“The Spring Catastrophe is perfect for readers who enjoy plot-focused fantasy[…]”

Review by Rayleigh Setser

Once there were four realms, and a season for each, perpetual and unchanging. The fall veteran Commander Lord Versos lives in pain and regret at the Traveling Court of his realm. For as long as the bards of his homeland can remember, his warrior culture had been locked in combat with the spring empire of Vesna until a sudden armistice forced this once-mighty warrior into uneasy retirement. But when a mysterious messenger brings word that an impossible, vast monster is ravaging his old foes, Lord Versos rides out to investigate—and embarks on the last great adventure of his military career.

Learning of generations-old conspiracy and a world order that is both magical and cruelly inhuman, Lord Versos now finds himself traveling the four realms to recruit allies to his cause, however unlikely. He sails with the pirates from the frozen Hinterfrost, faces fighting monks from the tropical Sumnaya Isles, and brings a voice of change into every society: all in the attempt to unite these diverse cultures against insurmountable odds. Yet in order to face the catastrophe, he may have to lose more than just his own life.

Divine Tyranny: The Spring Catastrophe reads like a classic fantasy novel. It's straight-forward in its plot building, the scenes are action-packed and conversational, and the world is described enough to set the scenes, but also left open enough to allow our imaginations to fill in the blanks.

I hope the author takes it as a compliment and not an insult, but it reminded me a lot of The Witcher (books), both in the style of writing and the feel of the story, but without such an emphasis on the overly descriptive relationships in The Witcher. I love (love, love) a good tension arc between a hardened warrior and philosophical, playful bard (seriously, it's one of my favorite fantasy tropes) and I thought Lord Versos and Sinestros had a great duo-dynamic (the banter in this book is TOP-TIER). All of the characters were well-written and the story kept me interested throughout the entire book.

My impulse is to call it "epic fantasy" because it hits all of the beats: traveling across the fantasy realm, many characters, intricate peace/war themes in the plot, etc. But a lot of readers associate "epic fantasy" with long books and highly detailed writing, and this book is less than 300 pages with a fair amount of descriptions, but I wouldn't call it an "overly descriptive" style. I hesitate to label it as an "epic fantasy", lest that turn any casual fantasy readers away, but I would absolutely consider it a brilliant example of the genre, just on a shorter scale. 

Overall, The Spring Catastrophe is perfect for readers who enjoy plot-focused fantasy and characters on epic journeys to face catastrophes where you don't know which characters will make it to the next book. I'm highly invested in the Divine Tyranny series and recommend it to my fellow high fantasy lovers!

Content Ratings:

7. Very strong action/gore (action scenes are more common and described to the reader with the intention of producing a mental image).

0. None on page. 

5. Infrequent moderate cursing (think PG-13).

Other Trigger/Content Notices:

Animal death – somewhat graphic. Devastation and suffering after war. Mild mistreatment of characters based on their origin/race.

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