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Reviewed by Eduardo Aduna for Readers' Favorite
Daniel Swensen's Orison is a wonderful read that had me enthralled from start to finish. Mankind has become mere pawns to the will of dragons. Wrynn, a fallen sorcerer, has had encounters with these powerful beings in the past and now lives a life of squalor and stupor just to escape. His only friend, the thief Story, has problems of her own when her plans to escape a life of criminality suffer a more-than-slight hitch. These two, together with the exiled Rul Halak, prince Dunnac, and Story's older brother Crux are drawn into a web of manipulation and deceit woven by the powerful Penumbra. They can choose to be pawns of the gods, or they could strike out on their own and carve their own path.
This is one of the few fantasy novels I have encountered that can be described as concise. Much like Glen Cook's The Black Company, there is nary a wasted word. Just to be clear, this is a good thing. Each chapter stands on its own merit and flows with the next seamlessly. The characters are defined not by wordy extrapolations, but by their actions, setting a fast pace for the entire novel. I love how Daniel Swensen plays with the novel's scope. The events in the novel are contained within a single city, but he never lets the reader forget that these situations have significant ramifications for the fate of the world. Subtlety and action can be a strange mix, but Daniel Swensen makes it work flawlessly. Orison is a good first novel by a very talented writer. He has crafted solid characters that are capable of carrying an entire series. I for one would eagerly await the next adventure of Story, Wrynn and Dunnac.
