An Ocean of Others (Dance of the Sibling Suns Book 1)

I went into this book expecting a quality, enjoyable read and it didn’t disappoint.I'd been attracted by its brilliant cover and intriguing premise and then sampled the first chapter, which provided a compelling opening.I’ve read books based on or inspired by role-playing settings and campaigns before and they can be hit and miss for me.However, with the reassurance of that first chapter, I was more than happy to roll the dice and fully dive into An Ocean Of Others.I enjoy bounty hunters in stories and the main character certainly paid off for me. With a name like Grim, I knew he was likely to be morally grey and that I was likely to be in for a dark ride. I hadn’t appreciated how dark - indeed, horrific - it would be. Not that I’m complaining. It was a superb mash-up of genres, very cleverly executed by the author.Grim’s story is told in a past tense, first person perspective, which had me really invested in the character. I felt his emotions and shared his confusion as he tried to piece the puzzles together, which I particularly enjoyed as I love intrigue and trying to solve mysteries.Although I enjoyed Grim’s character, the rest of the cast didn’t feel as fully fleshed out, which is a pity as the motley crew aspect of the book worked well in terms of the diversity, banter and squabbling. It’s just that none of the other characters felt as rounded as Grim and we only get a two-dimensional feel for them.I think it’s very much a plot-driven rather than character-driven story, which isn’t my particular preference. I like to get under the skin of side characters, so that I can feel emotionally involved.They were all interesting and the inter-actions were fun but I’d have been more invested if I felt I knew them better and cared about them more.Of the many plus points, the book is action-packed, with very good pacing. There is a repetitive element to the episodic quests, but they’re full of exciting combat and tension, and there is a purpose to each of them.I particularly enjoyed this dangling carrot aspect of working through the challenges and obstacles to gradually unveil the layers of mystery.That mystery is intriguing, the action scenes are fantastic, and the setting of Liwokin and its surroundings is interesting and well evoked.Edwards’ prose is accessible, making for a reading experience in which the pages fly by, but with a healthy sprinkling of some really neat lines which I really appreciate in an accomplished writer.All in all, it’s a fun, enjoyable romp which also delves into some dark places and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in book 2.

I want start by saying that I was drawn to this book by its eye catching cover, and the blurb piqued my interest further.I would describe the book as dark fantasy, but placing any genre constraints would be unfair for a book that delivers so much more that its cover and blurb hint at.The story had me hooked within the first couple of chapters. The world building is subtly done, with just enough information to get to know what kind of world we are in. I never felt overloaded with big info dumps. The author puts you straight into the action and the landscape with great skill.Early on in the story there is mention of flintlock weapons, but these are only alluded to, and are not the main weapons of choice in the story. There's also mention of steam and coal, and use of metal in structural engineering.The world is harsh and grim, it is going through a revolution of sorts. The City of Liweko is recovering from a riot, where the cause remains unknown. This riot saw the emergence of the Agency, which now battles a new threat. You get the feel of a society on the cusp of change, but teetering on the edge of chaos if not for the Agency.The political landscape could be described as dystopian, with some Orwellian overtones, which I absolutely loved.The Agency is intriguing and its hierarchy and designations are brilliantly named after body parts.These naming conventions are just inspired and work so well.There is also magic in this world with mages who weild archefire and archedark magic. The magic is secondary to the main plot, which revolves around the conspiracy linked to the Agency and the monsters they are fighting.We are thrown straight into the action and the mystery with our main character, Grim, the last bounty hunter in the city, who is best described as a reluctant antihero. He decides to join the Agency to make ends meet, and to seek answers to a conspiracy that presented itself on his last job, which involves the head of the Agency.Grim is thrown together with 4 others in Hand 64, from all corners of the Bright Empire. We have a snarky ranger, a former paladin Knight and his sister, and skardwarf (who is literally made from rock). Also, there's Grim's friend, who is a mage.This unlikely group of strangers are thrown together and tested in battle against unbelievable monsters who can project images and memories into the minds of others.This important element of the book (which I don't want to spoil by giving too much detail here) with the illusions and memories is brilliantly done. The author manages to make you experience the same confusion as the characters.The banter and humour among the group is believable and helps the story move along at a great pace, and also lightens the mood when faced with horrific monsters and images.The found friendships are developed well throughout the story.The pacing is superb, and there's never a dull moment between the characters and the mystery is maintained, and answers are revealed only to reveal more questions.I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The world building hints at a much larger world to explore, with interesting races and cultures. I'm excited to see where Grim's path takes us in the next book. This is definitely a series I will be continuing with, and an author to keep an eye on.