Eleventh Cycle (1) (Mistland)

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It began with a novella about a young girl, not hoarded by a fierce dragon, but rather protected and raised by one. It felt like a very traditional fantasy story that has been done a million times that read like a generic Wheel of Time style book. There was so much potential in this, and I would certainly hope that this would be expanded on in future books, because it felt like the surface had barely been scratched and there were certainly a lot of questions. We first meet Dalila, a farmer girl with a mysterious ability that leads to conflict with her conservative family. Today I am sharing my review for Eleventh Cycle by Kian Ardalan, the first book in the Mistland series.

It’s especially rewarding to see how everything comes together in the latter part of the book, as many of the subtle connections become clear. The POV structure is perhaps a little strange as four are told in the first person, while the fifth is in the third person, however the reason for this makes sense and works well in the context of the story. And despite all that is expected, the Seed is just a child, incapable of understanding human emotions and making sense of this chaotic violent world. No one who has read this will pick it up a few years later and think, oh, I can’t quite remember what happened.There were some interesting powers, from the power to heal to the blood magic revealed later, and their magic certainly was the most interesting in what it might be capable of – and we didn’t get to see it. Or maybe akar (a race born from the end of the 6th cycle with large charcoal-hued bodies and monstrous strength), giant flying stingray (like in Demon's Souls), and so many more. Eleventh Cycle is rich with history and lore, and we haven’t even dissected all the details of it yet.

You might initially feel a little confused or overwhelmed with the character names, places, lore etc, and I think that’s kind of the point! It's going to be tough because there are multiple layers when it comes to the world-building/histroy and the backgrounds of these characters and how they evolve (some quite literally) throughout this story. There were chapter that had me gasping, some that almost made me cry and some that had me put the book down and just walk away for a bit.At least for the most part, there were some threads like the Forgotten that seemed to have a lot of potential at the beginning of the book, but then seemed to be lost in the rest of what was happening – now maybe it will have more focus in later books, but it felt as though it was being shown as something that was going to have more of an impact and it was a little disappointing to see that thread vanish. In one short scene, a character referred to another character's innocence as "endearing" three times. Ardalan builds deep connections to each of the four protagonists through their first-person narration.

From the foreword to the afterword, we are warned that this will not be an easy journey, that the story is one intended to twist and turn, and meander through the all the shades from brightest white to darkest black. There is layer upon layer to this world-building, and outside a few clunky bits of dialogue, there is no info dumping. I would have happily spent a lot more time with the Seed, and I wish that we had been able to see more from their POV particularly later in the book, where their path and the rest of the book converged, because it would have been fantastic to see that being written across the blank canvas that was the Seed, instead we saw fleeting moments and then the culmination – which felt a little lacking, because we hadn’t seen more of that learning curve. Ardalan, but seeing the cover art and hearing the main inspirations for Eleventh Cycle back then was more than enough to seal the deal.And in the center of all those stories, there is the Seed, the cause of the prophecies, the perspective that will be told from a third-person standpoint. Again, the weight of that and how it impacted her emotions and behaviour was really well done, and I was caught up in her struggle. It has powerful themes and narrative, masterful characterizations, beautifully vivid yet accessible prose, meticulous world-building with a plethora of mysteries, and tension-packed explosive action sequences as if they were penned by an artist with scarlet ink.