Book Review: From The Depths
A strikingly well-written prequel novella to B.S.H. Garcia’s Heart of Quinaria series.
Continuing my read-through of SFINCS novellas, next up is B.S.H. Garcia’s From the Depths, which was a finalist in the second year’s contest. For ages I thought it was in the first one, but in putting together this review I realised that while Garcia had a book in SFINCS 1, it was From the Ashes, which I have not yet read. My bad! Anyway, From the Depths is a cracking novella and well worth the read, but it wasn’t quite my cup of tea.
Blurb
The world can sustain the needs of many, but the greed of a few can destroy it for all.
In a life steeped in peril, the Brune family has thrived on the knife’s edge. Renowned for their smuggling and bounty exploits, Konar and Karliah’s parents command both respect and fear. Comfortable yet haunted, the family faces the constant threat of perilous assignments, leaving scars that even a parent’s protective embrace can’t heal.
Still, Konar dreams of scholarly pursuits, and Karliah sees the world as something ripe for the taking. When the emperor dangles an irresistible offer—a job to end their dangerous pursuits forever—the Brunes seize the chance. But there’s a catch: the item in question is little more than a myth, deemed impossible to find.
As the family embarks on the voyage of a lifetime, their bonds are tested like never before. Locating and securing the prize will require sacrifices beyond measure, and when your family is in the business of pirating, trust is the greatest myth of all.
From the Depths is a prequel novella that takes place roughly a thousand years prior to the events in Of Thieves and Shadows—volume one in the epic fantasy series, The Heart of Quinaria.
Review
From the Depths is a really great pirate adventure novella. It’s set in the secondary world of the wider Heart of Quinaria series, and follows Konar and Karliah, children of a well-known and respected pirate family, as their parents are sent by the emperor on a quest to recover a magical artefact. The plot was compelling and the characters are all shades of grey. Brigands with big hearts, ruthless cutthroats, and dearest friends you couldn’t trust with your lunch, let alone your life. On top of all that, the prose is excellent and beautiful, though it is rather dense and heavily descriptive.
Konar and Karliah were both really good characters. Their shifting perspectives, especially with the age difference between them, was interesting and very well done. And none of the other characters felt superfluous to the story either. Every one of them was compelling.
The only real barrier I had to fully enjoying this novella is the fact that I didn’t know the world. There’s a lot of heavy worldbuilding going on, and to an extent I liked that the author didn’t handhold but relied on me as a reader to put everything together. For the most part I could do that perfectly fine—I don’t need to have everything explained to understand what’s going on. There’s a lot of context clues, and there’s a great glossary at the back for reference. But it did feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the other books in the series first. There were some things I couldn’t parse very well, such as the nature of the main characters. I got from the context that they were nonhuman, but that’s about as much as I understood. There were a lot of references to the different species, languages, cities, nations and more, and it did get a little confusing.
That’s not to say it’s bad by any means, and certainly don’t take my word for it; I’m not the brightest bulb in the bread basket. All the ingredients were here for a great story, everything that ought to have ticked my boxes, and they basically did. And I think that—especially if you are familiar with The Heart of Quinaria—you’ll have an outstanding time with From the Depths. You’ll get some important backstory for the world and have great fun doing it. I’m just not sure it holds as well as a standalone.