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.I've been interested in An Oceans of Others since I first saw it. The cover is cool, the premise and marketing sounded really interesting, and I’ve been hearing good things about it on Twitter. I also love dnd, so I was curious how a book based off of a campaign would read!Before I launch into it, I like to preface my reviews by noting I am a very picky reader. I have very particular preferences, and am often bothered by things that other readers don’t notice or care about, so take my critiques with a grain of salt!That being said, let’s jump into it. First things first, there is some really cool world building in this book! Not everything lands but the things that do land are fantastic. The description of how different auras work is really cool, and I enjoyed the story’s use of terminology. The whole comparison of the Agency to parts of the body worked really well (heels being lower grunts who do all the busy work, a hand consisting of five fingers, etc.) and other concepts/terms like archefire and the lightmother and darkfather etc. were well integrated. It gave the world more of a lived in feeling, which I always appreciate!The story is interesting, if a touch disjointed. There was definitely an episodic nature to the events in the story, and while some sections did a great job of setting the stakes and developing the world/plot, others didn’t seem to add much to the story. But overall, there is a lot to hold the reader’s attention!It’s also worth noting that the book’s opening paragraph is excellent. The intrigue and mystery of the riot is so compelling, and it immediately captured my interest. Although I really wish we had leaned more into that mystery and had the riot as a more central part of the storyline. It was the element I was most interested in, but it didn’t play much of a role in the story, and in the end, the explanation was treated almost as an afterthought. You could actually remove the riot from the book entirely and just give Grim a different motivation to join the agency, and with a few tweaks, it wouldn't change the story at all.Aside from that, I think my main issue with this book was concerning its general execution. While the world-building and most of the individual events were interesting, it felt like there was a lack of logical consistency in how events unfolded and world-building pieces fit together, with many of the elements coming across as a bit inconsistent or illogical. There were a number of times I didn’t quite follow the cause and effect in the story, or didn’t buy the way characters acted/reacted in various circumstances. This might just be my own sensibilities, but it often seemed that other outcomes would be more natural, or other courses of action more sensible than the ones taken.Some of this might have been a result of information not being clearly communicated, as I often felt like I was either misunderstanding what was being said or missing something. In particular, there are some scenes where the POV switches perspectives, and while the reason for this is very cool, I did have trouble tracking whose head I was in. (That one is more of a me problem than a book problem though!) It's also possible that some of the issues I had were a result of adapting a dnd campaign, which uses a very different narrative logic and style than a novel. Things like the characters spending hours looking for where they need to go in the agency could easily be the result of a failed perception/investigation check in a dnd game, but in a book it felt out of place, especially since the head of the agency was waiting to speak with them, and it seemed a bit bizarre that an agency touted for being highly efficient would be so poorly organized.As for the characters, they fell a bit flat for me. Most of them don’t development as much as I would like and can be boiled down to one or two character traits. They are totally fine on a surface level and most have a good moment or two in the book, I just didn’t feel that invested in them. There also seemed to be a lack of complex/interesting dynamics within the group, which was a shame. Like there was some chemistry between them as the book progresses, but there aren’t many deeper interactions or dynamics between characters.Surprisingly, I found Sentyx to be the most interesting character of the bunch. It would have been easy for him to come across as one-dimensional, so I was really pleased the story gave him some nuance and depth. In particular, I like that there are some solid interactions between him and Grim, and that we get to see how Grim’s opinion of Skardwarves evolves as his understanding of Sentyx grows.Overall, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the story, it just lacked the kind of cohesion and depth that could have raised it to the next level. That being said, the book absolutely succeeds on the level of being a fun and interesting fantasy adventure romp. The opening set-up is intriguing, the premise is really cool, the characters work well enough, and when the world building lands, it is awesome. There is plenty to keep a reader’s attention, and I am not at all surprised that so many people have really enjoyed it!Despite my somewhat mixed feelings, I am still curious to see how the story unfolds in the sequels, and I think the author has a lot of talent that will only get better with time! Definitely worth checking out if you are interested in the premise.

