Warlords of Wyrdwood by RJ Barker

I would like to thank Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Orbit

Published – out now

Price – £22 hardback £12.99 Kindle ebook

You fear the forest.. It is not foolish.' His words rang like bells in the clearing, each face reacting to their din. 'But the forest does not hate you, it does not hunt you. It simply does not care about you.'

The Forester known as Cahan led the village of Harn in rebellion against the all-powerful, oppressive forces of the Rai. A great victory was won, but to avoid retaliation, he must now lead the people of Harn into the forest.

Cahan never wanted this responsibility, but fate and his gods have conspired against him. Without him, the people will be helpless against the great beasts and poisonous traps of the forest - not to mention worse things that dwell there. A corruption grows in the fungi and decay of the Wyrdwood, a magic unlike any Cahan has ever seen - can he resist its deadly pull, while avoiding his pursuers, and trying to turn his charges into true people of the Wyrdwood?

Warning – this is the sequel to the great Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker

The middle volume in a trilogy is often the bridge book. The books that get characters and plots from Book 1 to Book 2. They can be very plot heavy, and they can’t deliver the maximum payoff until Book 3. Its rarer when we get a book that changes what we expect from the first instalment makes us see characters and the world they’re in in a different light. In the engrossing Warlords of Wyrdwood by RJ Barker we get an ambitious challenging read that delivers a very very different kind of story to your average epic fantasy and yet the reward is a fascinating expansion of the world and cast we thought we were getting in the first book.

A recap of where we have got to. Cahan a reserved and grumpy farmer was hiding a secret from all those around him  he was actually once groomed for huge power. To be effectively a representative of one of the gods of Cruaa – the Cowl-Rai. But he ran never got that chance to be dark and powerful. That was not his life…until the magic wielding Rai found out he was alive and hunted him to kill him. Cahan and a impish monk named Udinny join up with the young but powerful Venn as they flee and events led them to the small town of Harn. There was a mighty battle and Cahan had to use the power of the Wyrdwood forest to stop an enemy army in their tracks. There was a huge cost. Cahan is drained of energy, Udinny is dead, and the villagers and small band are not lost in an ancient forest with pursuit about to begin.

In science fiction and fantasy there is a lot of debate on worldbuilding. The art of creating these real imaginary worlds on the page and in their heads. Increasingly I’m not sure often that this is always the skill of the author. If a book indicates this is a medieval town; a regency city or a cyberpunk future there is enough cultural memory in the reader’s head to help fill in the landscape. What makes it harder is when we get something a bit different and Warlords of the Wyrdwood does just that. In the first story the focus is very much on Cahan and his small group and the Wyrdwood is a fascinating huge and ancient forest filled with exotic fantasy and fauna. There is a touch of Robin Hood with outlaws that Cahan meet and give ambivalent support to. It was easy enough to expect we’d get a similar stye tale with added rebellion against the cruel Rai. Instead, we get a story with a completely different feel that actually makes us see the Wyrdwood and the wider world of Cruaa very very differently. Barker gives us challenge both in terms of the characters storylines that we follow in the first half of the book and then the secrets of the world opening up new and strange sites that mean we can’t rely as easily on that collective memory. Gentle reader this book is going to make you work a little to put the pieces together and yet the reward is going to be so worth it because this was the kind of book you have to immerse yourself Iin and by the end you’ll really feel you know this place.

Just when we think Cahan will be our main surviving character we spend the first book moving around eight key characters we’ve met from the first book. Some on Cahan’s side and some working for the evil rai who rule and fight over Cruaa. Under the way we have Cahan’s main antagonist from the first novel Sorha who was his main pursuer and has after the last book lost her power but burns with revenge. We also follow Saradis the unofficial leader of the Rai who has her own dark plan to bring her god back into supreme power and her assassin-magician henchman Laha. We also focus a lot on the non-magical but skilled tactician captain Dassit who the Rai both look down upon but use for the toughest battles – one of the most interesting characters in the Rai as we g ourselves slightly admiring her early on and she has a key part to play in the whole story.

