Legacy of Bones by Kirk Dougal

An ancient evil is waiting to be reborn…

One thousand years ago, Emperor Abaddon and his generals swept into the Western Kingdoms and unleashed death and destruction on the people. But ruling the world could not be accomplished until they destroyed the dragonlord and his followers, leaving themselves as the most powerful magic users alive.

The dragons and the eastern countries had other plans. Legendary beasts and men banded together in a suicide mission to stop the war, meeting them in a final battle where the emperor and the dragonlord were killed. The five surviving soldiers who fought beside the dragons became the Draig D’Alikar, a group of fighters with the legacy to protect the kingdoms by carrying the bones of the dragonlord as weapons against their enemies.

But now, a young woman has been found who could be a powerful enough magic user to help the emperor be reborn. Only her two brothers, one a recently liberated apprentice who has his own secret power, and the other a drunk still trying to forget their father’s death, stand in the way of the generals bringing Emperor Abaddon back to life.

Kirk Dougal’s Legacy of Bones was a book that I found very enjoyable in places, but slightly confusing in others. I read this as part of this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition, and from my initial batch of eight books, this is one of two that caught my eye.

I thought it started off really well. Kirk Dougal knows how to manipulate sentence structure to convey tension, and he utilises this skill to full effect throughout the novel. It gives his fight scenes a sense of urgency, and gives scenes with his antagonists a certain sense of gravity.

But having said that, It took me quite a while to see the entire picture of the story. Following a prologue, we start off with a few chapters from the perspective of Gera — a smith’s apprentice who is ready to sit his test for mastery. Gera’s sister, Keely, has a few chapters of her own, and she soon finds out that she has a secret (and powerful) magic.

These chapters had a very classical “epic fantasy” feel to them, so I was admittedly a little confused by the very grimdark cover. However, a few chapters from the perspectives of the villains changed that. I thought it was quite an odd mix, really. The protagonist’s chapters can feel very traditional and “clean”, to the extent that there’s not really any swearing in this book. But then the chapters from the antagonists’ POV feature things like casual genocides and the spooky ritualistic killing of a naked woman, which obviously have a very grimdark feel.

Legacy of Bones has a fairly standard medieval-european-style setting. An organisation called The Crimson Guard goes from town to town, testing the children for any magical affinity, and throwing those that have it into cages bound for a magic school. These children are generally never heard from again.

As you’d imagine, Keely is one of these unfortunate souls (despite technically being too old to be tested), and her brothers eventually have to set off on an adventure to free her. It’s a classic story arc which I had a lot of fun with, but there were certain things about this book that frustrated me.

These were mostly just little things, but unfortunately they added up. There was a recurring quirk of the writing style where numerous chapters or scenes would begin with a mysterious man/figure who would only be named after a few paragraphs of description. I was fine with this the first couple of times it happened — it can be a fun way to build tension — but after a while it started to feel like information was being temporarily withheld for no real reason. The way that the POV switches were handled also felt a little awkward for me. Sometimes there would be a string of successive chapters from one characters perspective, and sometimes a string of one-offs, with no apparent consistency. It felt a little chaotic, and while this may be a personal thing, it made it a little bit more difficult for me to follow the thread of the story.

But aside from these complaints, this was a genuinely engaging story. I particularly loved the inclusion of a leather-skinned big-cat animal companion, who provides some occasional comic relief (along with a boost to the “cool” factor). I was also a big fan of the epic fantasy elements of the story, which really shine in the first 50%. But despite being a fan of the grimdark genre, I did find that some scenes in the more grimdark-y chapters felt a little jarring compared to the rest of the book.

In the end, this was probably a solid 3-star read for me. If it weren’t for the collection of minor frustrations I’ve mentioned above, then maybe it would been in 3.5-4 star territory. Having said that, this was still one of my favourites from my initial batch of SPFBO books, and is one that I’d definitely recommend to fans of grimdark stories.

In SPFBO terms, this was one of three books that I considered for my semi-finalist spot. The others were The Nothing Mage by J.P. Valentine, and a book that a co-judge passed onto my pile after it narrowly missed out on becoming his semi-finalist. We should hopefully be able to announce those semi-finalists in the coming days.

We received a copy of this book as part of our judging duties for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. See the official SPFBO 6 Phase 1 page here.