Ajiwiak

The Wildfire Cycle #3

by D.P. Woolliscroft

ALL IT TAKES, IS A SINGLE SPARK

Llewdon, ageless elf and Emperor of Pyrfew, has his sights set on becoming a god, and only the collective sacrifice of thousands of Alfjarun from Alfaria, the Wild Continent, can carry him there. Kingshold is taken and Ioth is ash; his plans are proceeding exactly as intended.

But Neenahwi and Motega of the decimated Wolfclaw clan have returned to Alfaria with the heroes of Kingshold as their companions. Can they navigate a homeland that has changed much since they were children to bring the clans together to resist Pyrfew? And what role will the fabled city of Ajiwiak, home of the first of their people have to play in their liberation?

Continuing the acclaimed Wildfire Cycle, this third volume includes Ajiwiak, The Mother Tree (Book 3) and Tales of Ajiwiak (Book 3.5).

Unknown Binding

About the author

Born in Derby in England, on the day before mid-summers day, David Peter Woolliscroft was very nearly magical. If only his dear old mum could have held on for another day. But magic called out to him over the years, with a many a book being devoured for its arcane properties. David studied Accounting at Cardiff University where numbers weaved their own kind of magic and he has since been a successful business leader in the intervening twenty years.

Adventures have been had. More books devoured and then one day, David had read enough where the ideas he had kept bottled up needed a release valve. And thus, rising out of the self doubt like a phoenix at a clicky keyboard, a writer was born. Kingshold is David’s debut novel and Tales of Kingshold, companion short stories to the novel, are flooding onto the page as fast as David can write them.

He is married to his wife Haneen and has a daughter Liberty, who all live with their mini golden doodle Rosie in Princeton NJ. David is one of the few crabs to escape the crab pot.

Reviews

[D.P. Woolliscroft]

I'm not reviewing my own book, just providing a quick update. Here is where I am as of September 27th:
- Ajiwiak, The Mother Tree is written, edited and ARCs are out in the wild
- Tales of Ajiwiak is written and almost edited
- Need to proof the whole thing
- Cover art is complete and looks gorgeous
- Cover design is underway and should have it in my hands in a couple of weeks
And yes, this is going to be a collected volume including Ajiwiak, The Mother Tree and Tales of Ajiwiak. I'll be releasing collected volumes for Kingshold and Ioth very shortly too.
So when is the release date going to be?
Short answer is that I'm not sure. But definitely before the end of the year. The thing that is probably going to hold me up a little is getting the first two collected volumes published, and for the first time ever, having them available in hardback.

More updates soon.

Dave

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the continuing story of Mareth Bollingsmeade and his friends and compatriots as they take on gods and monsters while fighting the empire of Pyrfew. In this volume, Pyrfew soldiers have gone to the far away continent of Alfaria, the place of Neenahwi and Motega’s birth, and they’ve started converting the natives and taking slaves to bring back to their Emperor, Llewdon. Mareth and his friends have traveled a long way underground, and now its time to take on the enemy and save the people of Alfaria.

Mareth seems to take a bit of a backseat in this story at first, and Motega and Neenahwi run the show, which makes sense, since Motega and Neenahwi are from Alfaria, originally. There is a lot of freeing slaves and fighting Pyrfew soldiers, and then half of the party decide to travel to the near-mythical Ajiwiak in order to find help.

I’ll admit that I was not as pulled into this book as I was the previous two. The first quarter or so seemed to drag in places, and I found myself getting a little bored of it from time to time. I set it aside to read other books for a while, hoping that when I picked it up again, I would fall into the story (which worked!). It wasn’t that I didn’t like the writing, because it has always been great. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like the characters, because I’ve always liked Motega and Neenahwi and their friends, but it just seemed like they weren’t doing anything all that exciting for a while. Once half of the party travelled to Ajiwiak, though, it got quite interesting though, and from that point I had no problem reading it for hours at a time. Well past my bedtime.

The people of Ajiwiak were interesting, as they are a little more technologically advanced than the rest of the natives of Alfaria, and have things like ships that travel over land and advanced farming techniques. They have an interesting culture centered around the great tree at the peak of their mountain home (which is also called Ajiwiak, just as their city is). The party makes a few friends here, and I really hope that some of these characters remain with Mareth and company, because I latched right onto them.

All told, while it had a slow start, I quite enjoyed Ajiwiak and found it hard to put down in the end. It jostled my feels a few times, and made me care for its characters, even the new ones. I’m excited to see where the story heads from here!

superstardrifter.com

[Travis Riddle · Rating 5 out of 5]

With each book the scope widens and the stakes rise, but Woolliscroft never loses his tight grip on the complex plot or his laser focus on these rich characters. Every element is given its due with mastery while never sacrificing the fun.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great entry into Woolliscroft's Wildfire Cycle!
Kingshold had the peculiar effect of being way more interesting retrospectively than it was at the time. It was a fun fantasy adventure, but I found I liked it much more weeks after finishing it, as the ideas continued to percolate with me, and I think Woolliscroft's clever approach of weaving collections of short stories between the main entries in his series has dramatically broadened the fantasy world he offers. The short story collections majorly impacted my appreciation of the 'third' volume, and so if you've been skipping them to get to the meat of the action, I encourage you to go back and give them a read. While they're not strictly necessary to understand the plot, I think that Ajiwiak would have been a lot less exciting of a read without having perused all the interstitial material from those collections.

Ajiwiak continues the gradual ramping of tensions and breadth of conflict. While Kingshold was mostly about the one kingdom (and really mostly the one city within that one kingdom), and Ioth expanded to international and religious politics, in Ajiwiak things grow into spiritual and cosmological levels. The spiritual aspects parallel nicely with the themes of colonialism, particularly with split perspectives offered from both the locals and their invaders.

Ajiwiak was a magnetic story, pulling me back in with new questions and new twists. New magic, new monsters, and new layers built atop Woolliscroft's already inventive world.

[Kellyanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been looking forward to the release of this book and it certainly didn't disapoint!
Wonderfully descriptive with likable colourful characters.
I find it hard to find good fantasy authors since I have read most of the greats, so it's refreshing to find Mr Woolliscroft and an added bonus that he is from the UK too 😀