The Umbral Storm by Alec Hutson

 Synopsis:

A thousand years ago the Heart of the World was shattered, its fragments scattered across the lands.

In the chaos that followed, martial orders arose to gather the shards, for it was found that great powers were granted when these pieces were bonded to the flesh of the chosen. These are the Sharded Few, warriors imbued with the divine energies that once coursed through the Heart, driven to absorb enough fragments to claim godhood.

Deryn has known nothing in his life except suffering. Orphaned at the edge of the realms, indentured to a cruel slaver, he has little hope of escaping his circumstances. But elsewhere, ancient powers are stirring, new alliances threaten the peace of the old order, and against all odds, Deryn will find himself a player in a game unlike anything he could have imagined

  • Check out Rachels instagram post/review here

    Umbral Storm by Alec Hutson

    The premise of this book had me so excited however I did not end up loving this book which is a sad day for me. But I feel classic fantasy lovers will enjoy this one more than me.

    So what worked for me?

    Writing: The writing is accessible and fast paced. People who are new to high fantasy or moving to adult fantasy will probably enjoy the writing.

    Plot: There are several elements and themes that I enjoyed including a magic school and progression elements.

    What did not work for me?

    Worldbuilding: While there were interesting and unique elements of the world I wanted the worldbuilding to be more grounded in the world. There were several times where I was asking myself why does xyz matter in this world.

    Characters: There are two POV but I had a hard time telling them apart or remembering which POV the chapter was in during the novel. I wanted to see more depth and different voices to the characters.

    Similar Media?

    I had a similar feeling to this book as I had when reading Dragon Mage by M.L. Spencer. Both have classic fantasy vibes and have a dual POV.

    Score: 5/10

    Character: 5

    Plot: 6

    World-Building: 3

    Writing: 6

    Enjoyment: 5

  • Even though it had its tropes, I enjoyed this so much! I loved the characters, world and plot. Very excited for the sequel. 4.5 stars and rounding it up to 5 stars.

    I read this for SPFBO (Cassidy's version). Watch my reading vlog with more thoughts here:

    https://youtu.be/R6cVYShxAow

  • Wow, this was so much fun. This book was SO fast paced, and yet, the author did a great job at making each twist and turn make sense. Because wow wow wow did this plot have so many twists and turns. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, turning the pages as fast as I could to find out what was going on!!

    We have epic and terrifying encounters with disgusting giant bugs, sky crabs, and shadow monsters. We have satisfying character development with strong themes of friendship and found family. We have cool and interesting school and training scenes for a fairly hard magic system. This magic system was SO COOL too. I loved learning about the shards and talents! And I can’t say too much, but there is a certain companion in here that is one of my favorite companions in any fantasy series!! I NEED to know more.

    I do have some criticisms, but ultimately these criticisms did not affect my enjoyment. Because I rate off of enjoyment, this book gets a SOLID five stars. But, I did notice some clunky writing in both dialogue and description. There were moments where it felt like the author didn’t fully trust the audience, and had to explicitly mention that 1+1=2, instead of just saying 1+1 and letting us figure out that that equals 2. But, this was not a constant issue, just something that I noticed from time to time. I also think that due to the extremely fast pacing, a couple side characters in the beginning stages of the book were not well developed and felt like plot conveniences, not real characters. This issue did get much, much better as the story progressed, and I ended up with quite a few side characters that I am really interested in. BUT TO BE CLEAR, even with these criticisms, I still LOVED the book and highly recommend it to fantasy readers.

    Overall, I had a fantastic time with this book and I can’t wait to continue on in the series. I’m also excited to check out this author’s other books.https://youtu.be/tkH5ov_5JdA

  • I had a really fun time with this one!

    It has a cool magic system, where you level up powers with every shard you get. Which led to cool conversations on what makes some one powerful!

    We do follow a lot of tropes and archetypes you'd expect in fantasy, but I found that there were so many unique elements in this story that added to it.

    I loved the world building and the small genre blend of sci-fi and horror brought to this book.

    It had lovable characters and a magic system that worked for me.

    Keeping it from a five star, the although lovable the characters were hard to distinguish from each other st times. Although I enjoyed the world there is a LOT of stuff going on and things to learn. I felt like maybe a little too much was done. And at times the dialogue wasn't as smooth as I wanted.

    But I really enjoyed this and can't wait for book two!

    If you want more in-depth thoughts. I read this in my SPFBO 8 finalist reading vlog

    https://youtu.be/ahEh6DSSDQM

  • THE UMBRAL STORM by Alec Hutson is the first book in the author’s The Sharded Few series. It is set in a world where the Heart of the World was shattered years ago and the shards scattered. In the present, those who find these shards and bond with them are given great power in different forms. These shards are a limited commodity and their use is closely monitored and controlled by those in power.⁠

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    Deryn is a young man who has been signed over as an indentured servant, doing the dangerous work of hunting and killing tree crabs so that the rich can eat the delicacy. Heth is the son of the man to whom Deryn is indentured, being raised to take control. Alia is a young woman who has lived out in the world with a very different background.⁠

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    This is a tough book to summarize because the plot really takes a lot of different turns very quickly changing our main POV characters’ lives and situations in addition to changing the setting and the knowledge of the world. Even as things change quickly I really though the author did fairly well at keeping the reader up with all that is going on.⁠

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    The world building for this book was by far my favorite part and I think the author did an amazing job of building a unique and instantly intriguing world. I loved getting glimpses of the different creatures that inhabit this world and how the characters interact with them. This starts out strong from the very first chapters and really provides a good hook into the story.⁠

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    The magic system was another strong point for me with this novel. Learning about the origins of the shards and the way that they manifest different abilities in different characters was always interesting. ⁠

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    I really enjoyed this book overall and had a lot of fun reading it. I am very much looking forward to continuing this series when a sequel comes available and will definitely be picking up more from this author!⁠

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn93ulZpEJN/

  • I ended up really enjoying this one! It is doing a lot, but the world was super intriguing and the magic very cool. I did struggle a little with the dialogue, especially in the beginning, but felt that got better as we went. I'm hoping for a lot more character development in the future books especially from some of our main characters. The princess was by far the most fleshed out.

    Perk: shadow companions!

    https://youtu.be/VhDGy1jXbH4

  • https://youtu.be/hZV6fV0jQlk