Photo credits: Iforce (pixabay) Edited by Vaishali Title: A Time of Prophecy Series: Outlands Pentalogy Author: Rebecca Crunden Publisher: Self Published Year of Publication: 2021 ISBN-10: 1098601033 ISBN-13: 978-1098601034 Format: Paperback copy kindly provided by the author Genre/Themes: Dystopian Sci-fi, Rebellion, Post-apocalypse, LGBT R E V I E W... I'm not a fan of goodbyes. I characteristically assume cluelessness or resort to immediately burying my woes in the words and pages of another book. It's effective palliation for loving and leaving a series, the equivalent of staunching some sorrows with a first line of defense: another book. It feels like only yesterday that the author sent over the opening chapter to this pentalogy. When I made the time to read it, I quickly understood that I'd underestimated this cloak-and-dagger composition of conspiracy, which is why I make a point singing my sonorous praises so you curious readers don’t senselessly follow suit in the shoes of my foolhardiness. I had every intention and every desire to pick this up the next day, and the day after that and I think that's the best compliment I can give any body of work. This prophetic pentalogy is all kinds of engaging. To leave a world and its afflicted personalities behind is always a cause for bookish bereavement but I haven't maintained this feeling since early 2019. That's how long it's been since I nurtured a full-length saga of any kind. And here I am, not one to humour the final farewell, but facing the final dusk of a five-part healthy, stealthy series, fresh with fascination and infused with bleeding hearts and broken minds. As I take a final last breath for the Outlands saga, I tell you what a beautiful disaster it has been. This series has brought with it tormentors and tyrants. Ascendancy and power. Trauma, tribulation, taken freedoms, stolen freedoms and fought-for freedoms. Broken faith, layered sentiments and the age-old clash of adversarial conflict with some twists in the surviving woodwork. It's brought with it violation and viciousness, stolen rights and perverted order. It pivots its premise on baseless, undaunted hate passed on like pollution and worshiped like a legacy. The worst happens and the worst comes to pass. But this series has also escorted with it the strength of found friendships and good faith, of impromptu families, unapologetic characters and unpitying love. Of lofty odds with speculative principles to mull and muse upon. And perhaps most importantly, what can be achieved on the other side of species-wide fear when a Kingdom-wide partition is realised to be little more than cake and concrete. And it's this cast that find every reason to scale it. This last and final instalment sheds some skin and presents some answers but most of all, it provoked a succession of fond recall; of everything it took for the disaster cast to get here. How none of this would have come to fruition had an abused high-society son not disturbed the peace so many years ago. How two brothers kept each other alive through abuse, grief and distance. How the daughter of the most despicable antagonist sought a different path after facing the unknown a lot sooner than expected. The central cast are sons and daughters of monsters and oppressors so it plays with the idea of made paths rather than inheriting the darker make-up of those who gave them life. Choices aren’t biologically bequeathed and we all make our own. Despite Riddle, Engus and the remaining Radiants joining the adventure later into the series, they give appearance, visibility, humanity and honour to the species over the wall. This story is as much theirs as anyone else's. Especially when it's the Kingdom's vice and villainy that hauls their people back into the fight once more. And perhaps the pièce de résistance is how radically believable it all is; that this is exactly what frightens and enlightens with speculative fiction. For those who have read and kept up with the series, we could see it leading here. It all started in the Kingdom so it's in equal belief that its end must succeed where it began while using forgotten history, artifice and espionage to get there. No surprise then that our eclectic group of Outlanders find themselves back over the wall, facing a Kingdom that broke them to the bone. But they've also returned to a Kingdom home to riots, wreckage and commotion, all at the hand of a rebellion that would never once have reduced themselves to such extremes. Now that the rebels have marked their territory, and with a Provisional Government intact, half want justice for spreaders of the Plague as much as they want Kitty's death as payment. For Kitty, the past is still a poison but she has new choices relative to potential life and potential death, all while she continues to protect Nate with a secret. All while she decides what to do about an enemy she calls father. For Thom, there's a steadily burning brutality rinsing his bones, one that reaches a tipping point as all the hardship has his frame of mind collapsing in on itself. It was interesting to see him utilise the sleight of hand we've heard so much about, strategising over who he'll have to go far for to work the rebellion in his favour. Nate becomes absorbed by the consequences of confronting the choices he's made while facing some new lows. Out of all the characters however, and while Nate and Kitty remain my favourites, I stress that it's probably