Name: Amie ONeill's review of Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Item: Son of the Storm
Rating: 4
Author: Amie ONeill

Suyi Davies Okungbowa

"In the thriving city of Bassa, Danso is a clever but disillusioned scholar who longs for a life beyond the rigid family and political obligations expected of the city's elite. A way out presents itself when Lilong, a skin-changing warrior, shows up wounded in his barn. She comes from the Nameless Islands- which, according to Bassa lore, don't exist- and neither should the mythical magic of ibor she wields. Now swept into a conspiracy far beyond his understanding, Danso and Lilong will set out on a journey that reveals histories violently suppressed and magic only found in lore"--

Son of the Storm

Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa begins a thrilling new epic fantasy series of violent conquest, buried histories and forbidden magic. In the city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness-only he doesn't want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city's immigrants are sworn to secrecy. But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn't exist, he's put on a collision course with Bassa's darkest secrets. Drawn into the city's hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. But the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire. 'Everything I love to see in a fantasy story: masterful, fully-realised worldbuilding, morally complex characters, thoughtful and piercing interrogations of power, privilege, and all the facets of human nature. Damn good stuff!' - Jenn Lyons 'A mesmerising coming of age tale set against a thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces and beguiling new world . . . and then rips apart everything you think you know' - S. A. Chakraborty 'An elaborately plotted tale of ancient magics and world-shattering politics. I, like many others, will be impatiently waiting for the next instalment!' - Andrea Stewart 'One of the most promising new voices in the growing coterie of African SFF writers' - Wired

Sophia 

prawnie

Amie ONeill

My main thoughts while reading this book were;
I’m really enjoying this 
The world building has been done really well and nothing feels like information being dumped at me
The writing is immaculate 
The characters are well written 
The plot was low to start but when it did got me! 

Overall an enjoyable experience but you can tell this is the first book in a series as at some points it feels like a lot of setup.

Monae Reads

Great debut, promising future and room to growth. The characters and the world was very well fleshed out. The author must have dedicated much time and effort into the historical research. Even in a fantasy world I can see the real world historical inspirations. I will definitely be recommending this book/series when speaking around African/Black inspired fantasy stories. I haven’t seen a world this well represented since Children of Blood & Bone and Rage of Dragons. There’s always room for more additions in this category and I’m happy to add Son of the Storm to them. While I feel like the pacing was a little off and things weren’t revealed at the most impactful moments, I think this author has great writing skill and I will FOR SURE be continuing with the series. Have much hope for the sequel!

Jennifer

I seem to have a pretty good track record with diverse fantasy books this year. In addition to the intricate worldbuilding and elements of non-Western mythology / folklores, I have discovered that I really enjoy reading about the more complex issues in these books through the lens of the characters: the political intrigue, the societal structure and their issues, as well as various journeys of self-actualisation.

Suyi Davies Okungbowa's Son of the Storm is one of such recent fantasy releases that I end up loving. It has both the elements I usually enjoy in fantasy books as well as the more nuanced perspectives offered in many recent diverse reads that I've discovered in the past few years. 

Told from the lens of multiple characters and incorporating clever twists to the familiar fantasy tropes, Son of the Storm is an adventurous story about realising your potentials and discovering where you belong.


  

  "In fact, she liked Danso a lot. He was intelligent, perhaps the most scholarly man in Bassa if he opened himself up to the possibility."
  



One way Son of the Storm broke the usual epic fantasy mould is through the way characters are portrayed from different perspectives. Multiple perspectives can take quite a bit to get used to, but I think Okungbowa made an intentional choice of incorporating multiple character narratives in this novel. I think the characters are well fleshed out through the different vantage points. And I was often surprised by thier realisations, particularly on Esheme's view on Danso (and how that drastically changed over the course of the novel).

