Free the Darkness

Free the Darkness was another book I had no idea about save for the sky-high Audible rating, and 30 minutes in I thought I’d picked a dud. Initially the story seemed very predictable. A few premises were laid out and thing proceeded just as I expected. Never a good sign for me. I want surprise from the books I listen to, but after a couple hundred fantasy novels, you think you’ve seen it all. Still, I carried on with Free the Darkness, and oooo boy, was that the right choice.

It’s hard to explain. There was something about this book that I didn’t want to like, and for the life of me I can’t put my finger on it. For starters, the characters seemed hollow or so clichéd that I quickly began losing faith. It just wasn’t pulling me in. But then things got interesting. Very interesting. The main character, Rezkin, is OP as all hell, brilliant at just about everything he turns his hands to. Again, this would usually put me off the character, but Rez doesn’t hold back… like, at all. He isn’t a good guy, and he doesn’t spare a second thought for going all Liam Neeson with his particular set of skills to methodically and logically slice up anyone that stands in his path. Everything is perfectly timed and perfectly played, and if it weren’t the most satisfying thing I’ve listened too in a long time, then the whole book would have been just ten shades of ‘meh’. But it was satisfying. Incredibly satisfying. To the point that when Rez gets into the swing of things, I could not stop listening. I found myself pining for an end of the sections of his ‘upstanding citizen’ persona just to get another glimpse at the total and utter badass Rez intermittently becomes.

It’s the practicality and logic with which Rez carries out every action that gets me. It’s the exact same way my brain works, and also the biggest pet peeve I have with goody-goody heroes. So many times I’ve been left gaping as the hero spares the villain because it’s the morally right thing to do, even knowing that if the villain gets the slightest advantage once more that it could, and often does, result in the slaughter of countless innocents. It hate it when that happens. It makes me hate protagonist more than any other trait. Thankfully, this is not something Rezkin suffers from. If some poor sod needs to be humiliated first and then gutted like a fish before his or her subordinates because ruling through fear will save far more lives than showing mercy, then you can bet your black-leather boots that Rezkin is going to crack out the filleting knife. Rezkin has been raised as an emotionless killing-machine, and he damned well acts like it, always with a higher goal in mind though. In my opinion, this doesn’t just make him one of my favourite assassins I’ve ever come across in a book but one of my favourite characters ever.

Now, onto a fairly major issue that I had with the book that survived Reskin’s massacre of my dislikes. Simply put, the book just ends. No big build up. No dramatic climax. The book just up and finishes at the end of what I though was just another chapter. I couldn’t believe it myself and had to double check that I’d downloaded all the files correctly. On a hunch I have as someone trying to get their own novel published, I think I can guess what happened. Likely the publishers told Kel Kade that this first book in the series was too long and that it needed to be split in two. It’s entirely understandable and by god it worked, seeing as I immediately went to download Book 2 after realising that, yes, that was in fact the end of the novel. Still, is a little more of a climax too much to as for?

Overall, an oddly paced book with stretches of so-so prose that are perfectly punctuated with incredibly awesome action and content. The supporting characters, the woman in particular, do often feel kind of empty and predictable, but the intermittent badassery of Rezkin’s darker side more than keeps the novel not just afloat but paddling on at full-steam. This book is well worth a listen, but only if you download Book 2 as well so you can jump straight in. Because of the flat ending, I’m not rating it as highly as some other reviewers, but that’s just for Book 1. Book 2, Reign of Madness, is another story altogether.

Personal rating: 3.75 stars

Professional rating: 4.0 stars