The Iron Crown by L.L. MacRae

Lost and confused, his only hope for answers is Calidra—a woman living on the edge of the world with her partner. Forced to return home when her father dies, Calidra has put off facing her estranged mother for seven years, and she begrudgingly helps Fenn, forging papers for him so he can avoid the Queen’s Inquisitors.

But her mother is the least of her worries when they discover an ancient enemy is rising again. It should be impossible with the Iron Crown in power—and Fenn is terrified he might unwittingly be playing a part in the war’s resurgence.

Surrounded by vengeful spirits and powerful magic, Fenn’s desperate attempt to find his way home might well alter the fate of Tassar, and every power in it.

Devin

This book was a whole load of ups and downs for me. To get the technical stuff out of the way, Iron Crown unfortunately has a number of errors that some people may find grating when reading. Mostly spelling errors any spell check could have picked up, such as ‘outt’ instead of out, ‘strugged’ instead of shrugged, things like that. Also character names were occasionally misspelled, Calidra becoming Clidra or Claidra, and Fenn becoming Fell. Usually I’m not too fussed about this sort of thing, but it happened with enough frequency that it was harder and harder to ignore. Other errors were of continuity, such as a character saying ‘hey I’m not that much younger than you’ when no one had mentioned age, and a character with no physical sensation saying her foot aches—the sort of things that, along with the spelling and name errors, could have been picked up by an editor. I hate the whole ‘could have done with an edit’ as a complaint because it is often used as a general smear for something that a reader just didn’t enjoy, but in this case many of the technical errors could have been avoided and I hope that’s something the author considers in the future.

Ok, so on to the actual content of the book with all its aforementioned ups and downs. The hook here is that one of the main POV characters opens this tale without any memories, which allows him to play the stranger in a strange land, prompting the other characters to explain things without it coming across as an info dump. And the world is interesting. With every large natural formation such as oceans, forests, lakes and mountains gaining a spirit, some of whom grant blessings to specific individuals, and a curious race of Myr across the sea that everyone is terrified of. This is the crux around which the political aspect is built, ie if the queen who saved us from the Myr is failing to keep saving us from them why should we keep paying our taxes etc. I really enjoyed the progression in this aspect of the story and the slowly evolving mystery around what is actually going on, especially with our amnesiac character, but unfortunately the characters themselves fell flat for me. There was no interpersonal sense of stakes, or even sense of stakes or believable motivation in connection to the plot for most of them. For example… spoilers ahead…

…Varlot’s entire existence. That he protects Fenn initially makes sense, but after that his motivations get muddy and I kept waiting for his true reason for joining them on their journey to appear, only for him to ultimately betray them because Calidra wasn’t nice enough to him. Selys too, a priestess they just happened to run into at a shrine when in search of food. For her to be SO SURE of where they had to go in order to fix Fenn’s memory issues and to also drop everything to join them on their journey needed a greater explanation that never came…

Back out of spoiler land… 

Since there are very little stakes in the plot for most of the characters and very little prior relationships or history between them, it leaves all the tension to be built by everyone just shouting at each other. Occasionally getting annoyed was a warranted response to what was happening, but more often the reactions felt unnecessary, out of proportion and repetitive. The other way the author tried to build a sense of stakes was by having the characters repeatedly worry, aloud and in their heads, about what would happen if they failed to do a thing or how they felt about a thing, but since none of it connected to the broader plot it came across more like a group of self-involved people thinking about themselves.

In terms of the other stakes and motivations, Calidra’s entire plan is to catch up with her family, and Jisyel is along for the ride with no plans or motivations at all. So really without Fenn and his lack of memory, it seems no one would have a strong motivation. BUT… then we come to the other half of the story, following Apollo the thief. This only shows up at about the 50% mark, but is far far stronger in every way. There’s history, motivations, connection to every part of what is going on, and he’s compelling. I cared what happened to him. His part in the ending of this book even made me want to continue with the series to find out what happens. So after a shaky start, The Iron Crown strengthens in the second half, doing well to keep seeding the growing mystery and bringing the disparate characters together, which I hope the author will be able to carry on into the rest of the series.