I went into this book without knowing much about it and I was pleasantly surprised by what I read. I was expecting a more typical dark fantasy novel but instead I got dark fantasy with horror and mystery elements. If those appeal to you than I definitely recommend giving this book a read.Grim is a bounty hunter turned accidental monster slayer. He doesn't really know what he's getting himself into when he becomes a member of the Agency. The Agency has taken over much of the work he used to do as a bounty hunter and he can no longer earn enough to live. When he finds evidence of a conspiracy against the head of the Agency, he decides to join it as a way to bring this evidence to the leader and earn favor. However, he is soon thrown into a hidden world and a conspiracy far larger than he imagined. He is assigned to a team of five and sent out on various dangerous missions.It was on the first of these missions that the horror elements of this book first come into play. I was not expecting this at all and it took me by surprise but it was very well done. It is mostly psychological horror, since the monsters they are hunting influence the perception of people around them. Grim and his companions don't even know what they are heading into the first time and have to work it out themselves, which the author writes in an unsettling way that kept me glued to the page.The pacing of this novel was excellent. It is a fast paced novel and we are thrown into the action from the beginning. Between fights the banter between the characters helps keep things interesting and fun. The novel is also told in first person, which can be hit or miss but I think the author did a great job. First person was absolutely the correct choice for this book, the psychological aspects to the horror and the toll that takes on Grim is explored brilliantly through the first person narration. Our characters are often confused and unsure if what they are seeing is real, and getting that viewpoint from Grim instead of a third person narrator makes the unease all the more potent.One criticism I did have was about the side characters. While I did like them quite a bit and the group dynamic, they often feel very one note, more like an archetype than a character. They each have a personality trait that defines them and we get that trait displayed over and over. There are occasional changes but they can feel abrupt and not entirely genuine to me because I didn't feel the change was earned.My other minor criticism is concerning the Riot. There was a riot that recently took over the city and killed a tremendous amount of people. It is built up a lot in the beginning of the novel as a driving motivator for Grim, he is searching for the cause of the Riot while everyone else seems complacent about it, which only angers him more. After the beginning of the novel though, mention of the Riot mostly seems to fade away. I kept waiting for the mystery of the story to connect to the Riot and it never did. Since this is the first book of the series I would be fine if I felt like the Riot was a larger mystery that would be addressed over several books but it just seemed to fade away and I never got the sense that it would be addressed later, though it very well might be.That being said I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a fun adventure and creepy at times, with just the right amount of horror to make me feel uneasy without going over the top. The world building is also handled very well, hinting at a larger world outside of the main city that is the focus of the novel. The magic is intriguing, there seems to be both a light and dark side to the magic. The religious belief of the empire is that light magic is good and dark evil but one member of the group is a mage who shows that this is not true, they are complements to each other and a mage is more powerful when using both. I am very intrigued by this magic and I look forward to learning more about it as the series progresses.I highly recommend this book for fantasy readers looking for a book that doesn't conform to standard genre definitions. If you want something unique and outside the box, definitely give this one a try, I am very glad that I did.

