SPFBO 10: The Stranger Of Ul Darak By S.C. Eston

Welcome to the Semi-Final stage of SPFBO 10! As you know, we already cut 25 books from our batch of 30 and announced our semi-finalists. Check out our SPFBO 10 page for more info! In the next few weeks, we’ll post group reviews of each semi-finalist, and then we’ll reveal our finalist on October 17th.

Our third SPFBO 10 semi-finalist review is for The Stranger of Ul Darak by S.C. Eston. The order of the reviews within a post will be the following: first is the person who picked the book as a semi-finalist, and then the others in alphabetical order.

In the Semi-Finals all of us will try and read all of our semi-finalists in order to be able to determine our Finalist based on our overall scores.

Both in the Semi-Final and Final stages we’ll have a DNF rule in place: if a judge reads a book (either semi-finalist or finalist if they didn’t opt out beforehand), they have to read at least 25% of it. If they decide to DNF between 25%-50% they’ll have to give a score but can opt out of writing a review, and if they DNF after 50% (or not) then they also have to score AND write a review.

For The Stranger of Ul Darak we have 4 reviews and 5 scores for your reading pleasures.

So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at our third semi-finalist!

Series:	The Lost Tyronian Archives #1
Genre:	Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Publisher:	self-published
Date of Publishing:	December 5th, 2023

Sometimes saving a world means rebelling against it.

In an age long forgotten, nineteen hundred and eighty-three Seals were forged—magical disks placed around the world to repel the cosmic chaos beyond.

In the centuries that followed, the Sentinels were tasked with protecting those Seals. For countless generations, they succeeded.

Until now.

At six years old, Shéana is recruited to the order of the Sentinels. A decade later, she displays powers unlike anything any Sentinel has shown before. When she feels the world stirring in pain, she knows the shield surrounding Tyronia has been breached. The great chain is broken. And the order of the Sentinels lies in discord.

In the isolated village of Valdur, young Arth struggles to belong. Spurned by the other children, he ventures south to the endless mountains, and the strange barrier marking the edge of existence. The Final Horizon. Here he witnesses the a man emerging from beyond the veil—where nothing can possibly exist. A man Arth knows he must protect.

Now the fate of two worlds rests on a knife’s edge. Only the courage of a village boy and the power of a fledgling Sentinel can save them.

But to save their worlds, they must reject all they’ve been taught, leaving behind everyone and everything they’ve ever known.

Liis

Read: 100%

Juuuust in case you skipped over the blurb of the book, I will draw your attention to it again. This is important. Read this:

“In an age long forgotten, nineteen hundred and eighty-three Seals were forged—magical disks placed around the world to repel the cosmic chaos beyond.

In the centuries that followed, the Sentinels were tasked with protecting those Seals. For countless generations, they succeeded.

Until now.”

Magical disks, cosmic chaos, Sentinels and now… all is going to pot. The premise, then, is simple: the world, as everyone knows it, is changing. It’s not a sudden, big explosion, that turns everything upside down, it seems to be a gradual, slow change manifesting through earthquakes, bringing devastation and destruction. A natural force, which a mere human is no opponent to. The focus of it all is a huge, looming mountain range. The people living on the one side of it believe there is nothing beyond it. This is the Final Horizon, guarded by a magical barrier, the place where world ends. And yet, a stranger appears through the gorge.

The Stranger of Ul Darak is *mind blown emoji*. It just feels like a whole Universe in between the covers of a book, or so it feels – that’s how vast is its plot.

This book is no lightweight! It covers everything. You will find out about the mountains, the Sentinels and how it works in their part of the world (their pecking order, their tasks, their magical abilities), you will find out about the village of Valdur (their daily life, their fears, concerns and relationships important to the story). Of course, the reader will meet the stranger and the young boy who takes him in.

The writing of this book is… just… natural. The story covers a lot but it never, not once, felt like a chore, not to me anyway. I loved being immersed in this fantasy tale that had the huge task of introducing the things yet to come without info dumping.

The Stranger of Ul Darak is one of those fantasy tales that is as solid and as polished as it could possibly be. It feels like a finished product, ready for the bookshelves. It has a classical fantasy feel without graphic grimness. I mean, Eston manages to deliver a chonky, slow paced book, meant for enjoyment as the reader can get lost in the world and things yet to pass. And he does it whilst remaining accessible and suitable to even the younger reader. It has characters to whet the appetite across the board – your regular folk and the Sentinels, the kind people and those who act on their prejudice, and those who act on their fear. There is intrigue with the ancient magic, and mystery and impending sense of doom, without feeling oppressive. The seed for the sense of adventure and exploration is planted within this book and it is a story that you wish to keep reading.

Jen

Read: 100%

I really liked the cover of this book. It’s peaceful and threatening all at once.

So, this is going to be a weird review and hopefully not too repetitive (my brain is still on holiday mode so we will see how this reads in a couple days).

It’s hard to talk about a book like The Stranger of Ul Darak. It’s definitely a journey kind of story in the way that it falls together like it’s a thousand-piece puzzle.

You know how a lot of times when you have POVs in different areas, you are kind of waiting to see how they relate to each other or to the world? Sometimes it’s obvious right away but in The Stranger of Ul Darak it takes a while to get to the understanding of how it all fits. Even having read the summary (which tells you everything and nothing at the same time) I struggled to place this world in my head. I don’t mean map-wise either which I totally skipped btw. but as a whole.

