Gods of the Wyrdwood

Gods of the Wyrdwood is the start of a new series from R.J. Barker, whose previous series I've enjoyed immensely. Fortunately, I can safely say that this is a strong start to a series: a new world, with new  characters, but the same strong writing, the same emotional depth, the same strange and wonderful on every page. If you're looking for something new, something that will make you think, and make you feel, something which isn't quite like anything else out there...then this is the book for you.

Part of the reason for that is the worldbuilding. Barker has always excelled at creating worlds that feel real, feel lived in. They also tend to be strange, beautiful, and brutal, and this one is no exception. Because this is a world that lives or dies depending on power. A world whose very orientation on its axis is driven by magic. A world where the ability to command the elements is a function of a symbiosis between a person and, well, something else entirely. And also a world of wood. Much of the story revolves around The Forester, someone who can walk through the various levels of forest, perhaps even the titular Wyrdwood. Where a tree might be large enough to walk around, and where cuts from its branches might be able to be animated with a thought.  The forest sits close by our protagonist, and the small world he allows himself, and stretches seemingly endless into the night. Stepping within is an act of courage, going too deep is an act of madness. Because what the forest is most of all is uncaring - but like the sea, uncaring doesn't mean not deadly, Each step is a risk. And within the forest, what seems like it's uncaring may suddenly come alive with malice or, perhaps worse, some kind of unknowable, but probably unpleasant (for you) agenda. But Barker really shines in shaping that forest, in making it feel like a place where things live, where everything has its niche, even if we don't understand it. And the trees and the various horrors they contain have a deeply grounded sense of place, a feeling of the concrete. And they're not alone in that. Outside the trees are the human world rolls on regardless. In the deeper distance, a continent-wide war is a conflagration devouring lives by the bucketload. The cities are ruled by an aristocracy filled with long-lived magic users, most of whom are some version of vicious, cruel or uncaring. They're made of soaring spires which seem to have been built by an unknown builder for unknown reasons, with an unknown lifespan and a propensity for...imaginative...geometry. The world beyond the forest is no less real, but may be more actively cruel. And it's a world driven by religion, by prophets, by big and small gods, as people in power try to grab on to just a little more. 

And into that space steps the Forester, someone who was once a Chosen One. Someone meant to break the world. Someone trained to kill, to shatter, to make great changes. A once in a century event. And then...there was another one. Suddenly a special child ran into the night, no longer special. And a long timer later, we find them at the edge of the forest, living a solitary life, shearing for wool, farming, and keeping their head down. Trying not to feel too much, to stay out of trouble, to be a mouse in the walls and just be left alone. The Forester is someone who has hurt and been hurt, fought and been beaten down. They have a façade of self-interest, a need to remain cut off from connection. Or perhaps just a desire. How true their image of themselves as an isolated island is, well that's something you'll have to delve into the story for., I will say that the characterisation here is top notch, not just for our protagonist, but for the rest of the ensemble. The villagers who regard him with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. The mages who look for nothing other than a means to keep themselves alive, to survive and benefit from the deaths of others. The monks haranguing their parishioners, and the quieter rumblings of different gods in a world struggling with a clash between ancient theism and armed monotheists. There's a diversity of viewpoint, and an honesty in it that makes the story work, makes the characters feel like they're really there, people and not words on a page. You can laugh and cry and feel with them, empathise, sympathise, scream and cry along with them. They feel real.

As for the story. Well, as ever, no spoilers on this one. But it's got the bones of a redemption arc. It's got a found family at its heart. And it has a positivity, a hope in what people are, despite everything, in it soul. It's got a whole bunch of politics. Some genuinely horrifying and epic magic. It has the kind of battles that make you hold your breath, and the kind of brutal immediacy that will make you feel like you're bleeding. It has a truth to it, this story, a story of someone who just wants to be left alone, and the story of people who are willing to hold true to who they are in the face of a society with different expectations, a strength to say yes to truth and friendship and humanity, and no to murder, blood and fire, even in the face of a world that wants to hammer them into the ground. It's a story I couldn't put down. And that's the highest recommendation I can give - go and read this book right now.