Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

In Makerborn by Daymon Ashcord, a decade after her daughter Agnieshka vanished into the custody of House Lublinin, former Seal Warden Alandra Phoenyka discovers the ruling houses of Salvia are secretly enslaving Eastern Sonomancers to build weapons and failing storm shelters powered through torture. While Alandra fights to reclaim her child before a political purge takes her life, a young prisoner named Bez escapes from a brutal mining camp with an ancient resonator linked to imprisoned gods and forgotten history. Bez seeks vengeance against the people responsible for his parents’ murders, but his path draws him into a widening conflict between noble houses, outlaw networks, ancient powers, and collapsing shelters threatened by the Whirlwind surrounding the empire. As unrest spreads through Rakov during the Remembrance Festival, Alandra and Bez discover connections that place both of them at the center of Salvia’s future.

Daymon Ashcord's Makerborn is a spectacular first novel in the Maladies of Empire series. The world-building treats Salvia as a living civilization shaped through the aftermath of the God War, the Rift, and the ruling Houses governing Sonomancy through fear and inherited power. The strongest material comes through the human consequences attached to that system. Bez is a deeply troubled lead, and every decision has the imprint of Camp Inferno and the magical experimentation that shaped his understanding of survival. His pursuit of Tvomeer inside Tanya’s Temple of Relaxation is especially effective because the author relies on patience and calculation to build the scene. Alandra, the second lead, is fierce in her search for Agnieshka, and it transforms her movement across Salvia into something fueled by fury and exhaustion. The physical settings, such as the Makersmetal bridge spanning the Rift, stay fixed in the imagination, particularly with the Rifter monks preaching salvation above the abyss beneath them. Echo elixir gives the novel additional force because its creation ties wealth inside Rakov directly to imprisoned Sonomancers suffering beyond the Rift. The author makes the fantasy feel inhabited through history and belief, moving through every corner of Salvia, and that conviction gives Makerborn its identity. Very highly recommended.