While preparing for the birth of his first child, Chrys Valerian is tasked with uncovering the group responsible for a series of missing threadweavers–those able to see and manipulate threadlight. With each failure, the dark voice in his head grows louder, begging to be released.
A young girl from a secret city in the center of the Fairenwild veers off course to explore the streets of Alchea. She never expected that her journey would end in chains.
Far in the deserts to the south, a young man’s life changes after he dies.
When Chrys learns who is responsible for the missing threadweavers, they come for him and his family. He must do everything in his power to protect those he loves, even if it means trusting strangers or, worse, the dark voice in his mind.
Together, they will change the world–whether they intend to or not.
Kop’s Review
I’ll keep my thoughts relatively brief for this one. Something I do want to say right off the bat is that this book is excellent in audio should you prefer to read it that way. I would highly recommend it. I did like this book. I thought it was well-paced, had characters that drew you in, and a plot that kept things interesting. The magic system with the different threads and colors of light was also pretty cool. I really think fans of Sanderson would enjoy this book and series. However, that’s where my only real qualm comes up. To me this book felt too much like it was trying to emulate Sanderson that it was kind of distracting. It wasn’t just the magic system but the prose and pacing as well. Still, disregarding any of that, I do think this is a good book in many aspects. It was a fun read in my opinion — fast paced with pretty decent prose on top. I would recommend it to fans of Sanderson looking for something very similar.
My final score is a 7/10.
Tam’s Review
I was a little hesitant about Voice of War when the book started with a baby being blinded for having eyes of the wrong colour. This was a bit brutal for my tastes, and would usually be where I’d put a book down, but I continued on for SPFBO. I was glad I did because the overall tone of the book was not quite as gratuitously dark going forward from there. Voice of War had a very interesting magic system that I found quite enjoyable. “Threadlight” gives some people different magic depending on their eye colour (blue or green), while people with brown eyes don’t have any powers. This did make for some interesting worldbuilding, but it also meant that people with light-eyes had all the power and basically ran society. This sounds a lot like Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives (I had just finished reading Rhythm of War so it stood out a lot), but in a similar fashion, the book had lots of cool magic and lots of mystery too.
Similar to Kop, I think this book would be great for people who enjoy Sanderson-style books with lots of magic and consequences for using it. Baby mutilation aside, there were a lot of very cool things in Voice of War. The magic was fun, the plot quite fast-paced and worked for me, and it was very easy to read. If any of that catches your interest, you may enjoy this book.
My final score is a 5/10
Taking both scores into account, The Fantasy Inn’s final SPFBO rating is a 6/10.
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| Book | Author | Link to Review |
| The Lost War | Justin Lee Anderson | Review |
| Black Stone Heart | Michael R. Fletcher | Review |
| The Combat Codes | Alexander Darwin | Review |
| The Fall of Erlon | Robert H. Fleming | Review |
| A Wind from the Wilderness | Suzannah Rowntree | Review |
| Darkness Forged | Matt Larkin | Review |
The Fantasy Inn’s reviews of other SPFBO 6 finalists
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