Rating: 5/5
*Spoiler warning towards the bottom of this review
I know I’m super late to this review. I’m just starting to do reviews (this is my first one) and a book published over three years ago just so happens to be one that I’m reviewing. Whatever, I’m gonna do it anyway.
To briefly describe this book in a sentence or two, this is a war story. A fantasy epic set in an earth-adjacent world with themes of regret, loss, devastation, and fulfillment. The foundation is the art of fighting and the use of bloodline/magic-based techniques in combat.
To describe this book in only one word I would say ‘unforgettable’. It’s just one of those novels you can’t forget. After reading through the first climax in this book I was having trouble sleeping. I was devastated, truly heartbroken.
I genuinely only have praise for this book. M.L. Wang does an excellent job at whatever you could think of throughout this book. The worldbuilding is precise and in-depth just enough to be enticed. The character-building Wang produces in this novel is second to none. I was genuinely invested in every character. Even though Mamoru and Misaka are the main characters everyone else gets worked out so you have an understanding of what they’re going through. As the audience, you feel the loss each character feels. Reading this you can’t help but feel all the emotions each character is feeling at every moment. During battle you feel excitement and dread, during peacetime, you feel like something is missing, during death you feel devastation. It’s almost as if every word is calculated. The foreshadowing in this book is wild. You don’t see it until it hits you like a train toward the end of this book. Trust me, whatever your reading has meaning and will impact the story (and you) later.
My recommendation for people who haven’t read this book yet would be to read this next. Whatever your plans were previously drop them and read this. You won’t regret it.
*Spoilers from here on:
This is the one quote that broke me looking back. I won’t even get into the foreshadowing of the god-like mountain bloodline technique that Mamoru foreshadows before this.
“A decade later, a fifteen-year-old Hiroshi would become known as the youngest swordsman ever to master the Whispering Blade. What the world would never know, was that he was the second youngest.”
This quote is hauntingly beautiful. Mamoru worked tirelessly for 14 years of his life to become the swordsman he is at this moment. Growing up with no emotional support from his father and not until recently from his mother. All of it culminates in this unimaginable accomplishment, just to die moments later. So rewarding and gut-wrenching, truly one of the great climaxes in a fantasy book. The crazy part… it’s only a third of the way into this novel. Using the word shocking to describe this climax would be a gross understatement.
I know it’s a cliché thing to say about a good book, but I will do it anyway. The worst part about this book for me was that it ended. It left me begging for more. All I want is to know more. More about Mamoru’s life growing up, more about Takeru and Misaki’s life together post the second climax together, more about Misaki’s three boys and how their lives go.
This book is simply special.
Here is the link to purchase the paperback:
If you have a kindle and want to read The Sword of Kaigen here is the link to kindle unlimited:
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