So, TL;DR? The Iron Crown has a very enjoyable mystery/magic/political plot, but is ultimately let down by weak motivations and characters who shout a lot in lieu of developing plot stakes. Except for Apollo, who is awesome and makes the whole thing better merely by existing. I’m giving The Iron Crown a 6

Jared

The Iron Crown starts with a satisfying amount of intrigue: a man without a memory, a woman without sensation (a bit like that Robert Carlyle Bond villain), an heiress without her land. The land itself is populated by spirits of various sizes and temperaments, creating a suitably fantastical atmosphere. 

Lacking memory – hell, lacking all sensation – these are fairly major character traits, but aside from being hand-wavey motivation, they go largely unexplored (and occasionally forgotten). The Iron Crown also has a penchant for slightly repetitive infodumping, made all the more bewildering when major information is then revealed as a sudden surprise. Coupled with the various editing errors that Devin’s already touched on above, The Iron Crown never really puts its best foot forward. 

I’ve noted before that SPFBO is not a competition about potential, which is, in many ways, a shame. We are judging these books not as manuscripts, but as finished books – not just relative to one another, but to every other (traditional and independently) published work. Iron Crown, like many other books in the competition, has some excellent ideas. Unfortunately, it feels that it is not yet a fully wrought work. (3/10)

Hiu

Let’s kick things off by talking setting and worldbuilding.

The world of The Iron Crown may not necessarily reinvent the wheel of medieval-style fantasy, but the inclusion/implementation of the author’s own ideas on top of this familiar base makes the setting an interesting place to spend a few hours.

In this world, there are dragon spirits which are tied to aspects of the land — such as seas, forests, mountains, and so on. These spirits can influence humanity in certain ways, or take humans on as priests, which grants them certain boons. Health, strength, energy, fiery swords… All that kind of stuff. 

There are also seemingly-evil spirits called the Myr, which humanity thought they had defeated once and for all a few years ago. They hadn’t.

The amount of thought that has went into this setting is quite evident. The Iron Crown is full of little worldbuilding anecdotes, and this might have something to do with the books substantial length. For readers who live for this kind of stuff, there’s a lot here to love. You want to hear about a dragon working iron as though it were glass? Fortifying a castle with numerous landing pads? This is the book for you. Personally speaking, I found this to be a little bit too much at times, and so I had to be conscious not to skim ahead in case I missed anything important.

When it comes to the characters, unfortunately a lot of my thoughts mirror Devin’s. I didn’t dislike any of the main POV crew, and in fact I thought that Torsten’s inclusion, being somewhat antagonistic (an understatement), brought a nice variety of experience to the book. But I struggled to fully immerse myself.

And I’m also struggling to pinpoint the “why” behind that lack of immersion. Everything Dev said… Stakes, motivations, and a general feeling of a character being “embedded” in a story? Any of those could be it. Or it could be that I didn’t feel there was much of an engaging Voice-y-ness to their perspectives. Or, it could just be that I tend to enjoy books with deeper characterisation, and this isn’t that kind of book. (And in the interests of remaining completely fair, nor do I think it’s trying to be.)

I’ve found that the hardest part of SPFBO judging has been reconciling personal likes & dislikes with the idea of an “objective” judgement of quality, if such a thing exists (I call bullshit). Unlike my co-reviewers here, I’m not a respected writer or editor. I’m just a guy taking a stab at why a thing did or didn’t work for me, in the hopes that I direct the right reader to the right book.

And as important as I think it is for reviewers to give that a try, I also think it’s important to hold your hands up when you just don’t know. And that’s the case for me here. The characters didn’t capture my imagination, though I can’t put my finger on why, and as a result of that, I only found myself invested in the plot towards the action-heavy end of the book.

I can imagine that worldbuilding buffs will love all the details and asides in The Iron Crown. For me, that’s where its strengths lie. It reminds me a little bit of those early chapters of The Eye of the World. Those parts where Rand and Mat are travelling from town to town, gradually learning about the wider world.

The Iron Crown didn’t set my world on fire, and it might just be that this wasn’t the book for me. It will have its spot on the leaderboard for a reason, though, and so I encourage you to check out the reviews that other judges have written.

I’m scoring this a 6/10.

final score: 5/10