Synopsis:
An Empire crumbles from within as a young man with unstoppable potential rises towards a destiny ordained by fate. Bearing a weapon forged from the seed of a Dungeon Core that allows him to absorb into himself slain monsters, Daniel Richards embarks on the journey of a lifetime.
An ancient seal unlocked.
Daniel holds secret to the survival of the nation, a secret kept from him since birth. Fighting against tradition and a unforgiving system, Daniel must discover the true meaning of thrice blessed if he is to save his homeland from the gathering storm of enemies.
Review: Essence Weaver by Wolfe Locke 25/10/20
Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this audiobook free of charge in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I love books with a novel system and it was with great interest that I came into Essence Weaver, a tale of a boy with the power to absorb not only the pure essence of the world to be used as a catalyst to create but he also has the hitherto unknown power to store the essence of monsters.
With a synopsis as shown above I came here expecting a tale of warring nations, armies of summoned creatures and vast magical constructs but instead I discovered a 5-hour long training montage with an unsatisfying ending which makes this a really hard book to review.
Let's start with what I did like, the system. So all things are made of matter, the ground is made of earth, the sky of air, flames of fire and the rivers of water but it goes deeper than that.
All things are made of Essence, the Earth being Earth Essence with a touch of Water, the Rivers are Water Essence with some Air, Flames Fire and Air but maybe also Earth from the fuel; it really is explained much better than I can do justice but the world is made of a whole menagerie of different elemental essences and the Weavers have the ability to harness this.
Weavers are born with an affinity, a Fire Affinity excell at controlling fire and heat and so can absorb this and store it's raw essence inside themselves to be used as batteries of creation. A Fire Weaver for instance could store a Bonfire and launch fireballs at will but Again it goes even deeper!
The same Weaver could absorb the heat from a room, freezing the contents or use Fire Essence to make an opponent's weapon too hot to hold or cook them in their armour; the applications are endless.
Unfortunately for Daniel, our protagonist, he has no affinity and as such has a very limited imagination for using the elements, much to his chagrin when you consider his Father is an Ascended FIre Weaver and a war hero while his Grandfather is the Headmaster of the very school he has joined to be trained.
From these extremely promising beginnings we enter a series of training scenes in school and from there a flight into the dark and more training elsewhere before the book ends. This sounds harsh as some of the training scenes are quite interesting but it seems the author has gone to great lengths to highlight how weak Daniel is compared to the other students and the ability to absorb and use monsters is barely seen at all.
Narration-wise, it's ok. Robert Barefoot provides a competent narration but never goes beyond being just average, not because of his own ability but because he really has nothing to work with here and I really hope that he gets some better gigs going forward as he clearly has the chops for more exciting work.
In all, this is a poor first adventure into the world of the Essence Weavers and it really feels like a promotional file of the first ⅓ of a book as literally nothing described in the blurb happens.