An Ocean of Others has an interesting and varied setting. The city, and the nation, which is the backdrop to the main events has a clear social and political structure. Often the motivations of the protagonist, or the events in which he is involved, are the result of the social context in which he lives.The atmosphere in this novel is a cross between the comfort zone typical of the genre and some peculiar choices, above all aesthetic ones. Here you'll some of the epic fantasy chivalry that has been branded in our minds, but in certain moments it also recalls a frontier western and some of the typical vibes of any good tale of rebellion.In some moments the French Revolution seemed to me just around the corner.All of this is good and fair, but I got the impression that the "party of characters doing stuff around the world" was too much borrowed from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.Yes, the author explicitly mentions that this novel is the result of a storyline born in for that role-playing game, but for me it is a double-edged sword.I'm not convinced that the direction modern high fantasy literature is heading is still a good fit for that kind of approach.Each cast member has their own voice that is clear and distinct from the others.There are slang expressions, habits in the formulation of sentences and hints of internal dialogues (of the protagonist) that make the characterization effective.Grim is a believable character. Not a hero but not too close to certain peaks of the grayness typical of modern grimdark, he has a personal arc that is captivating enough to make us cheer for him.Sometimes I'd slap him.He deserves it.After an introductory part (about 20%) objectively difficult to follow from a worldbuilding point of view, the novel takes off towards a quest that has all the ups and downs you could wish for from a slightly dark high fantasy novel.The storytelling is ambitious without getting convoluted, there's just the right amount of action and a couple of really effective twists.Flowing beautifully, always clear, in some moments charged with a cutting irony and in others full of emotion: Edwards' prose is damn effective.Stylistically it already shows signs of a maturity worthy of attention. I can't wait to find out how it will evolve in the next volumes.Fresh, captivating and well written, An Ocean of Others is a promising debut. I will definitely be keeping an eye on Edwards' next work.You should too.

what a fantastic, fast-paced, intriguing and captivating debut! i could not stop reading.Loved the questing-aspect and how we got the informations with the MC along the way.Really likeable characters and the world-building was very good. there are hints on a greater world which I would love the author explore in the upcoming books.Overall I very much enjoyed this book!

4.5/5 Stars rounded to 5A genre blending debut at its finest. After sitting on my shelf for sometime, I finally opted to dive into An Ocean of Others and was pleasantly surprised to find a unique world with a balancing of both dark and fun tones throughout this conspiracy laden fantasy.Now, throughout this story we follow the last bounty hunter in Liwokin, Grim. After surviving the Great Riot which killed thousands and left survivors in chaos, Grim’s livelihood was challenged when the Agency formed giving order to the recovering city. When Grim happens upon a conspiracy targeting the Head of the Agency, he plans to use this information to fill his empty coin purse for good. Only things don’t go as planned and Grim finds himself in something much deadlier than anticipated forcing him to face the monsters in the dark.There are several aspects of this that I enjoyed but first and foremost is the cast of characters. Grim, the main character, is the POV we see this story through. Due to the circumstances of life his choices and morals are often at odds, giving his character work and arc intriguing depth. We also meet a variety of quirky side characters within a motley crew including paladins, mages, a ranger, and skardwarfs to name a few. My personal favourite was a skardwarf named Sentyx who I've no doubt will be a reader favourite among many. Each character has their own moment of depth and adds to the overarching plot, which I appreciated.There’s also plenty of fun banter adding a lighter tone to a dark story.Second, the blending of genres and tones was a delight. While I knew this would be a dark fantasy, I wasn’t expecting the fun tones and fast paced nature of the story. We get a combination of great action, along with darker moments and even wholesome scenes. As for the genres, there were elements of dark, classic fantasy, sci-fi, along with mystery, horror and thriller. These all blended together seamlessly within a unique world setting, intriguing magic system and gripping plot.Finally, the pacing and mystery were well done, leaving moments to breathe in between all the action, monsters, twists and character work allowing me to try and puzzle it out myself. With all of the foreshadowing along the way, and twists, the payoffs were incredibly satisfying.I also enjoyed the thought provoking explorations of what makes a monster, a good or bad person, and the meaning of loyalty and trust.All of these aspects made for a fun read that I didn’t want to put down. Best of all, while this has darker elements, the lighter moments and pacing made this a quick read. So while this looks deceptively chunky, at 489 pages, that didn’t stop me from binging it. It also reads well as a standalone, with potential for continuation as it’s book one in the Dance of the Sibling Suns series.It’s also worth noting that I immersion read the physical book along with the audiobook and the narrator Danny Gavigan gave a fantastic performance with multiple voices for the characters.So, if you enjoy a genre blended fantasy filled with monsters, a motley crew, conspiracy, fast pacing, an endearing main character, mystery and a unique world and magic system, this is your next read.