Infernal by Mark de Jager – Review

Published: November 26, 2020

Publisher: Solaris

Series: The Chronicles of Stratus #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 450 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.5/5.0

A copy of the book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

PART MAN. PART MONSTER. ALL VENGEANCE…

In the war-torn lands of Krandin, a kingdom fighting against the Worm King of the Penullin Empire and his dark magic, a stranger wakes, knowing only that his name is Stratus.

He possesses great strength and magic, but only fractured memories of his past, and a growing certainty that he is not, in fact, human.

As he explores this new world, disoriented, making few friends and many enemies, the battle for his mind will determine the fate of the world.

How could you not be immediately interested in a book where the main character wakes up paralyzed and amnesiac in a field?? And he’s also about to get his eyeballs pecked out by vultures, which immediately cranks up the tension, you know? It only gets wilder and more action packed from this point forward. Stratus, our dear, amnesiac MC is an extremely powerful man and since he can’t remember anything, he also lacks certain social graces. The demon in his head doesn’t help things either because it has quite the taste for human flesh.

Has that piqued your interest yet? If it hasn’t, or if it has thoroughly repulsed you, you should maybe pick a different book. It only gets weirder and more interesting from that point onward – necromancy, worm lords, war, and Stratus stumbling through literally every social situation he encounters.

It almost goes without saying that I loved this book and the narration is absolutely wonderful if you enjoy audio format. This is just the beginning of a series and it sets up the outline for major conflict and introduces us to our characters. Stratus of course is our MC and he’s truly a fascinating guy. I spent much of the book wondering if he truly had a demon in his head, or if it was perhaps something a little more scaly and drakine based on the cover art. I’ll leave you to puzzle that out for yourself. The minor characters are not quite as well fleshed out, but it is only the first book in the series. I expect they will get much more page time in the next book. We’ve also only been told of the big bad Worm Lord and met a few cronies that were suitably threatening.

Overall, I have to say this was an impressive beginning to a series that I think could be one of my new favorites. I am really, really looking forward to the sequel for more bloodshed and action but mostly, I can’t wait for more of Stratus’ past to become clear! It’s so vague for almost the entirety of the book until a few tidbits are slipped in near the end when he encounters one of the Worm Lord’s henchmen. This was not too dark of a read, and I literally laughed out loud several times when Stratus made social gaffs. Honestly, I never thought cannibalism could be funny but when he mentioned having eaten someone’s arm with such nonchalance I totally lost it. That might say more about my sense of humour than anything else though.