If there are two characters that really gave me an impression, they are Danso and Lilong. I'm personally most invested in their narratives and I really enjoyed reading about how they make sense of the world they are in. From how the support characters see Danso, I really liked how complex and morally ambiguous he is, personality-wise. While it seems that Danso is the protagonist and The Chosen One in the beginning, I was caught off guard by the surprising plot twists that happened throughout the course of the novel. And yet it's through these unexpected turns of events that I get to understand his motives more throughly. 

Likewise, I found Lilong's narrative emotionally engaging especially when her life collided with Danso's as they make their way outside of Bassa. Lilong's understanding of the things happening in the greater Oon (i.e. beyond Bassa) is a big catalyst for Danso's character arc. On how it shattered everything that Danso had once believed to be true. And yet through their journey, there's a sense of affinity and partnership. Both Danso and Lilong lived with a sense that they don't exactly belong in a place, but it's also through this journey that they start to realise their potentials & what they're capable of.


  

  "To leave this forest alive, we must move intentionally."
  



Having a well established worldbuilding is a bare necessity for fantasy series, but the amazing thing with Son of the Storm is that the worldbuilding details parallel the actual events that's going on in the book. For example the political tension in the book is well described by the way Lilong described keeping the forest in Oon alive. I quite like the symbolism of the forest here, on how belief systems are like forests: they are not static but are subject to change over time, which means we also need to be able to consciously adapt to these social changes.


  

  "Truth, truth, truth. Everybody thinks they want the truth until the truth is staring them in the face. Just look at how your own people reacted to the sudden truth of my existence."
  



By connecting the worldbuilding details and the magic system closely with the plots, Okungbowa also enhanced the overarching messaging about truth, freedom, and belonging. For example, Lilong's quote about truth is particularly impressive and remarkable. It really highlights the way people with and in power (e.g. the Bassans in the novel), could spend all these time feeding living in a big lie and in denial until the cold hard truth reveals itself. 


  

  "Maybe that path to freedom has already arrived, have you thought of that? Maybe we must protect these young ones and grant them safe passage today so they can become the ones who enact the change we seek. Maybe that is our duty before we go on our final journeys to the skies."
  



Other prominent themes touched upon are about the notion of freedom and belonging. If there are themes that really had Danso confronting his belief system, it's these two. I think Danso's character arc is really well done through how he confronted his own beliefs throughout the novel. I don't want to give away too many details but his realisations and decisions are nothing short of surprises!

Finally, I also want to take note of the overall structuring of Son of the Storm. I think the way Okungbowa sectioned them by the locations in Oon is also an intentional choice. I interprated the sections as the scope of the world that Danso comes in terms of understanding: he started from being in the Bassan bubble and their ideals to realising that this isolated bubble paints a very incomplete picture of the kingdom as a whole.

Overall, I really enjoy this novel. Though I believe there are a few things to be aware of. The most obvious being the dense writing. The worldbuilding takes some time for me to familiarise so I initially found the beginning to be a bit slow, though my concern with the sluggish pacing is soon gone when I start getting surprised by the twists and turns! I also think this is one of those books that benefits with a few re-reads. There are a lot going on (particularly through multiple perspectives), some of which only clicked together at the very end. But other than that, this is a very well written novel. Complex, multifaceted, and also surprising at times.

My reading experience in a nutshell: Son of the Storm is an intriguing African-inspired fantasy that colours outside of the box. Underneath the dense worldbuilding, the character revelations are bound to surprise you from the beginning to the end. It's an excellent opening novel for The Nameless Republic series and I'm very excited to find out what happens next! Highly recommended to anyone who's looking for a non-Western inspired fantasy book written in a multifaceted fashion :D

N.B. This book contains following content warnings: violence, death / loss of loved ones, racial discrimination, blood mention

(4.5 stars out of 5)

Shaping up to become an African Wheel of Time?

