a dialog. That happened in a lot of places, but it was sooooo long that I ended up skipping, hoping I’d understand later. I did, so yay me and yay to Rowe for keeping it clear. The world, however, never came close to the amount we learned about the magic system. Some people are going to love it. For me—and keep in mind that I love love love magic—it was too much. Much like the world building, it felt long-winded and overcomplicated. I skimmed, and I fear I payed a price for that. I think if i would have been patient, some of it could have been more entertaining. I liked the writing for the most part. Action scenes were incredible. I had a clear picture of what was happening. Those scenes were the reason this didn’t get a lower rating. They were really nifty, particularly those with Taelien. There were some typos, enough that I noticed by not enough to ruin the book for me. Now, the reason I was enjoying this so much was the characters. Taelien was a badass, and his magic was by far my favorite. Manipulating metal might sound boring, but Rowe made it fun. Super fun! Taelien's got a lot to find out about himself, and he truly wants to be a good person. He’s an easy character to root for, especially with his adventurous personality and slightly blind bravery. Our heroine, Lydia, was nicely gifted, but her magical ability of gaining knowledge about stuff just wasn’t as enthralling as magic used in a fight. Even so, she was a tough gal, collected, curious, and strong in her own right. Never a damsel in distress. Our other protagonist, Jonan, used sight magic—making himself invisible, looking through mirrors, and so forth. I never got as good of a feel for him as I did the other two. I could never quite peg his intentions. Overall, I’d recommend this to those that like a traditional upbeat fantasy. It’s short and fun. Because of Taelien I’ll be picking up the second book. I’m curious about his story and where he’ll end up.

Based on the kindle sample of this book, I was really expecting to like it. I didn’t. It wasn’t awful; I still finished it, and there were aspects of it that I thought were really well done. It had a lot of potential, the plot was captivating, the magic system and world building were interesting, and… the characters were just so poorly developed that it was hard to appreciate the rest of it. I hope that it won’t spoil anything to say that in this book, as in most books of this nature, there are points when the wellbeing of one or more characters is in jeopardy, and I think these parts of the book were nicely handled from a plot perspective, but they just served to underline in my mind how little I cared about any of the characters. I didn’t dislike them; I just didn’t care one way or the other. When they were in danger, I realized that if they all dropped dead I would not be the slightest bit bothered. There is one exception to this which I will discuss in a comment since I don’t know how to say what I want to say about that without spoiling anything. But basically I found it hard to care about the plot when I wasn’t attached to any of the people. On the other hand, I don’t regret buying this book. It served its purpose, which was to keep me somewhat entertained for the length of time it took to read it. And I believe it’s possible, based on reading some of the other reviews, that other people won’t have the same problems with the characters that I did. So I’m not necessarily recommending not buying the book, and in fact, if what you’re looking for is fun plot twists and well thought out magic, I would recommend buying it. I would like to disagree with some of the other reviewers on how similar this book is to Sanderson’s work. I would not come here looking for something Sanderson-esque. The only similarity that I can see is in the sort of magic system, but the writing styles feel very different to me, and I have never been disappointed in Sanderson’s characters. And of course, some of the other reviewers have pointed out the presence of grammatical errors/typos in this book. I would agree that they are there, but I did not find them jarring or particularly pronounced in comparison with a lot of the other kindle stuff in this price range.

Andrew Rowe has created a rich fantasy world that clearly goes far deeper than the contents of this first book. He's set the scene for the series by introducing us to the main factions and important persons, but there's clearly much more to explore. The world itself is fascinating: men who have found ways to ascend to godhood, or at least convince people they have. Powerful magical artifacts and a detailed magical system. I like how Rowe explores grey areas. One of his main characters works for an organization that seems particularly shady, though this character is one of the good guys. The world is rich with different beliefs, opinions, and even ways to practice magic and fight. It's really very interesting and in depth and I'm excited to see where he goes with it. The story is fun and fast paced. He does a good job of setting up the situation and introducing us to the world and characters. The action was interesting and Rowe has a good sense of humor. The relationships between the characters were just starting to develop, so I look forward to seeing where Rowe takes them.

I'll admit this one took a while to get into, since the opening chapters were very dialogue-heavy. The book also gives a lot of insight into what is happening in the characters heads, which took a bit of getting used to. However, once the book got going, I found myself really appreciating the detailed thoughts, since the characters are very logical and I love the "rationalist" genre. After the first few chapters, I was hooked (~30% on my kindle). The magic system is pretty great. I'm a fan of hard magic systems, and there are detailed rules, limitations, and costs to the magic in this book. I really appreciated the diversity of the magic, as well. As much as I love Sanderson's magic systems, sometimes they are fairly limited. Forging Divinity has magic of all types: physical, elemental, healing, knowledge, illusion, etc. The worldbuilding is also great. Godhood can be sold to the highest bidder? Awesome. Multiple conspiracies, a looming war, original races that are tied into the magic system? Even better. The characters are good as well, though not as strong as the worldbuilding. Each of the three main characters has access to different magic types, has their own hidden agendas that you slowly learn about, and distinct personalities. One is overly analytical about everything, one is a hotheaded warrior, and one is a secretive spy who relies on illusions instead of direct magics. Overall, the book was a slow start but a great read. I've bought the second and am looking forward to reading it in the near future. I might have to put the sequel off for a bit, because once I hit the 30% mark of this one I pretty much couldn't put it down (so much for being productive this week).

