Farris has the misfortune of being an elemental: born human but host to barely contained primal energies.
Let me open by saying that I purchased my copy of Dreams of Fire by Nathaniel Wayne because I am a fan of the author’s other work, particularly her YouTube content on the channels Council of Geeks, Breakroom of Geeks, and Vera Wylde. I did this because I wanted to support them both financially with the purchase, and in media if I liked the book enough to review and put my review out there. I did and I’m doing that! Please trust when I say that my review is completely honest and I am not boosting my rating of this book because of my respect for the epic fellow she/they pronoun user who wrote it (though that respect is immense!) I have reviewed hundreds of books since launching my book review blog two years ago and often I do end up reviewing books written by authors whos content I have enjoyed in the past. As always, I try to review each book in as much of a vacuum as I can mentally achieve.
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About the Book
Dreams of Fire
by Nathaniel Wayne
Published 1 June 2021
Council of Geeks
Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 282
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Farris has the misfortune of being an elemental: born human but host to barely contained primal energies. He wants what any young person wants—the chance to live his own life. Yet the fiery forces within him make him a danger to those around him and a target for capture and study by the Science Guild. On the Lone Continent, humans thrive in their cities through the Guild’s revolutionary technology while the forests are home to powerful wild magic. Farris must confront his fears—fear of capture, fear of the wild Fey in the woods, and above all, fear of his abilities—if he’s to remain free.
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My Review
My Rating: 4 Stars
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Let me open by saying that I purchased my copy of Dreams of Fire by Nathaniel Wayne because I am a fan of the author’s other work, particularly her YouTube content on the channels Council of Geeks, Breakroom of Geeks, and Vera Wylde. I did this because I wanted to support them both financially with the purchase, and in media if I liked the book enough to review and put my review out there. I did and I’m doing that! Please trust when I say that my review is completely honest and I am not boosting my rating of this book because of my respect for the epic fellow she/they pronoun user who wrote it (though that respect is immense!) I have reviewed hundreds of books since launching my book review blog two years ago and often I do end up reviewing books written by authors whos content I have enjoyed in the past. As always, I try to review each book in as much of a vacuum as I can mentally achieve.
Good? Okay? Alright, let’s get into the review!
To the extent of my knowledge, this is a debut fiction, and with that in mind, it is excellent! This does not read like a first effort at all. We have an expertly crafted double POV story from the perspectives of the protagonist Farris, an unlikely hero on the run, and the antagonist Professor Raines, a twist on the mad scientist archetype whose personal progress is currently being stunted by the administration of the university she works for.
Farris is a well-written, likable, realistically flawed coming-of-age hero character, I have no complaints at all, and I do think the target audience demographic are going to latch onto him exactly as intended. The character I really want to talk about is our antagonist, Professor Raines. Raines is unquestionably the villain of the story. This person is experimenting on people. Definition of evil! I don’t think she thinks she’s evil, though. She’s a driven academic with blinders strapped on quite securely, and she simply doesn’t have the time of day for anyone else. Early in the book she’s meeting with her superior, receiving the news that her fumbles in the lab have made the university look bad and she’s being suspended from research for a while. In the meantime, she’s supposed to be building her reputation back up by teaching undergraduate students. Particularly first years. She quite bluntly tells her superior that she doesn’t belong in a classroom working with students. This woman knows herself so well, she’s so confident in herself, and she’s not going to be pushed off course by anyone. It was in this moment that I recognized my own inner villain in Professor Raines.
In terms of world-building, I love the fact that this world is a blend of something entirely new and unique that could only come out of this author’s head, but also calls back to a lot of familiar media. Farris is an elemental (and I’m not sure how intentional the name was but I love how similar it is to the Latin ferrom for iron, a hidden meaning that was definitely intentional when Kevin Hearne used it for an Earth elemental in Iron Druid) and many well know fey from real-world history and folklore such as the Morrigan make appearances. I also love the fact that the author has taken care to casually mention things like skin tones and accessible architecture to let us know that the population of this world is not uniform one ethnicity and all able-bodied. With that said I do want to note that more care should be taken in the future to consult sensitivity readers who will look for problems in language surrounding ethnicity. For example, one character is described as “chocolate-skinned.” The majority of own voices opinions on describing more melanin-heavy skin tones say that food-based descriptors are anywhere from cliche to offensive and should be avoided. If I had been a beta reader or an editor on this manuscript my suggestion would be to look at common art pigment names if you want something that suggests the same colour to all readers, like burnt umber or red ochre.
I have taken a little look at other reviews now that I’ve finished reading, and one comment I’ve seen a couple of readers bring up is that the book doesn’t read like a completely contained novel. It’s very obvious that this is the first instalment in a series. That’s not exactly a terrible thing as it is the start of a series, and it’s not like we’re struggling with middle book syndrome or jumping into a world that was established somewhere else. This is very clearly the start of a bigger story and no one will be lost here. Where some readers are feeling let down, and to an extent I agree with them, is that the ending doesn’t feel like an ending. It feels like hitting pause. There’s a very heavy “to be continued” sense. It would have been nice to have a stronger sense of a completed mini arch within this volume, even though there’s a longer arch that naturally needs to continue.
Overall this was a really fun beginning in a fantasy world I want more of, and I highly recommend Dreams of Fire to all fans of YA fantasy and high fantasy in general.
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This looks so interesting too!