One of the most ambitious hooks I have read this year, Vultures by Luke Tarzian was a bewildering, genre-transcending adventure. The story combines an intricate plot as you might expect from an epic fantasy, a layering of philosophical undertones, some mind-bending time disruption shenanigans, villains straight out of a psychological horror, and a pervasively dark, bleak ambiance.

“There will be chaos,” the voice replied. “And from chaos, death. From death, deliverance.”

While I am not entirely sure I was the right audience for a book such as this, there were many elements that I enjoyed, and would recommend it to anyone on the lookout for a haunting, unorthodox story that will challenge you at every turn.

Vengeance for the sake of vengeance. Vengeance for the sake of reclamation.

In this twisted tale, we explore the fate of three civilizations primarily from the perspective of three ambitious and resourceful individuals. Their lives are deeply connected in strange ways. Destiny is responsible in part, but also we have machinations of puppet masters orchestrating events from the shadows.

In Ariath, abandon pushed forbearance off a cliff

The story opens with your all-too-familiar zealot race of humans dealing with a surge of demon attacks. Now enters the caveat: the champion on whose shoulders their fate rests is Theailys An, a descendant of demons. Needless to say, his heritage complicates matters, as does his phantom companion, who tends to take over his life at the worst possible times.

Truth from madness

Then we also have the equally interesting, plagued, immortal race of Phantaxians, for whom anger is more than just an emotion. Their fury manifests as murderous, dark, vicious creatures, and not being able to temper Yssa is a sacrilege whose price is often paid by their loved ones.

Scars have a nasty way of fixing things in place

Lastly, we have the vanished race of Reshapers, mostly lost to time except for ruins and dead cities they have left behind. But as the story progresses, we discover that they are not entirely forgotten, and their legacy continues to affect the present in very interesting and unexpected ways.

All the primary characters are crafted with a deep focus on exploration of mental health, and their struggles are vivid and relatable. As someone who has struggled with depression and insomnia extensively, I loved the many facets of inner conflict.

“Will you be able to find sleep this night?” inquired Remy. Theailys laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

I also loved the theme of the recurrence of history. While not a new idea, the author’s approach felt novel in its application.

Among the key players, Behtréal was the one I loved the most. His dual personality and the crimes he commits in the hopes of restoring the glory of his people resonated the most with me. The theme of exploring morality from the point of view of someone who has (or thinks they have) the option to change the past is one very close to my heart, and I loved to see this aspect explored.

Discretion was Behtréal’s middle name and chaos was his favorite game.

I liked Theailys An as well, but for different reasons. The contrast between his grand ambitions and the bleakness of his everyday life makes for a wonderful grimdark premise. His ephemeral companion Faro addressing him as “My Flesh” is one of the creepiest things I have experienced, and those words will stay with me for a while.

Theailys closed his eyes and Faro grinned back from the void.

Serece, while not uninteresting, receives less of “screen-time” compared to the others, and I felt I might have been able to enjoy her banter with Theailys or been able to appreciate better the dilemma of choice during her confrontation with Behtréal if I had spent more time with her. A deeper exploration of her shared past with Theailys would have likely helped.

Despite there being many aspects I loved, I also occasionally felt a bit of conflict between what I want to enjoy in dark fantasy and the more abstract philosophical/metaphysical aspects the author wanted to delve into.

In addition, it gets borderline annoying to have a protagonist who keeps passing out each time shit hits the fan. The action lover in me groaned every time I came across what could have been a fantastic action sequence, getting recounted through a third-party account, a dream, or a brief recollection before the narrative quickly moves away to something else.

One of the most egregious was Searyn An attacking the General who imprisoned her. I wanted to be there; I wanted to live the scene. And here it was, a fragment of someone else’s memory, gone a sentence later.

Though the encounter with the faceless priests and the conflict between Illum and Mirkur in Theailys’s mind did quench my bloodthirst to some extent, the author’s general aversion towards action in a story as blood-soaked as this did get in the way of immersion.

The tangents around Galska Nuul and the fallen angel felt like a rabbit hole veering in very unanticipated directions. By this time I was beginning to struggle to fill the shoes of the reader the book was written for. For a smarter mind, this will likely not be an issue.

I’d recommend getting into the book with something of an explorer mindset, with the awareness that every name casually mentioned in passing has the potential to suddenly transform into a pivotal actor or a plot twist several chapters later. There is a lot packed in very few pages.

Agony to alleviate the anguish. Masochism in its purest form.

A story such as this, where the past and the present are tightly interwoven through cause-effect relationships that go both ways, perhaps necessitates a non-linear narration. But my lizard brain would have appreciated some more reinforcement of the cornerstone elements of the plot.

This is the first in a series, and therefore it does end with a few open tangents. We are left with many questions. What was Phantaxian doing in Lea Mort? What was his exact role in the inception of the plague? Why were pieces of Varésh’s body scattered across the realm?

Hopefully we will get answers to some of these in the next book.

It was written in the light, whispered of in shadows

Also, while I did spend an unreasonable amount of ink lamenting my qualms with the author’s choices, I also loved the overall presentation—especially the style of prose. Many passages were absolutely frame-worthy and will stay etched in my memory forever. Perhaps my conflicted feelings are quite apt for a book that has such a strong focus on duality.

Destiny does as balance wills, and balance is the cruelest aspiration of them all. A master unfathomable in its strength