This was an action-packed, thrilling, and intense book. It only took a moment to get used to the shifting perspectives. Once I understood that aspect, the rest was a piece of cake to keep up with, and it was a page turner. I also enjoyed that this series works in conjunction with other series based in the same world. I am currently trying to figure out the exact order of the whole world series so I can understand everything occurring. While I know that it isn't necessary to read them in a specific order, I would very much enjoy doing so. My first introduction to this world was through an entirely different storyline altogether. I know that the series that I started this journey on appears to be reaching a conclusion or sorts. I could totally be wrong about that, but it did give a sort of chronical order I'm trying to follow and figure out.

Written in 3rd person with a lot of internal dialog, the book follows 3 main characters who each have mysterious, interesting, and well thought out back stories. While I fully admit one of these characters is a bit too cliché, I never lost interest in any of their storylines. And, it leaves plenty of room for some personal growth in the next two books! Minor complaints: Some of the internal dialog drifted off into tangents that, while they make sense for that character, they could easily have been left out as they had no impact on the story. Also, I was hoping for more depth to the story. Perhaps this is just setting up for the next book, but I was hoping for more surprises in the ending. Pet peeves aside, I really did enjoy this book, and I'm very much looking forward to the second one!

I was waiting for a while for a review then Monday was off and I had free time to kill so I bought it. Normally I only review fanfiction so bear with me. Some spoilers for the first 3 chapters. World building seems solid, the book hits the ground running so history and current events are mixed together and dropped in a believable manner. 3 main point of view characters are Taelien, metalbender fresh of the farm/forest hero looking answers to his mysterious past and his mysterious sword of the gods. His storybook hero is only missing a kindly old mentor to set him on the path and then be swiftly killed and some grand evil to face. A pawn that knows he is a pawn which causes some hilarious interactions with 2 players of the game. Lydia, chessmaster planner schemer, rpg tank, investigator, scientist, spy for one of the 2 major religions in the country/planet? She worships the gods that made Taelien’s sword. Personality tends towards straight laced, harsh but fair. Jonan, chessmaster planner schemer, rpg Crowd Control, surface persona is a loveable rogue, innards seem to be tired player of the game. Spy for the other major religion on the planet. So yeah 2 players and only 1 pawn between them. A highlight for me was Lydia and Jonan’s first interaction as the verbally jockey for position to steer the hero down the path most beneficial to their position. Plot is good though I felt the summery was misleading. I thought I was going into some variant of Sanderson’s Warbreaker. Lydia shows up in some corrupt city to save some splintered shard of her god that the locals are harvesting for power. That’s not what happened and the author didn’t even mention Jonan. I think a better summary could be made in a similar style to Sanderson’s Elantris. So in the end this is a solid first entrance into the series, or at least it had better be a series since the main arc of 2 of the 3 main characters, the whole what is Taelien’s greater purpose, and why does he have Lydia’s god sword doesn’t go further than speculation and initial investigation, your answers are in another city. That said the local arc is great, there’s a huge who done it( placing the city into the precarious position of fighting a holy war against Lydia’s religion) in the manor of ch 86 of HPMOR(harry potter and the methods of rationality), but stronger since we don’t already know who is behind the current events.

Takes a while to get going but a fantastic read nonetheless. Andrew Rose is an author to watch out for.

First book in a trilogy, it was a bit obscure, hopefully things will become clearer in the next books. The characters are not fully developed, a better job is done by Rowe in the Ascension series. All said, it is still an enjoyable read and way above average. I am definitely reading the next book!

That's probably the main point that might detract from the reading; the universe that Andrew Rowe built looks complex and very deep, but you're only given small tidbits. The idea of people trying to ascend as gods, and faking godhood is a good one, and the contrast with the one guy who might be a god (or at least the direct son of one) is a main point of the story. But the other characters are what make it good. My main peeve: what is that war of broken mirrors? I can see the idea of broken mirrors (since you have them in the story at one point), but I can't tie them into a war...

A great story and twist on magic. Some amazing ideas and plot twists; loved the variety in the characters who I felt had some real originality in them. Enjoyed the story and looking forward to reading more from this author!

A little too much exposition at times and a convoluted magic system (at least to a peanut minded man such as i) but it's a fun, fast paced fantasy romp with likable characters and some great humour.