Thom who is the most brilliantly characterised. The characterisation is naturally complex and I’d chalk it up as one of the strongest features of this series. Wonderful for me since characters that rivet become the soul of the reading experience for me. The romance between Nate and Kitty has always been a brittle and breakable one, which was why I was keen to see how this book might strengthen the ties between them. I felt that they reconcile after A Dance of Lies perhaps too quickly, and that their partnership wasn’t quite infused with the romantic maturing I was hoping for come this last book. In simple terms, I would have liked to see some open lines of communication between them. I also wouldn’t have been averse to sharing more page time with my favourite couple. In terms of the developments for this closing chapter, I had assumed that Kitty's trial would bring with it some interesting findings. I also thought it might run with the style of a procedural while she's forced to stay within the Kingdom but it wrapped up incredibly swiftly for my liking. I was intrigued by Wolfgang’s character and imagined he'd build himself up as another body to beat but after the trial, he's nowhere to be seen again, despite that cryptic comment from Elara about him looking at Kitty like Lyra looked at Thom. The prophecy angle was nicely exploited, the author wiping the floor with cliche in the way she tackles that end as much as she delivers a culmination that doesn’t resort to a full-blown and frenetic war. And yet there's still a very open-ended resolution that doesn't feel the need to finalise every answer. All in all, very exciting and especially compulsive. Rebecca Crunden has a wonderfully unceremonious style of delivery which is a complement to the authenticity of the world imagined; whether that be imparting information, dropping new content or opening up newer developments, it’s done without calling the cavalry so to speak. It's a quality that I easily took to because it doesn't hyperbolise what doesn't need to be oversold while casting the light upon tough subject matter. It does, however, sometimes lend itself to inexplicit allusion, and I had to ask myself 'Wait, that happened?' or 'Did I missing something?'. Sometimes introduced to findings that I felt I was expected to know. In addition, I would have liked to see Radiant reactions to the Kingdom’s culture. It would have made for some fun interaction to see their nomadic people adjusting to a big, organised world structure. This saga of speculative fiction does what its genre bracket claims: makes one speculate. Could our own people survive centuries underground while fire and mutation ravaged the land above? Would we fight tooth and nail and attack with our own fear to harvest power? Even against other living lifeforms abandoned to the catastrophic elements above earth? What's also interesting with this series is that, for the most part, the central characters aren't a part of the active ‘take down the Kingdom’ movement. Their rebellion is more about removing themselves from the tyranny. They want a life fit for them and it's not in this Kingdom. It's in A Time of Prophecy when we see them temporarily join forces with Nate’s resistance group. I think we all have an ambivalent attitude towards any finale. We rush headlong for that end while, at the same time, hoping it never comes to fruition. If there's a silver lining to be had for being the slow reader that I am, it's that I really get to make the most of what I'm reading. The more time I give to a book, the more time I get to remains within that book. I'm going to miss being a bystander to this world and everything that happens within it but I'm over the moon that our central characters found a climax suitable to each of them. I'm making it a point to avoid excess with disclosure but I'm also making it a point to stress how delighted I've been to enter the ether and shadow the climate of this chronicle of catastrophe. It’s treacherous to resist eating this set of books up with abandon so I’d recommend eliminating the resistance altogether. Rebecca Crunden has devised a futurised world where humanity had once been forced to survive both above and below ground, all at their own hand, all of their own making. As the final curtain closes, nobody wants more blood between their fingers or grief in their hearts but while life is still in the veins of the remaining players, there’s a reckoning to be had, to punish the ones who punished them. The storytelling has been fresh without overwhelming complexity. The world-building has been layered with presage and the prose has moved with sober subtext. I’ve likely got a novel’s worth of quotes stored up from this series collectively and this compilation has filled my mind with bouts of love from start to finish, from beginning to end. The Complements to the end, Thom and Kitty, share the POV spotlight in A Time of Prophecy but Nate also gets to voice his part with a few perspective handovers. A Kingdom that doesn't want to confront its own immemorial iniquity and doesn't believe in its own error backdrops this world of demons and mutants, death and rebellion, law-benders, lawbreakers, war and mutation. The past can't broker it's absence, Kingdom conquests rule and Kingdom haters have nowhere to hide. There are no sensationalist schemes, just a cast of humans who have to face a five-book-long altercation with adversity that runs the gamut from boiling hate to burning horror to morbid misbelief of all that's within and all that's without. This indie-published series by Rebecca Crunden brings with a sterling set of titles that are fascinating, frightening and formidable. Five books down the hatch and I finally come up for air. One of my favourite movie icons would say ‘It ain’t over till it’s over’. Much to my umbrage here lies the end of my road but I’d like to believe it’s a bright start for any reader even remotely moved by the current of dystopian ethos. The brilliance is big and you can't not be moved by its pressing expanse. Crunden's Outlands sequence is a proud page-turner. I gave this book 4.25 stars - *A big thank you to the author for sending over a copy of this book in exchange for a review!