The reviews are rolling in on Goodreads and Amazon.
One of the most useful things about reading reviews is learning not just whether people liked the book, but what kind of reader liked it—and what kind didn’t.
I don’t write for everyone. Maybe not you.
The pattern around Son of the Borderlands is surprisingly consistent. Many of the same qualities that enthusiastic readers praise are exactly what less enthusiastic readers dislike: the politics, the psychological darkness, the moral ambiguity, the density of the world, and, above all, Agni himself.
That makes it easier to say who this book is actually for.
You should probably read it if…
You like protagonists you don’t always approve of.
If you idea of a morally grey hero is a handsome, capable man who occasionally bends the rules, prepare to be plunged deeper.
Agni is not designed to be conventionally likable. He can be sympathetic, admirable, frightening, self-destructive, tender, and cruel…sometimes within the same stretch of story. You will ask where he ends and his mentor begins, and not know the answer.
If you enjoy characters who force you to ask whether they are becoming the hero or the villain, you are probably in the right place.
You like politics in your fantasy.
The kingdoms, alliances, marriages, betrayals, old grudges, and competing loyalties are not background decoration. They matter. If court politics bore you, this may not be your book. If they are half the reason you read epic fantasy, it might be.
This isn’t A Song of Ice and Fire where politics rule the story, but the theme of layered power suffuses my book. That power may not lie where it appears, and may bide its time to make itself noticed.
You enjoy worlds with history.
The Dragonlands existed before the first page. Gods, wars, bloodlines, ruined civilizations, rival states, and inherited grievances shape what the characters do. Some readers love that sense of depth. Others find it demanding and difficult to recall. Both reactions are fair.
You prefer complicated moral questions to clean answers.
The book is interested in loyalty, patriotism, destiny, vengeance, guilt, power, and whether good intentions can survive terrible choices. It does not always tell you immediately what to think about the people making those choices. The second book will answer some of those dilemmas, but raise others.
And you don’t mind earning the payoff.
This is not a stripped-down, relentlessly fast fantasy. It takes time with character psychology, history, and political tension before accelerating. Readers who enjoy immersion tend to respond much better than readers who want the plot moving at full speed from page one.
You probably should not read it if…
You need to unconditionally like the protagonist.
This is probably the biggest dividing line. Readers have both called him too good-hearted, and too much of a bully who solves problems through violence (spoiler alert: he loses much of the ability to do the latter).
If you need a hero you can consistently root for, Agni may frustrate you. The book is much more interested in whether you understand him than whether you approve of him.
You want simple good-versus-evil fantasy.
There are villains. There are heroes. But the boundaries are rarely comfortable, and good people sometimes do terrible things for reasons they believe are justified.
Anton Kazirian is not Sauron or Morgoth, a “big bad” who desires to kill and enslave for his own sake. He was once a man, but abandoned his humanity. Now, he lives for one thing only, but believes it is for the greater good of all.
You dislike political maneuvering.
If councils, alliances, succession, diplomacy, and rival factions feel like obstacles between you and the next battle scene, you may find parts of the book slow.
You want cozy fantasy, romantasy, or straightforward escapism.
There is romance. There are moments of warmth. But this is fundamentally a story about war, power, trauma, identity, and the cost of becoming what the world demands of you.
There is nothing wrong with any of those; you just won’t find it here.
You want every major conflict neatly resolved by the final page.
This is the first book in a larger story. It has an ending, but it is not the end.
And who should approach it cautiously?
This is a different question.
I’ll lay my cards on the table; I hate trigger warnings. They have been shown not to reduce trauma, and I believe the best books make the reader somewhat uncomfortable. But I am no sadist. I don’t want readers to leave psychologically damaged.
Yet somehow, a few readers on an ARC site said that I did not write with a “trauma-informed” lens, and that “almost every trigger warning is applicable,” despite my checking “almost every trigger warning” on the site.
Yes, people (some helpless) suffer and die, often graphically, but I did not want torture porn.
Yes, sexual assault happens, but I anything but glorify it–I show the lasting pain and deserved fate of the perpetrators.
Yes, it touches issues of race and bigotry, within a context of races with animalistic features. It is real, and causes characters pain
I don’t touch on LGBTQ+ themes, but if a character’s sexual identity or orientation made for an interesting plot point, I would not hesitate to include it.
The darkness comes less from “triggers” than from psychological proximity. You will spend Son of the Borderlands in the minds of two complex but damaged, and sometimes deteriorating individuals. And much of that comes from my own mind.
Every one of Agni’s “fits” or nightmares, the forbidden words spoken to him in trances, come from the dark places my mind has gone.
The hell of feeling that you see the world through a pane of glass, able to see but not reach through.
The pain of feeling that your mind and thoughts are no longer your own.
The urge to destruction and blasphemy that takes on an aura of command.
I’ll go into greater detail in my forthcoming Christian memoir, tentatively titled Dark Night of the Soul. But even my fantasy series contains too much of me not to be overwhelming for a sensitive reader.
The shortest possible version
If I had thirty seconds to decide whether this book was for someone, I would ask three questions:
Can you love a book even if you don’t always like the protagonist?
Do you enjoy politics and worldbuilding in your fantasy?
Do you like watching characters struggle with whether they are becoming the villain?
Three yeses?
You are almost certainly my reader.
Three noes?
I would rather tell you that upfront than sell you the wrong book.
And if you are looking for dragons, damaged people, old gods, political intrigue, war, and a hero who may frighten you almost as often as he inspires you…
…the Borderlands await.
For the Borderlands,
Joe