Davis Ashura

This book collects the whole The castes and The Outcastes trilogy, by Davis Ashura (composed of A Warrior's Path, A Warrior's Knowledge and A Warrior's Penance).

I have some mixed feelings about it, although the story kept my interest for the whole 1600 pages.

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding: the Indian-inspired society, rigidly divided in castes, each of them with their own magical talents and social roles; the vibrant but isolated cities, protected by magical means against a mad goddess, show more Suwraith, who rambles outside, dedicated to the extermination of humanity as much as her craziness allows her; the caravans, also called Trials, that communicate cities, to exchange knowledge and goods, always threatened by Suwraith and her minions, even if those minions are not always what they seem... The city of Ashoka was brought to live very well.

I also liked the characters, although I felt that the dynamics of the different couples were all too similar to each other.

One thing I didn't like is that from time to time there were details about the characters' relationships and social customs and about the story that did not ring true to me. It's difficult to explain without giving examples, so I'll do that: For example, there is a caste whose members have healing powers, so they tend to serve as healers. One important plot point depends on a military expedition taking with them none of these healers, which seems absurd to me. Another example is when we learn that Jessira, one of the main heroines of the story, had a sexual encounter with one of her bosses. Apparently she was not in full possession of her mental faculties when it happened. We are told that, even though in her society single young women are free to have sexual relationships, if it became known that she did so without being fully aware of what she was doing she would be disgraced to the point of suffering social ostracism... So, sleeping with someone is perfectly OK. Sleeping with someone after drinking too much would mean that your life is basically over because of social ostracism? And in that case, who is going to know or judge whether you were aware of what you were doing, when the person who actually knows is the one who stands to lose everything if it becomes known? It makes little sense to me. Problems like these, even though they are punctual, happened often enough to take me out of the story from time to time.

One detail I liked is the presence at the beginning of each book of detailed summaries of what had happened up till them. It did not help me in this case, because I read the three books in a row, but when reading a new book in a series after a long wait it's a big help.

Overall, it was a good and entertaining read. show less

I really enjoyed the book and I'm now looking forward to the rest of the series. Davis is obviously an experienced writer and I particularly like the depth to his characters. Give it a go if you like Epic Fantasy... or good writing in general.

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