The Rave by J.R. Traas [SPFBO]

The Blurb:

When Alina K’vich lost her parents, her grandfather Dimas gave her a home and a purpose. At The School, he trained her to become an Aelfraver—a hunter of arcane beasts, demons, and other anti-human entities. For ten years, they built a life together. Then, one night, in the middle of preparing dinner, Dimas vanished.

Now seventeen, and stuck with her grandfather’s debts, Alina resorts to illegal Raves in her rundown hometown. But these small-time contracts simply aren’t enough: The School lies in disrepair, the power’s shut off, and the bills remain insurmountable. In a last-ditch gamble, she signs up for a Rave whose massive reward could rewrite her entire future. However, she’s far from the only Aelfraver to answer the call of such an alluring bounty…

Out of options, Alina sinks the last of her money into a forged Raver’s license and a one-way ticket to New El, the floating Capital. There, an unnamable horror—her target—busies itself slaughtering the nobility in the dead of night, leaving no survivors and no witnesses. Protected only by her wits and spells, Alina must find a way to save New El, her School, and herself.

Adam’s Review

Note: This is a potential semifinalist.

Contrary to what I assumed from the title, The Rave by J.R. Traas is not a book about a big magical dance party. Instead, it treats us to a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, where bounty hunters known as Ravers use magic and technology to hunt the Aelf, magical creatures that vary in size, shape, intelligence and malevolence. 

The Rave plays out very much like an urban fantasy on LSD. Our protagonist, Alina is one missed rent payment away from homelessness, a young, down on her luck, would-be Raver, her father long missing and his defunct Raver school in her care. She’s determined to prove herself (and earn a tidy sum of money at the same time) and the opportunity comes with the death of several nobles at the hands (talons?) of a powerful Aelf in The Capital, a floating city home to most of the rich and powerful. Unfortunately a small army’s worth of other Ravers have had the same idea.

What comes next is a smorgasbord of fantasy and sci-fi concepts – magical potions, lightning powers, earth magic, a thieving urchin, robot dragons, shapeshifters, a cyberpunk mind-dive into the computer matrix, a voice hearing assassin priest and so much more. It’s honestly close to overwhelming, but it makes for a joyfully vibrant setting, with new surprises around every corner. Despite this abundance of stuff, the setting still had a visceral quality to it that helped me buy into the madness.

After a punchy opening scene, I felt the book took a little too long to get to The Capital, where the majority of the action takes place. I also felt like the last chapter, which was an epilogue of sorts, dragged on for a little longer than necessary. Other than that, the book is well paced, and the latter third has that avalancing energy that I always enjoy in action oriented urban fantasy books.

There’s a lot of characters and factions to keep track of, and while we mostly see things from the point of view of Alina and the aforementioned assassin priest, I did feel like the book could have cut down on some of these extra elements without much issue. Most of the characters were well developed at least and provided some entertaining story beats. There was one character in particular whose inclusion in the story seemed a little forced, and while I didn’t dislike the character, their inclusion required Alina to make some pretty naive decisions and their storyline left me fairly dissatisfied.

I liked Alina, and there’s a sense of fun to the book in general, and her interactions specifically, although those interactions can often veer on the overly cute/cheesy side of things. I found that the mysteries surrounding her character were a little confusing at first – I think that the intention was to dance around those elements to avoid revealing too much too fast, but it felt off to me. I also felt that Alina was in over her head in The Rave in a way that made her successes feel a little contrived. The fact that hundreds of other professional ravers fail where she succeeds suspended my disbelief a little too much. The climax and culmination of the mysteries was exciting and fairly satisfying, even if certain elements fell into place a little too neatly.

Ultimately I had a fun time with The Rave. If you’re looking for a vibrant urban fantasy in a unique setting, it’s well worth a look.

To check out our other SPFBO 7 reviews and keep up to date on which books are still in the running, check out our SPFBO 7 Hub page here.