As a fan of all things Riyria, I was eagerly awaiting this book. I really enjoyed the overall storyline, characters and all the callbacks to the Legends of the First Empire. At the same time, it seemed as if something was slightly off. As I got deeper into the book, I realized that while I was enjoying Sephryn’s character and storyline and Mawyndule’s arc, Nolyn’s character and storyline was coming off like a discordant note in an otherwise harmonious symphony.
It started off great with good opening scenes for both Nolyn and Sephryn, but as the book progressed Nolyn’s scenes seemed unrealistic and rushed, and his character came off as both naive and immature for a being of 800 plus years. Perhaps that was intentional as later there is a reference to Nolyn feeling like he was finally becoming an adult. And therein was the problem for me, Sephryn who is roughly his same age comes off as worldly, experienced, intelligent and grown up. Nolyn comes off as an inexperienced teenager. Yet supposedly he’s been an administrator, a warrior and a leader of men for 100s of years.
A couple of spoilers here, so beware. The discordant notes started for me in the way he went about confronting his superior officer who he believed facilitated the assassination attempt. But at the time while it seemed a little off, it was not that bad in itself, especially as I thought the scene worked if you initially saw Nolyn as a prince and experienced leader of men accustomed to dealing with subordinates. But then in the blink of an eye, he goes from dutiful soldier who accepted an assignment to the worst front in a nasty war apparently without complaint, to a committed revolutionary intent on killing his own father and taking the throne. It seemed like sudden change in his base character. While it’s believable that in this world the populace was ready for revolt, Nolyn suddenly making the decision to join it, lead it and possible kill his father within literally the space of a couple pages, and less than about a week of activity rings wrong. There simply was not enough character development for that to come off as believable, unless you think of him as a mercurial, unexperienced, romantic fool in which case he would not be a leader inspiring enough to get men to follow him into assaulting the capitol.
Also a couple of times, the hand of fate or deus ex machine technique seems to be used to get around plot issues. But that may be intentional as interfering gods is part of the story.
Finally, I have to disagree with a point Mr. Sullivan has made as I do not think this is an understandable story for first time readers. You really need to have read the Legends of the First Empire series first. The callbacks are not simply Easter eggs that fans will enjoy, they are integral to the story and character background. Otherwise it’s like reading The Two Towers before the Fellowship of the Ring.
So to sum up, Sephryn’s character development and storyline are good. The continued character arc for Mawyndule is also good. But the character development for Nolyn and the occasional use of the hand of fate to facilitate story advancement are not so good. Perhaps I’m spoiled by Mr. Sullivan’s past books and being hypercritical. For fans of Mr. Sullivan, it is a very enjoyable read.
Nolyn: The Rise and Fall, Book 1
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