* C O N T E N T W A R N I N G: Mentions executions and death. Talks about sexual assault and the rape of central characters. Death of children and sacrificing children. Disease, sickness and describes Plague victims. Violence. Panic attacks. Intent for suicide. Drinking/swearing. Anxiety, intrusive thoughts. OCD and PTSD. Mentions abortion and forced pregnancies. Mentions child abuse/child sexual abuse. Owning/enslaving humans. Underfed/malnourished bodies. --------------------------------------- M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read --------------------------------------- __________________________________________________________ R E L A T E D P O S T S: ● Book Review: A Touch of Death by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A History of Madness by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A Promise of Return by Rebecca Crunden ● Book Review: A Dance of Lies by Rebecca Crunden __________________________________________________________ E X T R A T H O U G H T S ( C O N T A I N S S P O I L E R S! ) 1) It is sometimes confusing to keep up with who is who in terms of the side characters introduced. 2) For the most part, the editing is good, but I have stumbled upon a number of spelling mistakes with the last two books especially. Nothing major but just something to point out. 3) I’m not sure if this is an error on my part but there were two scenes with continuity errors. Gao is said to be heading for the Wall when they’re at Blaise’s brother’s house (I think) but she’s also described to be there during the chase when the hovers come for them> Whether she remained for whatever reason isn’t really cleared up either. On another occasion, in the final scenes when the battle is happening, I’m sure Blaise was said to be at the prison with Kitty and Riddle, but then he’s also at the alternative setting aka the palace where Thom and Nate are. 4) In the review I sort of touch on the sometimes-vagueness of the storytelling. The prose doesn’t explicitly disclose what might be happening etc so I was really surprised when Nate recalls Archie’s attack from book as being an attempted rape on Kitty? As far as I remember, he attacked but not in a sexual way so I’m kind of confused about that. 5) Another thing I really love about this series is its philosophy of body rights and abortion rights. I also love the integration of childless couples and the discourse surrounding not wanting children. Being a parent isn’t for everyone and some characters make their refusal known. I don’t often see this kind of rep so more power to the author for it. A few other inclusive topics include racial diversity and same-sex couples themes that promote unrepentant/individualism beliefs. 6) Also, I would have loved for Nate's POV to claim a bigger part of the POV change. S O M E F A V O U R I T E Q U O T E S !! He let out a tremulous breath. 'Do you want to know what I admire about you?' She looked at him with a small smile. 'My staunch and unyielding stubbornness?' 'No, it's that I think even my demons are afraid of you, darling. Because God's wrath, they are not afraid if me.' 'The first official meeting of the Underground Club took place in a cobbler's shop in Anais,' he said, looking from face to face. 'It was once owned by my friend Jensen.' He exchanged looks with Marko before continuing. 'Jensen was executed for protesting the murder of children by the Private Police. And it was Jensen who, at that first meeting, told me something that became our motto: History is truth. Truth is freedom. Freedom is life. Words to live by, my friends. God's wrath - words to die by. But I'm sick of burying friends. Let's bury enemies for a change.' 'Just because not everyone's going to like it out here doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to choose.' 'An arrest that shouldn't have happened in a land with no laws. But it seemed there was no way to be truly free of the lives they'd left behind.' 'It was the only course of action any of us could see having a chance of working. And it did. The human weapon against our people is eradicated. You learned information that saved the lives of countless friends and innocent strangers. What you did worked. That doesn't mean you cannot scream at the stars over what was done to you.' Gao repeated his name. He liked the way it sounded when she said it, as if his name were the start of a song. As if his name were something beautiful. Could monsters have beautiful names? Of all those Thom had admired before, Riddle was the only one whose mere presence silenced his fears, his doubts, his insecurities. As if Riddle had unknowingly mastered the art of walking into his nightmares and killing his demons one by one. Thom pretended to think on it, but he couldn't stifle his smile. Reaching out, he ghosted his fingers across Riddle's jaw , and he let them linger over his lips. 