The Godstone by Violette Malan – Review

Published: August 3, 2021

Publisher: DAW Books

Series: Standalone

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 304 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 3.5/5.0

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

Synopsis:

This new epic fantasy series begins a tale of magic and danger, as a healer finds herself pulled deeper into a web of secrets and hazardous magic that could bring about the end of the world as she knows it.

Fenra Lowens has been a working Practitioner, using the magic of healing ever since she graduated from the White Court and left the City to live in the Outer Modes. When one of her patients, Arlyn Albainil, is summoned to the City to execute the final testament of a distant cousin, she agrees to help him. Arlyn suspects the White Court wants to access his cousin’s Practitioner’s vault. Arlyn can’t ignore the summons: he knows the vault holds an artifact so dangerous he can’t allow it to be freed.

Fenra quickly figures out that there is no cousin, that Arlyn himself is the missing Practitioner, the legendary Xandra Albainil, rumored to have made a Godstone with which he once almost destroyed the world. Sealing away the Godstone left Arlyn powerless and ill, and he needs Fenra to help him deal with the possibly sentient artifact before someone else finds and uses it.

Along the way they encounter Elvanyn Karamisk, an old friend whom Arlyn once betrayed. Convinced that Arlyn has not changed, and intends to use Fenra to recover the Godstone and with it all his power, Elvanyn joins them to keep Fenra safe and help her destroy the artifact.

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What a weeeeird book (but in a good way). I knew very little about this going in, but the synopsis was pretty intriguing and I thought it had some potential. I was right on both counts, since I couldn’t put it down! 

It’s a little strange starting off since you’re thrust directly into the POVs of our two main characters Arlyn and Fenra both of which are in first person. Arlyn is supposedly a cabinet maker who has just been summoned to the city so that he might assist the White Court mages in opening his ancestor’s magical vault. It’s quickly revealed however that Arlyn is actually his supposedly dead ancestor Xandra Albainil and he’s been hiding out for countless years in this small village to avoid discovery. You see, he was one of the greatest practitioners (mages) to have existed and he created something called the Godstone and in his hubris thought he could “fix” the world. He quickly realized his error but couldn’t destroy the stone and only sealed it away in his vault, the effort stripping away his magic.

Fenra is a local practitioner in the same village that Arlyn is hiding in. They’ve developed a friendship of sorts and Arlyn visits her regularly for “leveling” which is almost depicted as her drawing him out of a depressive episode. When the story begins she’s about to depart the village because she’s failed to heal a child that was brought to her too late for healing. She doesn’t want to deal with the inevitable repercussions and bad feelings, so she agrees to join Arlyn on his trip to the city and to lend her expertise as a mage. She soon realizes his true identity, but continues to think of him as Arlyn. 

Fenra is a likable character for sure, and Arlyn seems to be at first. The further you go along, the more is revealed of Xandra, who was a very different person than Arlyn is now. He was arrogant and not exactly a “good” person. A third main character is introduced partway through the book named Elvanyn who’s a pretty cool dude and gets his own POV chapters.   The characters are great – it’s the worldbuilding where things get confusing. 

Apparently the world is divided into Modes, but only mages can really tell where the dividing lines are. Normal people lacking magic can’t tell and basically just think they live in the next county over. It’s never really explained what exactly the Modes are, but as you cross the divides, clothing seems to change, technology changes, buildings change… but I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a different time period or world or WHAT. It haunts me. There were many vague aspects of the worldbuilding that didn’t feel like “oooo mysterious magic”, but rather “what the hell is going on here”. With that being said, it was really interesting and I finished this book much more quickly than I expected to!

The Godstone was a satisfying, self contained fantasy with just enough weird to pull you in and keep things fresh. There are many things I’d love to have explored further, but it probably would have bloated the book into something tedious. I’d love a few short stories focusing on Fenra and Arlyn’s early lives at the White Court – tons of material available there!