(Very strong 4 stars)

This novel revolves mainly around two characters who start out engaged (but there is no romance in here at all) and end up on opposite sides of a larger conflict: Damso is a young head-in-the-clouds scholar who's not very practical or worldly. Combined with his great curiosity and innocent unorthodox thinking, this gets him into a lot of trouble. His fiance Esheme is a very ruthless woman who's chosen him because she thought he'd be easy to manipulate. This coldness may make you think it would be hard to be very interested in her story arc but that's not the case at all: she unexpectedly becomes the head of her house - and the immediate target of various people who want to destroy that house, or who want to take advantage of her perceived weakness and inexperience. Watching her deft weaving of plans to extricate herself and others from all kinds of dangers and come out on top is really fascinating. Damso ends up on the run with two more or less willing companions by his side who also become important characters, all of them journeying through the legendary Breathing Forest - a jungle filled with magical predators. He finally discovers some of the truth he's been searching for all his life, and slowly realizes how much is at stake. 

The first quarter of this novel went by pretty slowly for me: very descriptive, a lot of exposition and world-building, without much emotional engagement, and I wasn't very familiar with Nigerian English and had to look up some words. But then! As soon as this book takes off, it really grows wings and you realize that just like with Robert Jordan, the descriptiveness is worth it: since most of the book's central issues are societal, one does need to really understand the way this society works and is set up first. And what a gorgeous world it describes: a large, colorful city with a very complex social structure and various factions, a cool and unusual magic system that demands a high price for power, jungles, savannahs, impassable oceans (due to two moons wreaking havoc on the tides) and an incredibly cool undead animal companion. 

The political intrigue is fascinating and very smart, the action exhilarating (although sometimes frustratingly interrupted by a cliffhanger followed by a different POV), the mysterious world and its past are revealed in clever ways, and the book does a great job making you care about this world's future welfare (not just that of the POV characters). 

Small weaknesses: takes a bit long to introduce you to the world and describing everything, some dialogues feel a bit contrived, some things are spelled out a bit too obviously instead of trusting the reader to come to the right conclusions by themselves. I also didn't connect with the characters very strongly on an emotional level because they didn't seem very loving themselves: I always find myself much more engaged when a character cares deeply.

But each of the many characters acts in believable ways that make sense for them, different perspectives on the same things are shown and you understand even the antagonists completely, which gives the story a lot of nuance. The world-building feels very solid and considered, and the overall conflicts and dilemmas are tricky and make you wonder what you would do or how they can possibly be solved. 

I have no doubt I'll be reading book 2 as soon as it comes out. My wish for book 2 would be for a tiny bit more humor and banter - there was a trace of this here already and I'd love it if there was more. And a bit less "spelling everything out to make it really clear" (although I understand that this does make it more accessible). And more of those awesome magical creatures, please!

P.S. editing this to clarify that what reminded me of Robert Jordan was not so much the content, since the story is different, but more the very intricate world-building and descriptive writing style that helps readers picture this interesting world very vividly.

Lauren James

Full review on my blog, Storied Adventures!

Really fun read! It gripped me in the beginning and the end was crazy but the middle was a bit slow. Nothing too crazy happened until about 50% of the way through. 

Danso- a sweet scholar type hero
Lilong- the fierce heroine
Esheme- terrifying. It's been awhile since a villain has scared me.

The magic has heavy consequences
There is political intrigue 
Cool fight scenes
Crazy creatures
And a crazy good cliff hanger!

Can't wait for book 2!

C. D’Orsay 

Deborah Kerr

From one of the most exciting new storytellers in epic fantasy, Son of the Storm is a sweeping tale of violent conquest and forgotten magic set in a world inspired by the pre-colonial empires of West Africa. "Everything I love in a fantasy novel. Damn good stuff!" —Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings In the ancient. city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy. But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire. Praise for Son of the Storm: "With an intricate and irresistible plot, Okungbowa weaves a vibrant tale of betrayal, intrigue, and revolution.” Anthony Ryan, author of Blood Song "A thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces a beguiling new world . . . and then rips apart everything you think you know." —S. A. Chakraborty, author of The City of Brass The Nameless Republic Son of the Storm

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