REVIEW: DREAD KNIGHT (THE KALLATION SAGA #4)

War and Faith...

I backed the Kickstarter for the whole first arc of The Kallatian Saga a while back and finally got around to finishing the fourth book. After the disappointment that was WIND AND TRUTH, I was really hoping the first arc of this series would fair far better. 

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 While I ran into some challenges when reading the fourth and final book in the first arc of THE KALLATIAN SAGA, it delivered a far more satisfying experience than the conclusion to the first arc of a certain other epic fantasy series. 

CHARACTERS

At it's core, THE KALLATIAN SAGA has always been something of a slow burn, character-focused story. Although the stakes have been raised for this final entry of the series' first arc, the overall feel of it holds true to what's come before. I was also very glad that Meredith resisted the urge to balloon the number of POV characters we follow. Ophedia is really the most notable addition to the list of main characters, but she's has such a big role in the story for so long that this progression felt perfectly natural. I found her chapters to be quite engaging and even though her arc is sort of isolated at the start of the book, it ends up weaving artfully into the other story threads. We also follow some pretty interesting characters in the Prologue and Interludes, but I don't want to spoil anything there. 

The rest of the cast is largely what you'd expect though I was surprised that Jined and Katiam had relatively diminished roles Their chapters/sections are still pivotal to the overarching plot, they just got markedly less page time than everyone else. The real stars of this one ended up being Hanen, Ralia, and Seriah. Considering where we left Hanen at the end of the previous book, I was certainly expecting and hoping for him to get some special attention at the close of this arc. I don't really want to give anything away when it comes to the dark path he started to head down at the end of GLOVES OF EONS, but I will say that I really enjoyed all the twists his narrative took and found myself deeply satisfied with how it all concluded. Ralia and Seriah's involvement in these events was also quite engaging with Seriah specifically having some gripping developments. Though they didn't really have any POV chapters to themselves, Dorian and (caville) had some really special moments which did justice to their respective side stories. Overall, I just think that this is how you properly juggling the perspectives of a large cast. Yes, there are still more characters than I can really keep track of, but the balancing and pacing of the different perspectives was quite masterful. 

PLOT/TONE

As one might expect with the conclusion to a main arc, the scale, scope, and intensity are all ramped up. It's difficult for me not to compare DREAD KNIGHT to WIND AND TRUTH, partly because those are really the only epic fantasy series I'm deep into at this point and partly because both books conclude the first arc of their respective series. To get the comparisons out of the way, I'll just say that I felt that this story did everything that I thought WIND AND TRUTH came up short on. First off, there's a definitive conclusion to the main plot threads we've been following. Yes, there are still some elements that are left open ended, such as Katiam's more mystical journey with Little Rose, but the sources of conflict which have been central to the series' ongoing plot are brought to a satisfying crescendo. Perhaps certain elements will return for an encore, but overall, this left me with the sense of closure that I wanted in the story beats that mattered most. It's hard to say a whole ton without getting into heavy spoiler territory, but things start off with a mysterious prologue and then transition into picking up pretty much right where the prior books left off. I appreciated that some of the more dramatic developments from that prior entry weren't simply waved away so that a new story can begin. Instead, the characters are forced to face the consequences of what happened and that initial conflict serves to catapult them each on their various personal adventures. I also felt glad that there was a lot more action than usual. While I certainly enjoy the quieter character moments and gradual world building too, there's a lot that's been brewing in the past four books, so it was wonderful to see the author take that seriously and deliver on the realization of those physical sources of conflict. There's also a nice variety of battle scenes from intimate duals to more sweeping battles and plenty of mid-sized skirmishes in between. These conflicts drive the characters to interesting new parts of the world and also delve a lot deeper into the more magical and mystical elements of it. 

SETTING/WORLD

One of the main draws for any epic fantasy series has to be the world in which it is set. Yes, the characters need to be people readers want to spend a ton of time with, and yes (for me at least) the plot needs to be compelling enough to pull readers through, but it is perhaps most essential that the fictional universe the author builds up is a place that a reader can immerse themselves in and feels both entirely believable but also delightfully fantastical. It's an extremely tall order, but also one that I feel this author has been able to fill. It helps greatly that there isn't really any info dumping to be found at any point in the series. We learn what we need to know when we need to know it, but there are also a ton of awesome callbacks in this entry to little moments or details that may not have initially seemed abundantly important in the previous books. While much about the world still remains a mystery, it's been such a joy to learn more and more about it with each new book. I was particularly impressed by just how many new elements were added here. We get to go to some really cool new places, both physical and surreal, which was partly to be expected, but still fun. The real surprise comes in the form of a brand new people being introduced into the fold. The series overall has done a great job with it's inclusion of non-human creatures so it was great to see a brand new one take the stage. I don't want to say more about them other than that I really enjoyed the way they "looked," the tidbits of information we get on their culture, and the way they ended up factoring into the book's main plot. I also continue to enjoy the way that religion and faith are portrayed in this series. It's like nothing I've ever seen in any other series and feels so true to life thanks to the nuance in how different characters interact with these aspects of the human experience. 

