Pale Night, Red Fields
The threads of fate are not so easily unwoven.
There is a growing fascination among the Dusk Tribe with the land of the dead. The Tribe’s shamans work tirelessly day and night to find a path to communion with their people’s lost souls, but answers are slow to uncover.
As both the son of a shaman and the Tribe’s only Futureseer, Zarrow is ordered to view the days and weeks ahead to reveal the source of the Tribe’s successful discovery, but when he does so, he finds not celebration, but destruction. Devastation. Sacrifice. And those closest to him bloodied by it all. Zarrow must find a way to prevent his visions from coming to pass, and he must do so quickly.
For the pale night approaches, and it promises a curse that may leave the Dusk Tribe forever haunted.
-Goodreads
Title: Pale Night, Red Fields
Series: The Spellbinders and the Gunslingers #0.5
Author: Joseph John Lee
Page Count: 80
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.25/5.0
Date Read: September 28th, 2024
Opening
Pale Night, Red Fields by Joseph John Lee is a prequel novella to book one of The Spellbinders and the Gunslingers series (The Bleeding Stone). To be honest, I read book one over a year ago and even though I really enjoyed it, the series kind of dropped off my radar after I picked up book two. Now that I have my handy spreadsheet tab tracking my reading progress with series, it’s back in my sights. Now due to reading two larger epic novels recently, I felt the need to take a bit of a break to finish off September here. That’s why I opted to pick up Pale Night, Red Fields. It would allow me to get a bit of a reset as well as still ship away at a good series.
Pacing
The pacing of this read was smooth yet still fulfilling. What I mean by this is I can struggle with some novellas because of their shorter length. I’ve had this type of experience where it seemed the author may have rushed the story a bit. That was not the case here. This is even more surprising coming into this read just under 100 pages from a read close to 900 pages. I did fear this drastic shift of gears. Fortunately, I picked a good novella to transition with. The author does a great job still making the characters and world seem very substantial. I had no issues with names of locations or character to trip me up either.
World Building
As I just mentioned the world building really worked for me in this one. The most obvious point to make is that I really enjoy novellas and short stories that add depth to a story and series and this certain achieved that goal. The continued religion or magic in this world keeps things interesting in this one. We learn a bit more backstory about our eclipseborn characters from the first book which was nice.
Character Development
The character development was also really good here. We have some really good relationships and difficulties for characters to overcome, or attempt to at the very least. This novella has a dark and ominous vibe throughout. The protagonist appears to be trying to find out who he is all the while finding out not only who he is but what the future potentially holds for him, his friend and their tribe.
Closing
Our group had the luxury of having a couple of new friends join us for this one, including the author. This can often times be a blessing and a curse depending on expectations from the readers and the author. I’ve had some wonderful and unpleasant interactions in these scenarios. I thought this one went well in my opinion. There was a bit of dialog during the read but not much. I really appreciated the additional information and plans that were shared with us. I will simply say that I hope this book is just the beginning and we see more in this world and series in the near future!
I’ll wrap this one up with a note regarding recommendation. If you like a gritty fantasy with plenty of depth to the world and characters this might be right for you. I certainly think the slower escalation that has that epic fantasy vibe works with this one. However, I know not all readers have the patience for the story to have the foundation laid like this and prefer to dive right into the action. Just keep that in mind when looking to add this one to your TBR.
I’ve already got my hands on some more work from G.R. Matthews and hoping to get into them over the next couple of months still. I’ll be keeping my eye out to see what else he is up to.
Scoring
Pacing 4.25 / 5.0
Worldbuilding 4.0 / 5.0
Character Development 4.5 / 5.0
