Review: Of Blood and Steel by Seymour Zeynalli

Of Blood and Steel by Seymour Zeynalli is an easy to read, adventure story that I was happy to turn to whenever I had free time. It follows the adventures of a young woman who is trying to get herself and a baby safely through rough terrain and the hardened old assassin that she hired to escort them. I thoroughly enjoyed that traditional fantasy feel of these people going on a long journey and facing interesting new threats and creatures and situations along the way. And as they go on, they also discover more about each other and about themselves. There's a great story here, hints of great world-building, and clearly a lot of storytelling potential by this new author. I'm going to be keeping an eye on his later works, because I think with a bit more experience he's going to soon be telling some exceptional stories. 

I mentioned that this has that traditional fantasy adventure feel that I enjoyed. I must also mention that the author set out to bring the unique flavour of the culture of the Caucasus region to his world-building and I really enjoyed all the little tidbits of this in the descriptions and world-building. And it wasn't just descriptions of food here and there, which some other reviewers have mentioned, I got a good sense of the culture through the characters' conversations and perspectives about war and life and what they had been through in the past and so on. Again, with a bit more experience, I think the author could become an exceptional world-builder and could tell some really unique stories from this influence. 

I think the thing I most missed in this story is seeing the thoughts and feelings of the characters portrayed more deeply or focused on more, which would have taken the story from good and interesting to exceptional. There was a bit too much focus on the mechanics of where everyone was going and what they were doing and less focus on their thoughts and feelings as they did this. 

The fantastic elements were slowly revealed throughout the story with more creatures and more magic in the later half of the book. But the revelation I was most satisfied with was a character revelation that really tied up the story for me and gave it a satisfying conclusion. 

Finally, I want to mention that there were quite a few swear-words, mostly f-words, peppered throughout the story which felt like they had been placed there just to make sure the story would get classified as "adult" - which it was, I just think it's sad that we're at a point in general where authors feel they need to include swearwords in order to get that adult classification. It's an adult story because it deals with adult themes like war and survival and revenge and so on, and in my opinion doesn't need the swear words to prove that. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to lovers of fantasy adventure stories. I've discovered over the past few months that I have little patience for a lot of big name traditionally published stories that have perfectly polished prose and get all kinds of hype. The only three books that have been able to hold my interest lately have all been self-published or indie/small-press books that capture that sense of adventure I'm looking for in fantasy much better.