Usually, I have no patience for confusing worlds that seem like bits and bobs of this and that tossed together to finally make sense, but The Stranger of Ul Darak had just enough of that combo of interesting and keeping me wondering what was happening to make me want to keep going.

The story follows a few people in that rolling pov style but for the most part we’re seeing it through the two younger characters Arth and Sheana and their mentors.

So, the writing in The Stranger of Ul Darak is thicker than I’d normally like, but it definitely sets an atmosphere for the story- fantastical maybe or just haunting- the whole thing felt very ‘fantasy’ from page one.

Some characters can fly like genies without magic carpets, or had animal familiars they can communicate with or transfer their consciousness into but I think the biggest thing that gave it that feel was just the firm belief the people had of their place and way of life in their world.

Arth, in particular acts like the Eternal (the mountain range) has feelings and can be disappointed in his choices. Like the world itself is invested in the connection of its people to it, and their surroundings and would punish him/them if he/they didn’t follow the rules.

There were so many weird things that just belong without explanation or reason. I didn’t say to myself, “well, that’s not going to work!” during the story and I think because of the characters unfaltering belief that the mountains are angry and watching them (among other things) that led me to feel that ok it is possible, and yes, maybe there is a greater consciousness at play and this planet/world is as fantastical as it suggests.

That certainty in the world’s anger and sadness towards them for whatever slight they felt they had done it (like going to the base of the mountains or bringing a stranger home) added to that fantastical feeling because no one questioned it. It was just a strong unwavering belief in being punished. I myself, questioned constantly (what can I say, I’m a Capricorn) if the mountains were really that unhappy, I looked for clues through the story half expecting a man behind the curtain/ Wizard of Oz kind of reveal.

I enjoyed that state of unsettledness that the story left me in, while also being totally frustrated by it. I felt the story kind of wandered – maybe not too far off-track but enough that a little tightening could have enhanced it because it did take it’s time to get where it was going with its answers and my patience and interest were very close to the point of lagging.

All in all, outside of the wandering feel, my only other real issue was that I had a bit (and by bit, I mean a large bit) of a hang-up over the ages of Arth and Daltar. Nine and six, just seemed too young for the stuff they did or thought and talked about.

For the most part though I just tried to ignore the ages where I could and think of them of them as how they felt and was there for the journey.

I enjoyed this story and thought it was quite a neat world especially towards the end when things began to fall into place.

Timy

Read: 50%

It’s not much of a secret, that I’m not into epic fantasy all that much, and so I approached The Stranger of Ul Darak a bit apprehensively. But, this being the semi-finals I kept an open mind, because it was picked by my fellow team-member for good reason.

At first, I was intrigued, the prologue, for lack of a better word, got my interest, and if I have any regrets about not reading the book through is that I never found out what that was about, and who the POV character was. The first couple of chapters were from different POVs and while we got introduced to the main players to the story, it also makes it harder to build a connection with characters and loose interest if you feel like there are nothing but new characters and settings dropped on you.

Once I got my feet, I was curious about the Seals and the intrigue around the Sentinels. Unfortunately, one of the characters, Arth seemed to get the bulk of the focus which didn’t seem all that reasonable. Or rather, those chapters had the space of a snail and I kept waiting when things finally will start moving. The author seemed a bit too much focused on world building and painting us a picture, than the plot to the point where I wondered if there was a plot at all.

My other issues with Arth’s chapters were that I found it hard to believe he was only 9 years old. He came across older than that, and also it was hard for me to connect with him. Btw, if he was adopted into his family, then that would make his brothers step-siblings and not half-siblings – that kept irking me for some reason.

Ultimately, I didn’t have the patience to read on and find out what is going on, but I can see it doing much better with someone who likes epic fantasy more than I do. It has some neat ideas with the seals and the Sentinels, but The Stranger of Ul Darak failed to make me forge a connection to the characters and I wasn’t keen to pick it up whenever I stopped reading. And so, I made the decision to DNF.

Tru

Read: 100%

The Stranger of Ul Darak is an incredibly ambitious tale told across various timelines and POV characters. It begins with an intriguing expedition across a snowy land to uncover an ancient relic, and then switches to the harrowing journey of two adventurers traveling beneath a mountain, and then finally settles on Arth, a somewhat mysterious young boy in the mining village of Valdur—a village that lies next to the Final Horizon, the literal end of the world. In this world, magical seals are scattered across the land that are guarded by a monk-like order known as the Sentinels who not only protect the seals, but also use these seals to unlock and use magical powers. The Sentinels basically rule over everyone and everything.

But then mysterious happenings start, well, happening. Earthquakes terrify the superstitious village and then Arth discovers an injured stranger emerging from the gates of the Final Horizon, which should be impossible. Worried for what this may mean for the village, and fearing the wrath of the Sentinels, Arth and his family hide the stranger as he recovers from his wounds. Meanwhile, the Sentinels feel the pulse of the world change, their seals are beginning to wane, and thus begins in-fighting as those who dare question their order’s leadership come to realize their reality may not be what it seems.

As you can imagine, a lot of worldbuilding, lore, and love has come into carefully crafting this world. The story isn’t just told through Arth’s eyes, but there are many MANY POV characters who also add to the rich tapestry this story attempts to weave, and I had trouble keeping track of them all. The story itself takes a long time to build and honestly felt more like an introduction or prologue to the real story to come.

If you love delving into deep and unique fantasy worlds and don’t mind learning every aspect and nuance of the worldbuilding, then you may find a lot to play with here, as it certainly IS ambitious with the world it sets out to build, however, I found it quite hard to understand and make sense of.