Eleventh Cycle (1) (Mistland)

Product Information

Long ago, The Lord Aiduel emerged from the deserts of the Holy Land, possessed with divine powers. He used these to forcibly unite the peoples of Angall, before His ascension to heaven. I don't think I can state it better than that. After seeing the gorgeous cover by Nino Is and the design by Shawn T. King, it immediately captured my interest. After hearing the Dark Souls games inspired it, I knew I had to get it. Thankfully, Kian was kind enough to provide me with an ARC.

The misty world feels claustrophobic at times which is just a sign of how good the author is at drawing you into the setting. He was at least right on the latter, but I can't understand how fans of the Souls series approved of this book. For the record, I'm a die-hard Souls/Miyazaki fan to the point I dedicated many years and hours of my life to speedrunning the games, diving into the lore, the equivalent of a whiteboard and string wrapped around pins, etc. The point is, this book *should* have been made for me. We also have interludes interspersed with the narrative on occasion, giving us a glimpse into Mount Morniar and the realm of the Elders. Now let me tell you, this is TRIPPY lol. I mean seriously it's incredibly fresh and inventive. I have never quite experienced worldbuilding that's felt this alien. Thats the entire feel to this world, a very alien, in some senses barren and morose world. This is not a light tale, not by any means.I'm not sure which book everybody read that warranted their 5 stars because it wasn't the book I just read. In one short scene, a character referred to another character's innocence as "endearing" three times. In another paragraph, it felt as if the word "my" was being inserted at any and all costs. I want to give special mention to how James so respectfully adapted native American culture into his story, to the point that it even included non-binary individuals! I'm not going to say this book is terrible because I'm not comfortable saying that. Listen to the audio sample. That is how this book is written and read.

The Foreward: Now, I appreciate Ardalan gives you a vague list of triggers. But, with this book, I went into a risk. I'm ok with body gore, people getting their guts dismembered, people's head bashed in etc. However... My biggest trigger is any pet-like animal dying as I had to see many of my own die from illness over the years. Now, when the trigger for the pet died, I was thrown into probably my worst night of PTSD and depression that I experienced in months. I absolutely loved Eleventh Cycle. A great Soulsborne (this includes Sekiro and Elden Ring) inspired fantasy novels, surprisingly and also understandably, are not as common as you might think. Countless stories could be created through being inspired by the video game franchise, but it is far from being an easy task to do right. The Soulsborne franchise is often known for its complex and intimidating storyline and difficulty. Non-players of Soulsborne tend to think we gamers are masochists when we constantly play, rage, and love playing these challenging games. But that is not the case. These games teach you to be careful; do not play carelessly. They teach you that repetition and learning are keys to success. They teach you to always pay attention to your surroundings. More importantly, these games teach you that you CAN overcome adversities in life with perseverance. That high-level satisfaction feeling you get when you overcome difficult bosses in these games is utterly rewarding and missing from many games lately. And my point is this. There are MANY things to love in these games (a single review won’t be enough to cover the details of it). At the same time, Eleventh Cycle managed to capture many of them, including one of the main essences of the recurring themes of Dark Souls games: perseverance in the face of injustice and a bleeding world. I felt as if the dialogue was often used as a blunt instrument of exposition and it made it difficult to connect to any of the characters. With its epic worldbuilding, hauntingly beautiful aesthetic, and well-realized protagonists, Eleventh Cycle is a tour de force of grimdark fantasy and a bold statement from emerging indie author Kian N. Ardalan. The novel takes place in the mist-encircled land of Minethria as the prophesied Eleventh Seed is born. This offspring of the Elder King may, perhaps, serve as savior to the mortal beings of this war-torn land. The topic of racism: I'm not going to delve into it, but this book was really awful in presenting a certain race (actually 2). Not discussing it though.Then it came as a scream, a scream which worked its way through my belly and burst from my lips like a shredding storm evoked by the caustic mists." Chroma and Eferiel who are non-human characters are also incredible and they added such depth to this world. They are not human – and that shows. I do find sometimes that books containing elves and dwarves do little to differentiate them from humans, other than the fact they have pointy ears or long beards. This is not the case in Eleventh Cycle. Different types of beings act differently to the others. Also, I can’t deny that the world building in the Seed’s chapters was extremely fascinating and well-realised, but I have to admit that I had a really hard time wrapping my head around some of the fantastical elements/creatures here. Maybe this is just because I am not a visual reader, so I couldn’t conjure up any of the peculiar and imaginative settings and creatures that were described, but I am not sure. I think Ardalan’s prose may also have been a factor in this, as it both did and didn’t work for me at different points in the book. For the most part, I found the prose and the descriptions to be evocative and immersive, but then sometimes it got a bit too lyrical and heavy on the similes and metaphors, which just left me feeling like I was drowning in a sea of nonsensical words. Unfortunately, there are so many issues with this book here for me. There is multiple grammatical and spelling errors. Words get reused to the point of being distracting and similes are just thrown in wildly to the point of also being distracting. Some of the actual content of the book really just turned me off. All of the sex scenes are just embarrassing to read. The oppressed race in the book is very uncomfortably written. One of the first introductions we get of them is characters contemplating their penis sizes and how large they are in comparison to a horse. It all felt like one huge misuse of a stereotype considering all these people are also supposed to be tall, dark-skinned warriors. The storyline with one of the main female POV character's is just straight up vile in how it plays out with the use of SA in the scene and how she moves forward after the event. Kian N. Ardalan was born in Germany, Dusseldorf to Persian parents and has since travelled between so many places that he sees himself as a person of the world; well, with one exception.

