Host (Rogue Mage #3) by Faith Hunter

Thorn has managed to find her space in Mineral City- her efforts to save the city have largely won over a lot of the… wary residents. They’re not all her utter fans… but she has her place there

But she’s certainly not safe. She has come to the attention of her old Mage Enclave who have sent their own ambassador - with their own agenda.

But beyond politics there’s always the shadow - and one of the Greater Darknesses are stirring; a power more dangerous than anything Thorn has faced before

I love this world - the world building of this series is amazing and layered (and, frankly, born to be an RPG). I love the layers of different supernatural elements: the apocalypse, the seraphs, the angels of the host (in all their diverse forms - and the level and variety of mythology and examination of the different angels of the host is fascinating and involved. There are so many more than just men with wings. And we’re reminded whoever wrote the Bible with three headed angels with a gazillion wings and just eyes, eyes, everywhere was a very very creative person) and the ongoing consequences of angelic rule alongside battling the dark: what it is like to have an ally who may be every bit as dangerous as the darkness they’re fighting - who may decide to dish out their own judgement. And that’s on top of the complication of the Seraphs having destroyed the majority of the Earth’s population to begin with - do you trust them? With allies like these who needs enemies? And there’s still the ongoing question of whether the angels are what they claim to be. Then there’s a whole lot of religiosity - because end of the world etc, but at the same time they have enforced religious tolerance.

Throw into that a post-apocalyptic ice age with lots of implications as to what that means for society, with technology and society adapting to that

And then we have the witches - the unforeseen, soulless, with powers and a whole history of prejudice and their own community and traditions which are so very different to what humanity has built - and there’s a real effort to give them a whole culture that is very distinctive to them. Not just magic but also their lack of soul and their greater speed and smaller stature. The world building is just exquisite. I love it. I want a thousand stories in this universe to wallow in it.

Thorn herself is an excellent character - a perfectly produced character out of place. She’s lived so long among humans she no longer thinks entirely like a witch, she’s ignorant of so much of her culture and power and traditions - but she’s also intensely aware of her own lack of soul, holding onto a faith (which is so important in the human community she lives in) while also being intensely aware of how, as a soulless being, she’s intensely outside of the trappings of that faith. She faces prejudice from those around her but also a proud acceptance by many after what she’s done. It’s complex and layered and comes with some excellent relationship with powerful friends - and their own complexities

What I don’t get is Rose. Or the prophecy that makes Thorn and her twin so special. I mean, I can get Thorn being upset about her sister being missing because, sibling obviously. But there’s the whole prophecy and power and ominousness around it which I never quite got - and I never really invested in Rose because she just didn’t seem to encroach much in Thorn’s life so it felt kind of pushed in and intruding on the main story

Seraphs (Rogue Mage #2) by Faith Hunter

Thorn is backed by some very close friends, a fiercely loyal family. But as a newly revealed Neo-Mage in an aggressively hostile small town she’s on thin ice. Even when her powers may be the very thing keeping them safe from the monsters underground

But are those powers also responsible for drawing them?

She had sworn she wouldn’t return to face the darkness under the mountain… but it’s waiting and gathering its forces and it certainly hasn’t forgotten Thorn

This huge, complicated world contains so many wonderful conflicts. A post-apocalypse world, nearly wiped out by angelic and divine wrath, nearly consumed by demonic rage, living in equal terror of both angel from on high and demon from beneath. A deeply religious society, desperately and faithfully following proper sacred rules - but without any clear indication of what those sacred rules actually are, which religion is right and in a world where one certainty they actually have is that religious conflict will get you killed.

And these are just the stories the Seraphs tell… what is the real truth?

And into that complex world we have Thorn continuing her story - only this time revealed to be a Neomage, much to the hatred and prejudice of her neighbours. There’s so many wonderful levels to this whole conflict: there’s Thorn gloriously owning who she is, wearing it like a cape and waving it like a flag. There’s her closest friends and loved ones standing shoulder to shoulder with her ready to cut anyone who looks at her twice. There’s the good people who are pushing for honesty and fairness (and the Jewish and Cherokee communities arming and stepping up in the face of clear religious oppression was a nice, though in need of development, moment). The outright bigots willing to do anything to bring Thorn down. The hypocrites who want Thorn’s magic - but not in public, not where people could see, oh no! And, of course, Thorn makes a convenient scapegoat whenever things go wrong.

Throw in a lot of intrigue about her past and her mentor, lots of questions about whether the whole narrative that is being sold about the Seraphs arrival is actually true and a neat little romance sub plot with some nice twists in that it’s not happily ever after, by any stretch.

Blood Ring (Rogue Mage #1) by Faith Hunter

This book is huge. Not so much because of the length of the book but the sheer amount packed in here - especially this really original world.

Honestly, if someone has sold this book to me as a post-rapture word, a world after the book of Revelations, a world where the angels came down and massacred huge chunks of humanity, I would be leery.

But what about that world where the angels never confirmed any one religion? What about when the Most High never actually appeared (but pointing that out is a quick way to get dead)? What about a world where actually fighting each other over a religion is the quickest way to get you dead by angel?

