THE END OF EARTH & SKY, by Tom Simon

THE END OF EARTH AND SKY, by Tom Simon (writer of the excellent LORD TALON’S REVENGE), is the first volume in his THE EYE OF THE MAKER series. The book centers around the adventures of one Calin Lowford, a twenty-year-old man who has failed at every trade he has tried, and (to put it bluntly) has generally been life’s whipping boy. To keep him out of trouble, his father apprentices him to the local eccentric wizard Rijeth. But when a mysterious message from the Gods arrives, no one is willing to answer it – save for Calin and his cantankerous master.

Trouble ensues.

I enjoyed the sheer amount of depth and complexity in END’S worldbuilding, which is just as well, since this is the first of planned eight volumes. Both the world and the book’s magic system are very well planned out. This is a world with a good deal of depth and complexity, much like Middle-earth.

Calin is also an interesting protagonist, partly in the vein of “boy becomes wizard” and partly a bumbler who is at least partly responsible for his own misfortunes. What’s especially intriguing is that END is a frame story – every chapter is prefaced with an excerpt from a book condemning Calin’s later monstrous crimes. Given that is remarkably at odds with the hapless, self-pitying figure of Calin in most of the book, I look forward to seeing how this develops in future volumes. I also enjoyed the other characters, from cranky Rijeth to the dark queen Teshren to the somewhat deluded atheist Raeder Lowford. As with LORD TALON’S REVENGE, this is a book that does not shy away from the peculiar foibles of humanity, but nonetheless likes this.

I enjoyed the book and recommend it, with the one caveat that it is obviously the first volume of eight, and therefore it is premature to form a complete opinion on the story.

-JM