Rounding things out are the more supernatural elements of this world. There's a lot more time spent in the mysterious realm that acts sort of like a veil between the physical and spiritual dimensions. We find out a lot more about how this place works and what's possible there. It's certainly one of the more interesting surrealist locations I've seen in a fantasy setting, perhaps partly because of the layers of intrigue around it. Similarly shrouded in mystery is the pantheon of this world, which we get a lot more exposure to, but are still left with plenty more questions around. The various deities have a much more tangible presence in this entry and I have to wonder if that means that their roles will expand in the series' second arc. If so, I'm here for it because I've been loving the way they've influenced the story thus far and it's been a blast to learn more about them.

AUDIOBOOK & HARDCOVER

It's not often that I read the same book across different formats, but I happened to do just that for this one. This was, in part, because I backed the Kickstarter campaign for it and had access to both audio and visual options as a result. The other piece was that although Meredith's performance of his own work is as enjoyable as ever, I actually found myself struggling with the audiobook in ways that I hadn't with the previous installments in this series (all of which I've enjoyed as audiobooks). There are a couple of technical blips like certain lines getting cut strangely together or even certain phrases being repeated, but the real issue I had was that I felt as though I kept spacing out and missing sections of the story. This happened enough where I was getting genuinely frustrated and I wasn't sure if the problem was me or the book. At this point, I'd picked up the Hardcover and read a few chapters visually (I also did some "immersion reading" where I consumed both the print and audio together). What I found is that I'd missed nothing at all, there are simply perspective shifts that happen within a given chapter. While this is called out quite clearly in the print (and perhaps eBook) edition via some really nice weapon/item icons representing each main character, there isn't really any sort of corresponding queue that I noticed in the audio edition. Even once I'd realized that this was happening (I don't remember mid-chapter POV shifts happening in previous books), I still couldn't identify any noticeable indicators when I switched back to audio only. I think some longer pauses would have probably fixed this rather than the typical audio gap that you might hear between two paragraphs. For what it's worth, I'm glad I got to enjoy the physical edition. In addition to the character icons, the rest of the interior formatting is also quite nice. The fonts and formatting are all great and I loved how many map images we got. There is a full-scale image at the start of the book and some more localized views of specific regions that can be found at the start of each part of the story. The interior illustration at the front is also quite stunning and I think the dust jacket and cover look quite nice as well. One strange complaint I have is that the book construction itself was a little odd. The pages seem to be held together by some sort of glue spine which had a sort of split where the last 20% of the pages or so would sort of fold separately from the rest. I think this was a feature not a bug in that it seemed to be aimed at making the book open and close easier, but it still made the experience of holding the book kind of odd, especially as I read closer to that "crease." I will also note that my copies of the whole series arrived ever so slightly dinged/scuffed up which is hardly a big deal, but annoyed my none-the-less. 

CONCLUSION

I'm not super well read in the epic fantasy subgenre, but out of the series that I've read multiple books in, this one is by far the easiest to recommend. It does so many things that other series do not and it seems to understand the assignment of executing on the elements that it builds towards. THIS is how to conclude the first arc of a big fantasy series. I hope readers take notice of and other authors take note. 

(+) The fulfilment of Hanen and Ralia's arcs was brilliantly handled

(+) Ophedia getting her own chapters made a ton of sense and added a lot to the story

(+) Tons of exciting action sequences

(+) The representation of religion and faith continues to be one of this series' strongest points for me

(+) Mystical/magical/mythological elements are handled in such a unique and compelling way

(+) The world expands in some surprising and satisfying ways

(+) A definitive conclusion that leaves a few open threads to hint at what's next to come

( ) Certain characters like Jined or (priestess) had a lot less to do than other characters, though their roles were still quite compelling

(-) Some audio blips

(-) The lack of audio queues between mid-chapter POV shifts threw me off

(-) Odd book construction and some slight dings to my copy