We have a world where religion and religious rules have definitely risen to prominence, piety is common and all but mandatory (there’s a lot of pressure even when it’s not mandated) and religious laws dominate. But at the same time everyone is kind of uncertain as to what the laws need to be. One interesting element of this is that they seem to have avoided the very common trope of just defaulting to “sexual” crimes (probably because most authoritarian religion seems to devolve to that level) and we see a lot more fierce punishments for things like swearing. It’s an interesting and unique political situation with religion ascendant and in control but without the certainty or single religious dominance you’d expect from such a world

It’s also been several generations since the end of the world so humanity is doing what we always do - backslide. Thorn notes that things that would never have been tolerated 10 years ago are now creeping back into the human media

It’s also really well done how the balance is set out. Because it would be easy to portray the Seraphs as wonderful saviours of humanity - and that’s clearly the spin and there’s definitely a cult that has grown around them - but Thorn sees it as a cult. Equally the depictions of the Seraphs arrival and the end of the world is depicted as duly horrific. The idea that the Seraphs are all good and pure is strongly challenged despite the spin. At the same time we have the dark powers, the monsters from the depths, demonic forces et al that humanity and the Seraphs allied against - so we do have the seraphs as being humanity’s protectors and destroyers, humanity’s shield, but also the sword which could come down at any time if humanity break the rules they’re STILL not entirely sure they understand. It’s all complex and nuanced and precarious

Add into that is Thorn, a Neo-mage. A woman with magic and, by official doctrine from the Seraphs, soulless. Registered and sequestered, Neo-mages are both an incredible asset to humanity for their skills but also feared and persecuted when unlicensed and not in their official communities. Thorn is surrounded by neighbours who would murder her if they found out about her while at the same time seriously considering hiring mages at exorbitant cost to help them with the town’s problems.

Oh and the world is a dystopia - not just because of the end of the world which means there’s a lot of salvaging and a lot of things mankind just doesn’t have the numbers to produce any more and is now working to produce in numbers what was once taken for granted. There’s no suggestion the technology is lost - it’s just hard to maintain the supply chain and production methods with most of the population dead. But the world is also entering a mini ice-age which doesn’t just mean cold, but also worries like glaciers forming in the mountains above the town

Throw in demons coming out at night and haunting the world and we have a much scarier world - and, obviously, an equal dependence for the decimated population on the Seraphs.

This world is FULL and it is FASCINATING and I understand there’s an actual RPG game that has built up around it because this world is amazing. I could happily just keep reading more world building and more and more and more and more

But in a book? All of the above is huge and complex and fascinating. And then we see different neo-mages with different powers and different sources of power - with the added complexity of elements from other specialties draining them (Thorn, a stone mage, is drained by water and moonlight). Then we throw in the descendents of humans and Seraphs, the descendents of mages and humans and the mixing of these blood lines all creates different complexities - and on top of that the dark side also has it’s own different forces and bloodlines

I love the world, but sometimes I feel like I need a guide to read separate to the story as it can be hard to follow all the ins and outs and complexities. This is sometimes not helped by the writing - especially when Thorn is deep in her magic and bonding with stones, I’m not always entirely sure what has exactly happened. This is especially the case later in the book towards the end with a grand finale where Thorn faces down the big bad hordes and it’s epic and it’s amazing and it’s exciting and powerful and… and I only have the slightest clue about what actually happened.

I think it did add even more complexity over what the Seraphs are - but I was too lost in it all to be certain. It still felt epic and the victory was clear but what exactly Thorn did? I’m not sure, I’m really not. Too much abstract, too many things going on.

The plot itself is a wonderful exploration of this world - and I think you needed a whole book on that. We largely focused on Thorn just living in this world with her friends. Which is excellent because this world is HUGE so huge, so very huge.

We have a mystery: someone has been captured (Thorn’s ex) and they want to get him back and stop the big dark evil things doing their evil worst but most of Thorns’ day and experience isn’t spent on this particularly. I think this works because the world is big and complex and, if anything, needed paring more for this book (the amethysts in particular were damn confusing)

I do like Thorn’s relationship with her friends and colleagues, all of whom work in stones and jewellery. There’s Jessie with her large family who has her own complicated past with religious society though is something of a minor character in her circle which is sad because she and a child and a very very distant woman mentor are the only women in Thorn’s life and we need more women in there. We have , Thorns’ best friend who is a gay man. I started out somewhat hostile to this character because he is introduced with a whole lot of dubious code words “flamboyant” “theatric”, an over-emphasis on clothes and make up. He loves musicals - in a dystopian world which doesn’t produce musicals ad doesn’t seem to have an excess of recorded media. The almost odd part of thi is it fades as the book goes on: it seems less to be character development and more that the author kind of forgot he was gay and the coding she’d already established. We have Audric who is one of these woo-woo half-breeds, a Black man and in a relationship with Rupert. Despite Rupert being her BFF, since Audric is the one who is actually aware of her secret than the others so is more prominent than the other characters. But part of the woo-woo apparently involves some unspecified genital deformity which, again, it’s implied makes him sexless. It seems an unnecessary addition to make it so expressly clear the gay couple cannot be sexual - especially as we’ve introduced the completely unnecessary concept of the mages entering highly sexualised heat. This used up way too much time of Thorn fighting supernatural horniness.

I’m fascinated by this world and curious by these characters. This book was probably too full, too overwhelmingly full, but what it was full of was absolutely amazing and  loved every last minute of it. Just reading this first book makes me think this series can become one of my favourites - all the more likely as it develops and I become more familiar with this huge world