Within the forest we have Venn – a young character only just realising how powerful they are, then there is. Then we have one of my new favourite characters - Ont. One of the villagers who made Cahan’s life hard in the first book but now shaken by the events of the first book and wants to do a lot better as Udinny has passed away. Ont has one of the most fascinating arcs in the story and falls into that interesting pot of Barker characters who initially are disliked and now get to know a lot better. Then we have at the heart again Cahan. Cahan felt very much the reluctant hero with power but dislikes to use it and get involved. That is no longer an option and finding himself now responsible for the villagers of Harn. Typically, in fantasy, you’d usually expect to see Cahan becoming a strong leader in these kinds of books and initially that feels the case but then one desperate act completely changes Cahan’s path and in many ways starts the next part of this story and heralds the last instalment to come. Cahan is very much on a dark path and can become lost if he’s not too careful – it wasn’t what I was expecting at all and Cahan becomes now sometimes frustrating, sometimes sympathetic but always compelling when his part of the story resumes. The first half of the book rotates through these many characters sometimes the story lines are feeling separate and only midway do many of them intersect revealing a bigger plotline to come. With so many it can be a bit like momentum is stop start but this is a bit like a juggler making us focus on one item at a time and eventually we notice the whole sequence coming together. Oh… silly me I forgot we also get to hear from the dead Udinny too – and that is very much allowing me to talk about how the world we knew as Cruaa is even more interesting than I thought It was.

I thought for obvious reasons Wyrdwood was going to be the main attraction of these stories, but Barker is actually expanding outwards, upwards, downwards and even into the metaphysical with this part of the story. Wyrdwood remains with its deadly wildlife, strange godly inhabitants and the rogue Forestrals with bows and arrows making this feel like a bigger more mystical Sherowood but Barker has a bigger game afoot. With Cahan’s past and now resumed powers we start to enter the bigger world of magic that the Cowl-Rai, the Wyrdwood and the gods that Udinny followed all coming to the fore. The forest has new secrets I was not expecting to be revealed. We venture outside to the endless wars of the Rai and then Barker has fascinating truly strange fantastical sights. There is a place called the Slowlands on the borders of the world where if you walk into, you’ll be trapped in forever slow motion, aging and becoming a standing skeleton – eerie, wrong and very much a new kind of horror. We venture to the tops of the immense trees and even down to the roots of the world where secrets await. With Udinny’s part of the tale as a spirit we find a metaphysical world where life and death are powers out of sync; where cycles of history may be repeating themselves and immense powers are at war using various agents to deliver their moves. Our cast may or may not be linked to this. It’s a world using ideas as the secret web of trees that messages pass through and creating an immense magical version of it that controls life itself and the world is now sick and at risk of something truly terrible happening.

Coming back to that worldbuilding you’re not here going to see many places that feel familiar to many other epic fantasy worlds. Barker drops hints and images, but we are in new territory having to piece it all together with little frame of reference which can make it a hard read but I love books that make me work in the deep end and finding secret worlds underground and in the branches of skyscraper like trees or strange magical god realms is just fascinating and the reward is finding how it all comes together. Barker even gives us a sequence from a character who cannot see and we have to experience the world briefly through their perspective and that’s the kind of new reading experience I am here for. All that laying the ground in the first half comes together as we understand the world, these characters and then the paths cross and lead to surprising alliances and decisions that if you told me in book 1 would happen then I’d had raised eyebrows sharply. But as I’ve been on the journey; understand their decisions even if I don’t always agree with them, they still make sense and by the end I am so invested for what awaits us. In many ways it reminds me of The Bone Ships where the first novel sacrifices pace in the first half to allow the bigger adventure and world to be understood before moving into top gear. It is an unusual choice for the second part of a trilogy but actually as I’d got to care already about Cahan in Gods of Wyrdwood I was prepared t trust the author. That really pays off

Warlords of Wyrdwood is not a simple fantasy book but its an imaginative and daring read that does things differently. It holds together as Barker’s writing is never dull – try reading a few action sequences aloud and the language flows up and down beautifully with pace and gives the story tempo grace and something to savour. The world is fascinating and by the end of the book, yes we have moved to setting up the conclusion but the world of Cruaa and Wyrdwood is very much different to what I thought it was and that means for me the kind of read I love to get my teeth into. It was a read I heartily recommend for lovers of Barker’s work and who enjoy creative fantasy worlds. Strongly recommended!