The trion,’ whispered Rai Galderin as he closed with her, ‘will not talk about what happened, and what they do say is not the truth.’ She nodded. ‘Venn walked out of the forest unharmed, while Vanhu, Kyik, and Sorha died. It seems, unlikely.’ There are a hundred thousand new world-specific terms that are all dumped on you in the first few chapters, and pretty much none of them are explained alongside them. For the first probably 30% of the book, I didn’t know what so many things meant, because they were never given context. There are a lot of animals that are given no description, and I still don’t know what some are supposed to look like. Paradoxically, I felt like there was way too much description of everything, and yet, I still couldn’t visualize what I was being told about. It constantly felt like I was watching the part of Pokemon where they ask “Who’s That Pokemon” and give you just a silhouette of said Pokemon - I could visualize general shapes and vibes, but never in enough detail to know what the hell was going on.

Crua is a land of many gods. The gods enter those with the strength to hold them. These godly companions are called cowls and the people they possess are known as Rais. The Rai are the most powerful people in Crua and the Cowl-Rai is their ultimate leader. Once the cowls were recognized as different gods and there were Cowl-Rai for each of the gods. But a new Cowl-Rai has risen who follows Tarl-an-Gig. This Cowl-Rai will tolerate no other Cowl-Rais or other gods. Good (and great) authors come up with great story ideas, but story ideas don't come with perfect timelines. The author has to fill in the blanks. Barker’s imagination is just so refreshing and definitely top tier of fantasy authors. I simply can’t believe with all the material out there he can still come up with something so fresh. Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester—a man who can navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no one else. But once he was more. Once he belonged to the god of fire.In this land of fear, Cahan Du-Nahere is just trying to survive. He is clanless, which means that the local villagers don’t trust him or respect him in any way. Known only as “Forester”, Cahan just wants to be left alone to run his farm on the outskirts of Harn. But fate wants something more from him. A sweeping story of destiny and redemption. Weighty, deliberate, tender and brutal, this is a big, wonderful book and an utterly involving read." — Daily Mail This is the beginning of something epic. It is true to the style of RJ Barker, being dropped into a world and allowing the reader to figure it out as they go. It is a dark world that has a beautiful setting with Gods that are worshipped in a way that is different than typical. It leads to wars and a magic that is pretty hot to handle. I continually found myself drawn to know more and could not get enough as the reader is pulled into the world of the chosen one, Cahan Du Nahere, who is no longer the chosen one. It proceeds to give us an insight into his life as he has moved on. There are also plants that they use like float weed and bind weed, which do exactly what it sounds like they do. While their names are easy enough to figure out, there is nothing in our world that compares. Other times things are obviously the same as our things from our world but with different names, like the crownheads. Crownheads are animals that are raised in Crua. Their fur is sheared off and turned into woolen clothes. So they’re obviously some kind of sheep but Barker felt the need to make them different just to set his world apart I guess. I don’t when authors make completely new things up but it does irritate me a little when authors just rename things to seem different. It makes things difficult for no real reason. Wordy but with a nice payoff in Gods of the Wyrdwood

TL;DR - This book has a lot of things going for it, namely the world itself and the magic system, but it’s also long and boring and shoots itself in the foot by including some puzzling, tone-deaf classism and frankly appalling treatment of non-binary people, and then offering no rebuking or commentary on these issues. On top of my personal little quibbles with the character work, I also just couldn’t seem to figure out what the point of the plot was supposed to be. Every time I thought the inciting incident had happened, it turned out to be just another ‘false start’, if you will. It wasn’t until the 70% mark that the ‘side questing’ was over and the actual main conflict of the story emerged, after which the pacing suddenly just cranked up to eleven. To be fair, I quite enjoyed just plodding along and exploring this alluring world in all its glory, but it did make the story feel rather aimless for a large part of it. As said previously, Barker doesn't handhold the reader, and while that can result confusing at the start, once we form our own image, the result is quite satisfactory. The plot is definitely dark, but I would say it is quite justified, as a result of a brutal and complicated world, that gives no opportunities to the weak. There is also an abundance of odd names and terminology, which was nearly impossible to keep straight. The social structure and positioning was also unusual and difficult to wrap my mind around. The family setup, with firstwives, secondwives, firsthusbands, secondhusbands, and so on, is interesting but difficult for my monogamous mind to comprehend. And then there are trions, those who are neither male nor female, husband nor wife, but something uniquely their own and prized for those differences. One of our main secondary characters is a trion, and they were pretty fascinating. Pinpointing what the main plot is in this book is a little hard. There is so much that transpires but through following Cahan and a few other key characters over the course of this chunky tome it felt more as though Barker was laying out the tone and the foundations for the series than actually leading us down one predominant storyline. So for anyone who enjoys plot focused stories or a noticeably linking plot sequence to follow you may find this one a little hard to get into. I would say the book falls more on the character driven side of things as there is a lot more development when it comes to relationships between individuals who cross paths and personal arcs but overall it felt like a very thorough prequel.The details, I think they are true. But they do not tell everything.’ Galderin scratched his cheek. ‘I can find out, if you wish.’ She ignored that, instead stared at her child. Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own. Gods of the Wyrdwood is book one in a new fantasy trilogy set within the bounds of a forest straight out of darkest folklore – with outlaws fighting an evil empire and warring deities. RJ Barker is the British Fantasy Society Award-winning author of The Bone Ships and Age of Assassins.