Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

Marcus Crane’s Broken, Not Ruined: Orichalcum & Obsidian follows science teacher Kyle Walker, whose wife Stephanie is a nurse practitioner. Their ordinary Saturday at a farmers’ market is shattered when a dimensional fracture tears Stephanie from Earth. She awakens in Galta, where a World System has selected her as healer for a prophesied hero’s party. Its Covenant can reshape her body for survival. Back on Earth, Kyle wakes up gravely injured after trying to hold onto her, his body fused with a splinter of the same System that calls itself Tess. Stephanie must learn what Galta expects from its chosen healer as Kyle searches for a way across realities. Each discovers that the forces governing Galta treat human lives as assigned roles, turning one marriage into a fight against rules written far beyond either world.

Marcus Crane’s Broken, Not Ruined: Orichalcum & Obsidian is incredible science fantasy with an ambitious world that shows real imagination. Stephanie is a terrific protagonist whose intelligence comes through naturally, especially in the way her medical training informs every unfamiliar situation she encounters on Galta. Her resourcefulness feels integral to the book, demonstrated when she assesses unfamiliar bodies through anatomy, then adapts surgical methods to suit what she finds. Circe is just as memorable as a high-elf mage, with her braided nerve-filament neural circlet showing how thoroughly science sits inside the magic of this world. That same inventiveness runs through the world-building. Mana channels exist as physical structures within the body, giving magical afflictions a biological basis through circulation. The settings have tremendous visual power, from the seven-hundred-foot limestone walls of Skree Canyon to the Administrator’s Lab with its white polymer corridors surrounding grav-wells. Readers who appreciate imaginative medical fantasy with a science-fiction foundation are in for a real treat. Very highly recommended.