Book Review: The Silver Crystal by Ryan Lanz

A magnificent fantasy epic!

The Silver Crystal by Ryan Lanz reads like a lot of fantasy stories, so if that’s your genre, you’ll immediately feel welcome and at home. There’s sword fighting and magic, valiant heroes and suspicious villains, intrigue, romance and conspiracy. There’s immense world building with sprawling cities, dangerous forests and epic quests, and every page you read will make you want to turn to the next.

The story follows Rhael, freelance bounty hunter and leader of a band of misfits, currently under employ of The Order. Their mission is to hunt the Corrupted, dangerous criminals, people who live outside the law, and who all share one very defining feature: they have dangerous, magical abilities. Rhael and his team’s job is to hunt these people down, and to force a silver crystal through their hand, a violent and horrifying method that serves to disarm the corrupted and remove their dangerous abilities. Then, they are marched back to The Order, and Rhael and his friends can collect the bounty. This is what they do, how they spend their time, until one day, when everything goes wrong and a mission takes a horrible turn – and suddenly, Rhael finds himself with a crystal of his own.

Lanz writes like a veteran fantasy author – and he very might well be! – even though this is the first book of his that I’ve come across. It’s dark and mysterious at times, it’s detailed and complex, yet light-hearted and even funny, at times. It’s a long book, thick with a well established fantasy world and sprawling with places, characters and histories, like any good fantasy book should be, yet the pace is just fast enough that the book never drags, and you always feel like you’re in the midst of the most important parts of the story.

Yet, at times I feel like he over explains and dumbs down parts occasionally, just to make sure the reader is following. I felt that these things were unnatural for characters to think and say, and I felt I would have grasped the hidden meanings and underlying themes, even without the words being put in my mouth. But it’s a minor issue, more of a feature than a bug, and it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book.

Because the story is good – surprisingly so! I found myself fully invested even after just a handful of pages in, and I found myself comparing Lanz’ writing to other great fantasy books, like A Song Of Ice and Fire and the Warcraft series, which I’ve read a lot of. The Silver Crystal is simultaneously an epic fantasy and a buddy-cop comedy, a 2-in-1 kind of deal, and I love the dichotomy. I was never bogged down with overwhelming histories of distant lands, family lineages of ancient house, or the geography of distant kingdoms, yet the story didn’t focus solely on a handful of characters who didn’t seem to be part of a wider world. It’s really a perfect blend.

And the plot is good too. It’s clearly a series that aims to develop characters and plots further in future installments, and this first book sets everything up very well. If you’re looking for a new fantasy favorite, and if you’re interested in picking up an indie book that you might not happen across just out of nowhere, I’ll thoroughly recommend this. Any fantasy lover would appreciate this.

Oh, and I absolutely love Gobo.

What do you think? Have you read anything exciting lately? Come across any good books, any hidden gems, or perhaps something you didn’t like at all? Let me know in the comments! I love it when people get in touch

And as always, please check out all my books and stories below. If you’re into psychological horror, crime thrillers, or science-fiction and fantasy, you’ve come to the right place!

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