Book Review: Origins of the Never by CJ Rutherford
The latest book in my #GreatIndieReviewProject is Origins of the Nether by CJ Rutherford. I have a soft spot for epic fantasy that involves elves and dragons. Yes it’s a well worn area, but I still love it. So I went in to this novella predisposed to enjoy it even though I didn’t know much about it.
It’s important to know going in that this isn’t a stand alone story. It’s a prequel and while it does tell a story it also leaves a lot of things to be resolved in the main book sequence. I wouldn’t let that put you off too much. You’ll know by the time you get to the end of the story whether you want to continue or not.
What’s It All About?
Origins of the Never is the prequel to Souls of the Never and as such it sets the stage, giving us an introduction to the universe of the Never, the nature of magic in this world and also the source of evil.
The story is framed around the childhood friendship of two elves Olumé and Tenybris. But it seems that Tenybris is perpetually in Olumé’s shadow and over hundreds of years jealousy and bitterness grows.
This sets up a chain of events that threaten the peaceful world of Teralia and the rest of the Never, not to mention setting in motion a story that will play out many many years later.
Short but Sweet
At an estimated 42 pages for the Kindle version this story doesn’t take long to read and it’s told with an economical style. In fact my single biggest criticism might be the brevity.
There are a couple of points where the change in Tenybris seem a little too abrupt and some additional time spent smoothing out the transitions might help to make the transformation more convincing.
It would have been nice to get a bit more description of the world of Teralia. It is presented as this almost paradise but I don’t really have a picture of it in my head which is unfortunate because I think my reaction to the damage caused to the world would have been much stronger if I had a stronger image to go with it.
The same is true of our brief glimpse of the Never. We do get a sense of this huge universe of worlds, but no clear notion of what the different worlds might be like
Fairytale or Legend
The way the story is told is slightly unusual too and it does remind me rather of the way Tolkien wrote parts of The Silmarillion. Big things are happening, but we are kept at a distance from most of them and the story is paced in such a way that we cover hundreds of years sometimes in only a couple of sentences.
We do get a glimpse at the larger universe of the Never though and the story achieves its primary function which is to set up the antagonist for the Neverwar series and sow the seeds for the story that is coming. It also achieves a secondary goal, at least for me, which is to make me curious about how things are going to play out.
Most of the tale is told through the point of view of Tenybris (though we get brief looks from other characters too) but I didn’t come away feeling that I knew him particularly well. In part this is because of how radically he changes over the course of the story. Both Tenybris and Olumé are effectively avatars for the Light and the Dark. People who prefer all shades of grey may not appreciate the more absolute nature of the evil on display here, but I had no problem with it.
Did You Like It?
Yes, I love this sort of fantasy. It seems to have gone a little bit out of fashion but it’s the sort of stuff I grew up on and it’s nice submerge myself in it again. Plus there are dragons and who doesn’t like dragons?
I already have the next book loaded on my Kindle and will be reading it as soon as I can find a gap in my To Read list.
Buy, Borrow or Skip
Assuming you like epic fantasy (with dragons and elves) I think this is at least worth borrowing. If your taste runs more towards grimdark this may not be your thing. The series itself is billed as Young Adult so it’s not aiming to be too dark.
by CJ Rutherford [-]
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