Break the stone, grip the coin, and go on a journey to Endland.
Chose: The New Order by Nick McPherson is available in eBook and Print from Amazon. Learn more at his linktree.
Nick McPherson launches the first book of his Grim King Saga with humor and intrigue in equal measure.
Bryce Bloom is in the hospital… again. He and his friends Zach and Johnny have a strange sickness. It crops up every few months. The doctors don’t understand it. Somehow, though, it’s bound up with a secret war in another realm that’s been brewing for hundreds of years.
As you would expect in this genre, the story opens by establishing a bit of the historical context of Endland. There are a lot of names and ideas, a rich world compressed into a few pages — and it can feel a little heavy. However, upon reaching the dialogue between Johnny, Zack and Bryce, the book comes to life and really begins to sparkle. Bantering in a mix of movie quotes and distracting rabbit trails, the boys took me back to my school days in delightful fashion. Once that hook was set, the story hummed along magnificently.
Typically, when reading portal fantasy (where the characters begin in our world but travel to a magical realm), I find myself enamored with the fantasy world and bored with the author’s depiction of reality, but at least initially, I found the opposite was true in Chosen. I was keen to dive deeply into the real lives of Bryce and friends, and Endland felt distracting. That got better once I was seeing Endland through the eyes of the boys to whom I’d already become attached. It’s an interesting world. McPherson has resisted the urge to explain how everything works in Sanderson-esque detail, and leveraged the mystery to keep the reader coming back for more.
Endland is facing a crisis, yet the people are largely fat and happy — unwilling or unable to see the danger coming down the road. I appreciated the reality of that. Seeing the stubborn blindness of Endland’s leaders and watching them manage a resource shortage that impacted magic and pitted safety against hope… it all felt very timely to me. McPherson manages to evoke those real issues without any heavy handed political messaging, a siren’s call which few modern authors seem able to resist. All of it served to give a sense of grounding to his story and make the stakes for these clever and silly boys more poignant.
As with many Indie’s, the editing quality isn’t a match for a traditionally published book. While McPherson is clearly a talented storyteller and skilled writer with a well developed world, that is occasionally obscured by sentences of Pauline length and minor word mixups — subconscience instead of subconscious — or an error in tense or plurality. None of these are story issues, but a detailed editing pass could really elevate this novel to the next level. The festival scene with the king felt like it went on a bit long, in contrast to strong pacing for the rest of the book. None of that should dissuade you from reading. This book is loads of fun!
It’s worth noting, McPherson’s novel has some lovely attention to detail. The map of Endland in the opening pages is beautifully rendered and of a quality equal to many an epic fantasy novel of the 80s and 90s — fitting well into the nostalgia he’s creating around his main characters. I read it in eBook, but even there, the chapter and act headings are beautifully rendered with classy icons and fonts which helped with immersion.
The action sequences are riveting, the boys are funny and heart warming…. This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it. I’m excited to dive straight into Grim King book II: Fractured Sky which is slated to release next month! What will Bryce and company do next? What secrets does Endland yet hold? What does it means to be Chosen?
Don’t miss this one. Grab a copy now, so you can jump on Fractured Sky next month!