The Indivisible and the Void

by D M Wozniak

Overview

War. Magic. A lover's betrayal. A dark secret lies beneath them all.

Each year, Democryos sends his brightest student into the war-torn countryside to work magic. But when his wife leaves him for a mysterious stranger, he finds his own life ravaged.

Forsaking the comfort of the citadel, he searches for her, traveling through the same forgotten lands where he sent his students. Along the way, he befriends an elusive member of the king's harem, a holy man harboring guilt, and a maimed soldier. Together, they stumble upon a key-not only to the war, but to understanding the magic of voidance itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578447155
Publisher:	D.M. Wozniak
Publication date:	01/19/2019
Series:	Age of Axion , #1
Pages:	574
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.28(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in the west suburbs of Chicago, D.M. Wozniak discovered his passion for software at St. Lawrence High School, where he joined the computer lab as a ploy to get out of gym class. By the time he graduated in 1993, D.M. knew that he wanted to code for a living. But his senior-year honors-English teacher took him aside on graduation day and said, "Never stop writing. It's your true calling."Four years later, D.M. graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in Computer Science from the College of Engineering. After that, he started a family and a career in software. He didn't have the time then to consider that true calling.But he never forgot.D.M. Wozniak is the author of two two-volume speculative fiction epics: The Perihelion: Complete Duology (The Perihelion, An Obliquity) and the Age of Axion (The Indivisible and the Void, Temberlain's Ashes). His first novel was The Gardener of Nahi. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.www.dmwozniak.com

Editorial Reviews

2019-05-01
In this fantasy novel, a powerful magic wielder searches for his wife, who apparently left him for another man, as well as a villainous "voider" with similar powers.

Master Voider Democryos, nicknamed "Dem," works out of the citadel for King Andrej X. He teaches talented pupils to use peach-pit-shaped voidstones, which allow one to see and manipulate matter in the "indivisible" realm ("Everything in our creation is built out of infinitesimal building blocks, called the indivisible"). One morning, Dem finds a letter from Lady Marine, his wife of five years, stating that their marriage is over. An investigation of her bedchamber reveals that she left in haste, likely with another man. Later, Dem and the king discuss the ongoing war with the Southern Kingdom. Andrej demands more voidstones and "voiders" with the skill to use them despite the scarcity of each. The king insists that a woman from his harem, Chimeline, must sleep with Dem. Instead, Chimeline and Dem go on a quest to find a hidden forest laboratory where Chimeline says that a mysterious voider conducted torturous experiments on her and other women. Also in the lab is an airship that's designed to fly on principles that are known best to voiders. Dem and Chimeline take it south on a hunt for Marine and the rogue voider, little realizing that the voidstones' true nature may change society forever. In this series opener, Wozniak (An Obliquity, 2017, etc.) straddles science fiction and fantasy while commendably exploring questions of spirituality. The effulgents, a religious sect who don't believe in ownership or relationships, provide an energetic counterpoint to the materialism that's thrown two kingdoms into war. Wozniak's medieval world, as described, is a beautiful one; from the sky, it "looks like thousands of curved pieces of glass" covering everything "in blues and greens." The book also wonderfully handles the notion of a preindustrial society discovering the atomic structure of nature. Yet the plot's human elements—which include romance, drug addiction, and trust across philosophical lines—often shine brightest. Revelations and combat converge in the propulsive finale, and Wozniak's strong imagination will rope fans in.

A series starter that trips across fantastic terrain with a human touch.

Kirkus Reviews