'You know,' he mused, 'you're the one person I know who I don't have to be anyone around.' 'Do you prefer it?' 'I think it's a close to happiness as I can imagine.' 'Being no one?' 'Yes,' he said honestly. 'But I meant being with you.' Half of him prayed Charles would refuse, prayed this could all be mended as easily as he used to mend things. He remembered being good at fixing things. He'd been good at it once, hadn't he? He remembered lies leaving his lips like silk and finding their way into the right places. He remembered when he was charming enough, rich enough, handsome enough to fix all the ills in his life. But monsters weren't charming. Monsters couldn't fix anything. The only thing monsters were good at was killing. And he was very good at that. 'In my city,' he began, wiping his hands on his trousers, 'cuttans are as valuable as favours, as valuable as faith. Whether the game you're playing has a game of cuttans, of gold, of jewels, of favours - even of bodies - there's always someone to buy. And rich people buy more than most. Nothing is more appealing to a Council member than power over another. So, you let them think they have that power and then you get what you need. True power is knowing what everyone wants. Many want me. I've known that since I was a little boy. It's how I got so far. People talk when they think they have control over you. I've a decade's worth of secrets to exploit, given to me with no thought for the consequences by the most powerful figures in the Kingdom.' He let his mind wander, mental lists lengthening in his mind's eye. But plans were much easier in controllable situations. Wars and rebellions were impossible to control. 'What do you want to do?' She tilted her head to the side in thought, marvelling at the strangeness of the question. Did she even have any right to want to do something? She wasn't a ruler or politician. She wasn't even a rebel, really. She was just a runaway fugitive who'd learned how to shoot and fight back. Wonderful as that sounded, Kitty's chest shuddered as she voiced her next fears. 'How can I bring someone into this world when their parents have both been raped and tortured in it? When their uncle has been eaten alive and forced to murder innocents? When everyone they'll know has been scared or scarred in one way or another?' 'Yes,' said Riddle, 'and we're all still here. We're together. The world and its demons may try and drag us down, but we are proof that they can be fought and conquered, that goodness can follow ill. Evil things happen, Kitty, but should you have children, they will be brought into a new world. A world of halfbloods and new beginnings. A world of two kingdoms instead of one. And there is hope in that.' 'I was raised to believe in many things,' he said in perfect Cuttish, 'but the most frightening of all was the belief that beyond a pile of stones and metal lived a kingdom of demons and death. It is what I believed until one night, a little girl wandered across my brother's path. What I have come to learn in the last few years is that there is no difference between the people of the Outlands and the people of Cutta. We have all been attacked. We have all lost family. We have all been hated for senseless reasons. I do not want a war, but I want a future. A world where we can all live good, whole lives. Where there is no fear, no starvation, no war. And perhaps the best way for this to begin is to work together to ensure that in the process of stopping them, we so not become them.' 'I keep thinking about it,' she murmured. 'The Last War, the Kingdom, the Plague...If we don't do something, we'll never be safe. It won't matter how many walls are between us and them. At some point, they'll want to come over. At some point, they'll kill us just because they hate us.' If there was one thing Thom had learned a long time ago, it was that prisons could look like anything. Some looked like cells with nothing but white walls to stare at; some looked like camps or cliff-side buildings with pens and arenas; some looked like fighting rings or rich manor houses or small shacks in the middle of the forest; some were of your own making, others forced you there against your will, some were inside your own mind. And still others looked like a palace. 'You look good,' she offered. 'Better than you used to.' 'More freckles?' 'More freedom.' Thom leaned back, regarding him appreciatively. 'Is there a word in Radian for captain? I've always wanted to know.' 'Kefale. Although such words have long gone out of use. There are no captains in Joro nowadays. No kings. Thoms lips twitched. 'And yet you are my captain.' A look of pure, unadulterated love changed Riddle's normally stoic face into the most open and vulnerable of expressions. 'If I was to ever bow before a king,' he murmured, 'it would be only you.' 'May the armies of Crown and Council tremble,' said Thom with a small, somewhat hysterical laugh. I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers, bloggers and writers. Hearing about reader opinion is the fuel to my reader appetite, so get in touch and comment below! SHARE ON FACEBOOK L E A V E A C O M M E N T A N D L E T' S T A L K A B O U T |
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