Children of Amarid by David B. Coe

The people of Tobyn-Ser have a long history of trusting and relying upon the benevolent actions of an order of mages known as the Children of Amarid. But now, this trust is rapidly eroding as crops are destroyed, villages are burned, and innocent people are being killed, seemingly at the hands of these same mages. Are these renegade mages at work or is it something more dire? A young man named Jaryd, newly recognized as a mage, finds himself at the center of the effort to unmask the nature of the evil invading their lands.

I was introduced to the works of author David Coe through his Thieftaker novels and stories, written under the name D.B. Jackson. I liked them so much that I’ve wanted to go back and try his more traditional fantasy and I’m very happy I did. This book is actually his very first published novel and is the first part of the “LonTobyn” trilogy. I found it to be an excellent read with vivid characters and an interesting plot. The world building is nice, as is the magic system. It is not without the sort of flaws that one might expect from a first novel, however. For example, I thought it could have used a bit more focus in some areas and occasionally the plot was uneven and meandered a little too much. There was also quite a bit of background presented in fairly large info dumps, but he handled this in clever ways such as through a story from somebody or a lesson for Jaryd, allowing us to learn about some of the history right along with him. 

But these are nitpicky issues, far outweighed by the sheer fun of reading a traditional fantasy novel filled with as much hopefulness as peril. It’s not “grimdark” fantasy or hard-boiled; you’ll find no f-bombs here. In style it resembles Raymond Feist’s “Riftwar” series. I like almost all kinds of fantasy and relish variety so have no problems with grimdark, etc. But it is nice every once in a while, to read a smooth-flowing fantasy yarn that doesn’t leave you with a feeling of dread.

So, I offer my strongest compliment I can ever give to a first book in a series: I can’t wait to read the next one.

Updated: The version I read is dated 1998 but per the author, all three of the LonTobyn Chronicles have been re-released from Lore Seekers Press. After a thorough edit, making improvements to prose, syntax, etc. but not to story or character development, some 20,000 words have been pruned from this first volume. My comments about a meandering and uneven plot are likely no longer relevant.