Eleventh Cycle (Mistland Book 1)

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Eleventh Cycle achieves Brandon Sanderson-level worldbuilding, but with a murkier tone and a more nuanced execution. Its clearly got a richness to it that in my opinion so far matches an wheel of time sort of scale, but it's never overwhelming or put forward at the sake of story or character. The orange glow of an egg yolk covered it all and the soft touch of grey began to grow like mould over its tapestry. This is a common problem with long, multi-POV epics, and if this is something that tires in you books, then you might want to look elsewhere.

Eleventh Cycle (Mistland): Ardalan, Kian N: 9783200086739

I got interested in Ardalan's Eleventh Cycle because I heard it was a book in the vein of Dark Souls, and yup. Ardalan builds deep connections to these characters, which get reinforced by the use of a first-person voice for each one of them, creating a more close connection to them, and giving more impact to what will happen to them. The worldbuilding is definitely aided by epigraphs at the beginning of every chapter that dive into the history and cosmology of this world’s inhabitants, but even just subtle character interactions and behaviors exhibit clear and deep cultural backgrounds. This isn’t a Wheel of Time or Song of Ice and Fire situation where it takes thousands of pages for POV characters to run into each other.I was very excited to dive into this book because it seems to be the current “cool kid on the block” in the fantasy book reviewing community. Underneath the blanket of melancholy and woe covering Ardalan’s world are breathing and feeling people.

Eleventh Cycle (Mistland, book 1) by Kian N Ardalan

The story itself begins as fragments told from these multiple perspectives, allowing us to build emotional connections to each of the individual characters before their plot lines eventually intersect.While I have passing familiarity with both of those, I have never played/read either of them, and so I don’t have those to color or inform my opinion of the book. I don't really care for any of the characters and things went pretty slowly for me mid-way through the book without any real promise that things would take an original turn. Ardalan shares Sanderson’s talent at creating empathetic, broken characters, bringing a deeply personal focus to a vast, complex world.