Fantasy Gets a Wakeup Call from Down Under in A Crucible of Souls

Caldan is a teen who was orphaned by murder when he was a small boy. In the years since, he’s grown up under the watchful eye of the monks at the Monastery of the Seven Paths. But Caldan doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the well-to-do initiates, and eventually finds himself exiled from the island monastery to the distant mainland. With only a few ducats and a few mysterious trinkets that belonged to his parents to his name, Caldan reluctantly sets sail for the seething and chaotic port city of Anasoma.
Hogan’s meticulously created world is shadowy and dangerous, the fragmented empire filled with a cross-section of cutthroat haves and have-nots. Centuries after a vaguely referenced event known as The Shattering, the study of sorcery has been reduced to the fine art of “crafting,” which allows for little more than creating delicate etchings and runes in wood, metal, or paper. It’s fairly passive magic—the days of destructive and coercive sorcery died out during The Shattering.
Or did they? Anyone want to place a bets that “destructive and coercive sorcery” still exists in the Mahruse empire? Hint: it’s a good bet.
Hogan is working on an expansive canvas, and that means there is plenty of room for him to leisurely expand both the richly colored details of his universe and craft a plot packed with twisting trails and hidden warrens—both things he accomplishes with a calculated sense of purpose. There is a tangible presence to the dirty, hardscrabble environs of Anasoma; its unpleasant smells, pervasive roaches, foul waterways, and general grubbiness loom as large as any of the characters.

Even with side stories about a demented killer with visions of grandeur, a judge with hidden abilities, and a squad of sorcerer hunters—all of which inevitably intertwine—the crux of the story is Caldan. After a few misadventures on the wild streets of Anasoma, he has parlayed his crafting abilities into a placement within the coveted Sorcerer’s Guild, though at 18, he’s significantly older than the other apprentices (something that Hogan milks for laughs throughout). But it seems the teen has much greater talents than appearances would suggest, and it’s not long before the legacy his parents left behind dropkicks him into a world of secrets, cabals, invasions, bloodshed, and sorcery. Lots of sorcery.
Based on the conclusion to A Crucible of Souls, I suspect things are going to ramp up considerably in Blood of Innocents. The stakes are high. Is it February yet?