The Enixar: The Sorcerer’s Conquest is a 2018 young
adult fantasy novel by Mikkell K. Khan. It was self-published by the author in
March of 2018. The novel is the first in its series and is followed by The
Enixar: Solitude of Sin.
The novel follows Gudrunn, the mysterious and powerful
sorcerer king of Gramadon, as he searches for an ancient dragon egg which will
give him ultimate dominion over his country. As his quest continues, one of his
generals, Meriaus, begins to question the king’s actions and what his true motives
are. The fate of Gramadon and the universe as they know it hangs in the balance
of the conflict for the dragon egg.
One of the aspects of this novel that I enjoyed the most was
the dual perspectives telling the story. While the novel begins with Gundrunn
and Meriaus as allies, as the story progresses, they become adversaries and
seeing the events of the story told from two perspectives, one from each “side”,
enhances the story-telling. Additionally, being able to read events through the
eyes of a tyrant was refreshing, as I haven’t read many books where the “villain”
is given much of a point-of-view.
Let’s discuss characters for a moment. While Gundrunn is a
main character, and the first POV character the reader encounters, he’s also the
main antagonist of the story. I appreciated his character for how determined he
was to achieve his goal. He was going to
find the dragon egg and hatch it, regardless who he had to kill or how many
people he had to oppress to get it. My favorite type of villain is a villain
with focus like that. I also enjoyed how uncompromising he was about his
actions. He didn’t try to justify his actions to anyone. He knew what he was
doing was evil and oppressive, but just didn’t care. He was not a character the
reader was meant to feel sympathy towards. Lord Meriaus is the other main
character, as mentioned previously. Initially, he’s sent by the king to convince
the Silent Monks, a religious order, to submit to the king’s will and become
part of the monarchy. Soon into his mission, Meriaus becomes distrustful of his
king’s intentions and when Gundrunn resorts to violence, he becomes determined
to stop the sorcerer king, no matter the cost. While his allegiance in the
beginning was difficult to comprehend, his growth once he realizes the king
needed to be stopped made him a great character.
This novel was a good start to the series. Khan laid a lot
of the groundwork to build off of in future novels. Similarly, he introduced
elements in the story, such as the Enixar magic and explained a little bit of
how it worked without removing the mystery for future installments. While the
reader is given some information about Gundrunn’s past, there are plenty more
stories to tell and questions about characters such as Paldek, the Architects
and mission that sent him to Gramadon in the first place. The action scenes
were fast-paced and there were moments that genuinely surprised me.
While I did enjoy the novel overall, there are a few issues I
had with it. I wasn’t a big fan of the author’s writing style. I didn’t hate
it, but it didn’t quite click with me. It felt pretty average. My biggest complaint
is how short the novel is. It’s probably more of a novella technically. As a
result of the story being so short, the author had to rely on a few tropes I’m
not a fan of in order to show how terrible Gundrunn is and how little he cares
for his people. Rather than show he’s a monster, we’re told he’s a monster, with
a few scenes to back those claims up. In fact, following Meriaus defecting from
the king and his decision to stop him, regardless of the cost, a lot of the
plot moves forward as a result of the reader being told that certain things have
happened. While some of the magic system is introduced, there isn't much explanation and I wish there was a bit more of that. A brewing rebellion is mentioned, but we see very little of the
actual rebellion or rebels in the story. If the book were a little bit longer, I’d
imagine the author would’ve taken advantage of the chance to show the reader
things rather than tell us.
The Enixar: The Sorcerer’s Conquest is a so-so book
in my opinion. The author did a good job creating an interesting world and leaving
the reader with enough questions to be interested in the second book. At the
same time, it’s very short length meant the pacing felt rushed and too much
information was told to the reader as opposed to being shown to them. I think
this book would be great for middle grade readers or very young YA readers, but
older readers might not enjoy it as much.
Rating: 2.7 Stars
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