Another element in this book that kept me completely glued to the story was the growing conflict between those who claimed to be the rightful "civilized" inhabitants of the continent and the Akar, who are viewed as feral creatures continually in need of being brought to heel and tamed. But it becomes increasingly clear that the Akar are no longer the unorganized rabble that everyone has always assumed they were and as events begin to play out it becomes evident that they may not exactly be content to isolate themselves in the dark recesses of the forest any longer. Will they rise up? Only time will tell. I read Aiduel’s Sin (book 2) straight after and loved it just as much, maybe even more, than book 1, Illborn, so this is definitely a series you can sink your teeth into when on holiday. So much heart and soul is in this characters, eventhough there are some dark themes covered and not all is for the light-hearted to endure. I was informed that the Dark Souls series was an inspiration for this novel and I was actually searching for something like that after playing through Elden Ring. It did not disappoint.

See a Problem?

If you're here because you heard the story was like Dark Souls. Yes. I'd say it captures that sort of world and setting. Even the atmosphere. I came in expecting a dry, dead world that needed to be restored, instead I found one teeming with pain and hope. Eleventh Cycle doesn't mimic the loneliness of its videogame inspirations, but rather takes the mystery of those worlds and evolves it into something new. I was never lost as the story progressed, with every disparate chapter threaded to what had come before, and yet the way things came together in the end still felt like connecting a puzzle.

Sometimes words were completely missing, other times extra words were left in and completely ruined the sentence. A lot of the language felt extraneous such as "privately keep to myself" or "atop of the" where the same thing could have been communicated more smoothly with fewer words. There were better examples of this but I did not keep extensive notes. Big cans of worms: There were two *huge* cans of worms that I could not condone rating this higher than 3. I'm not going to discuss what these cans were referring to.But this is not some kind of 'trauma porn', there is still light and hope in these books. These characters are inherently flawed but good people. They are fiercely loyal, compassionate, trying to do the right thing to survive their way in this miserable world. The world building was very interesting to me. There are certainly some typical fantasy elements to make me feel comfortable but also some very unique bits brought into this story from the world. We are introduced to different regions, races, religions and over all beliefs. As I mentioned earlier this read was very different from the other I had going in parallel. Eleventh Cycle was definitely more dark and brutal. I could definitely see some parts of this world and story being difficult for others to read and enjoy. But to me it really helped paint a picture of this world and its characters and what they are going through.