Sweet & Salty Reviews - Eversong by A.C. Salter

Beware of the spoilers!

The Dish

Eversong by A.C. Salter is the first book of the Daughter of Chaos trilogy. A trilogy of books about the Daughter of Chaos. It’s also the first self-published work I’ve reviewed down here in the Basement.

The Sauce

Earth shares a plate with another realm called Thea, where magic is a thing and all your favourite fantasy creatures live. Earth’s natural phenomena constitute its own brand of magic and the only cool creatures we get are the ones who sneak over from Thea. Until now, when the world is about to descend into bloody anarchy.

The Sweet

A.C. Salter’s recipe for fantasy is simple but effective. He serves a basic ‘real world’ that is more or less as we know it, alongside a hot and spicy helping of high fantasy where all the orcs and fairies and elves and Vikings live. Yeah, there are Vikings. Magic realism and classic fantasy in the same story. It’s a winning combination.

The first half of the book takes the reader on a tour of various mundane locales (including Tilbury Docks, a hop, skip and a jump from where I sprang up from the mud), always peppering them with monsters and legends and plentiful fight scenes. The second half leaps with both feet into Thea, through a hell-dimension called the Shadowlands. All of this is very interesting.

Better than the world-building, however, are the layered and conflicted characters. Diagus, the man who might never have been Shadojak. Bray, the boy who probably never will be. Ragna, the retired viking who still longs for glory and his hard-as-nails wife, . The real centre piece is Elora, however, which you’d hope since she’s the main character.

By turns fierce and independent, she is also capable of great compassion, empathy and insight. One of my favourite sequences involves a weary Diagus chasing Elora all over the ravaged English countryside as she adamantly refuses to stop trying to help every person they come across. Though she has every hallmark of an annoying fantasy heroine, Elora is so nice and often humble it’s difficult not to like her.

Whatever else might be said, A.C. Salter loves to tell a story. The action is pacy enough to keep the attention and every dramatic scene is loaded with emotion, be it fear, joy, tension, disbelief or sadness. The characters demand investment and they move the story forward relentlessly.

The Salty

Unfortunately, a lot of the major turning points of the story hinge on serious questionable judgement on the part of characters who should have known better. Why did Diagus leave Elora in the room with the demon? Why did the monster takwich wound Ragna and slow the group down when he wanted them to reach their destination quicker? The plot twists are very engaging, but they don’t much stand up to scrutiny.

The final boss is also undermined by a similar bad judgement call. He rants about how much he doesn’t care about Elora and how she is just a tool to him, but still gives her the opportunity to run him through with probably the only weapon in the two realms that can actually destroy him. While this might all be part of A.C. Salter’s diabolical plan for the rest of the banquet he’s prepared, an allusion to this effect at the end of the book would have been helpful.

A lot of the book is also overwritten. Some characters think about the same things several times throughout the book, constantly wondering whether or not they’re in love, whether they should kill Elora, whether they’re doing the right thing or did the right thing or will do the right thing at some point in the future. These moments are frustrating, especially when you consider that, when things do happen, they’re usually quite interesting.

There’s also an unfortunate number of grammar mistakes and typos in the novel. Obviously, this is a self-published book and largely a one-man show, but it doesn’t feel like a polished work. And while I have sniped a couple of typos in a recent read - published by a major publishing house no less - there are a few too many in Eversong to make it feel finalised.

The Aftertaste

Eversong is a novel with potential. A.C. Salter’s world- and character-building capabilities aren’t in dispute. What is missing is editorial finesse. The typos and grammar mistakes should have been caught between drafts. The questionable decisions and mistakes the characters make should have been addressed and removed, or reframed to make them sensible. A.C. Salter wrote a good story. A couple more drafts might have made it excellent.