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Overview
"The exhilarating must-read fantasy debut of the year." --Tasha Suri, World Fantasy Award-winning author An unforgettable tale of revenge and rebellion unfolds when a reckless king implements an ill-fated plan to end a thousand-year war in this relentlessly gripping epic fantasy debut.A SONG OF REBELLION. A SONG OF WAR. A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST. The people of Nine Lands know their history. The kingdom once belonged to the Scathed people, until their greyblood servants rose up and slaughtered them. King Ahiki and his warlords laid claim to the realm by defeating the rebels and driving them out to the Feverlands. Now, thousands of years later, attacks by the greybloods are rebuffed by the invoker clans, warriors of noble blood who summon their ancestors to fight with them in battle. But the war has gone on too long. A general draft is called to take the battle to the Feverlands and defeat the greybloods once and for all. A plan that seems doomed to fail. When Temi, a commoner, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she believes it could be the key to ending the centuries-long war. But not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor, and some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine. Praise for A Song of Legends Lost: "Ayinde is a master storyteller." --Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter "A whirlwind debut of ferocious talent and compulsive storytelling that lifts you up from the first page and never lets go." --Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award-winning author "A truly excellent debut." --James Islington, author of The Will of the Many The Invoker Trilogy A Song of Legends Lost
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781668086834
- ISBN-10: 1668086832
- Publisher: S&s/Saga Press
- Publish Date: June 2025
- Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
- Page Count: 592
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- 1
“Rad” was the first word that came to mind after I started M.H. Ayinde’s A Song of Legends Lost, the first book in her Invoker trilogy. Jinao is the disgraced prince of a border kingdom that defends the Nine Lands against the greybloods, which appear to be robotic zombies. (Most are barely sentient, howling and clawing to kill their victims, but some are vastly intelligent, with unbelievably cool names like “Bairneater.”) The greybloods destroyed their creators, the Scathed, who left ruins of incredible technology scattered around the world. The Nine Lands fend off greyblood invasions by Invoking, rites that summon their ancestors’ spirits.
A multiperspective novel, A Song of Legends Lost tells roughly half a dozen separate stories only slightly related to one another. Ayinde uses each thread to layer in world building, such that the reader can begin to put all the pieces together by the end of the book. The setting is rich with postapocalyptic vibes, as the Nine Lands were clearly constructed on the ruins of a highly advanced race, but are now a medieval-esque society. Each character either flails in their ignorance or leverages their knowledge to drive the plot forward: Boleo, a techpriest, knows far more about how Scathed technology works than most (and more than he lets on), and leverages this to get what he wants from the nobility. Jinao, however, finds himself suddenly chosen to be an Invoker and has no idea what that means or how it works. The reader learns about the nuance and secrets of technology from Boleo, while learning basic truths from Jinao.
The core draw of Ayinde’s book is this careful world building and all the interesting magic systems that come along with it. The characters are well thought-out, with relatable traits and believable choices, but mainly function as vessels to convey grand reveals and move overarching plots forward. Jinao, for example, grows from a largely lovable but quite useless inebriate to a still lovable but slightly more responsible inebriate. However, in a world as complex as the Nine Lands, somewhat flat characters help keep the content digestible and the reader engaged.
A Song of Legends Lost is clearly the first in a series of books and does not bring any storylines to a close by its conclusion. This may annoy some, but this reviewer found the journey of discovery engaging regardless. Ayinde has put together a lovely book of exploration, a grand escape from reality.
“Rad” was the first word that came to mind after I started M.H. Ayinde’s A Song of Legends Lost, the first book in her Invoker trilogy. Jinao is the disgraced prince of a border kingdom that defends the Nine Lands against the greybloods, which appear to be robotic zombies. (Most are barely sentient, howling and clawing to kill their victims, but some are vastly intelligent, with unbelievably cool names like “Bairneater.”) The greybloods destroyed their creators, the Scathed, who left ruins of incredible technology scattered around the world. The Nine Lands fend off greyblood invasions by Invoking, rites that summon their ancestors’ spirits.
A multiperspective novel, A Song of Legends Lost tells roughly half a dozen separate stories only slightly related to one another. Ayinde uses each thread to layer in world building, such that the reader can begin to put all the pieces together by the end of the book. The setting is rich with postapocalyptic vibes, as the Nine Lands were clearly constructed on the ruins of a highly advanced race, but are now a medieval-esque society. Each character either flails in their ignorance or leverages their knowledge to drive the plot forward: Boleo, a techpriest, knows far more about how Scathed technology works than most (and more than he lets on), and leverages this to get what he wants from the nobility. Jinao, however, finds himself suddenly chosen to be an Invoker and has no idea what that means or how it works. The reader learns about the nuance and secrets of technology from Boleo, while learning basic truths from Jinao.
The core draw of Ayinde’s book is this careful world building and all the interesting magic systems that come along with it. The characters are well thought-out, with relatable traits and believable choices, but mainly function as vessels to convey grand reveals and move overarching plots forward. Jinao, for example, grows from a largely lovable but quite useless inebriate to a still lovable but slightly more responsible inebriate. However, in a world as complex as the Nine Lands, somewhat flat characters help keep the content digestible and the reader engaged.
A Song of Legends Lost is clearly the first in a series of books and does not bring any storylines to a close by its conclusion. This may annoy some, but this reviewer found the journey of discovery engaging regardless. Ayinde has put together a lovely book of exploration, a grand escape from reality.