REVIEWS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: THE SONG OF THE SIRIN (RAVEN SON BOOK 1) BY NICHOLAS KOTAR

Abstract: A work that displays its author’s inexperience while still remaining interesting.  Characters are a bit flat, but the various conflicts are interesting.  Best of all is Kotar’s ability to capture a hint of the numinous in scenes featuring the titular Sirin.  Despite its rough areas, this book promises potential from the author.

Content Warning (highlight to view): some frightening images, sexual content, cursing, demonic possession

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So eventually the plan is to move this review onto Amazon, but since I’m having some problems with that, I’m just posting it here for now.  In the final version, I won’t have a summary of the novel, since Amazon does that just fine, but till then, here’s my brief synopsis:

Voran, the son of a disgraced noble family, is tasked to seek out the legendary “living water” in order to help restore his home, Vasyllia, to its former glory and to reunite the people with the mystical Sirin, creatures whose enchanted songs forge bonds with the listener deep within the soul.  However, dark forces work against him and his goals: a forgetful people, an invading army, his own inner demons, and rumors of a mythical, demonic raven.  In a world populated by dangers and wonders from Russian folklore, Voran races against time, ancient monsters, and his own humanity to retrieve the living water before Vasyllia falls, whether to invaders, itself, or both.

I first heard about Kotar’s work through a Youtube interview he did with Jonathan Pageau.  At the time, Kotar was running a Kickstarter for his series, and I decided to take the rather low risk of purchasing his ebook package.  I’m rather glad I did, for both good and bad reasons.

“Inexperience” best describes my impression of The Song of the Sirin, especially in terms of the prose.  There is a lot of awkward diction, rhythm, and syntax in this book.  Metaphors don’t always land quite right, don’t always make sense, or the image produced is more off-putting than fitting, drawing me out of the story.  Descriptions scenes sometimes feel bloated, and the author struggles to present smooth exposition.  Still, there is some flow to the prose, enough that, as I made it further into the work, I was able to ignore the clumsy writing get caught up in the story.  I do recommend using an actual e-reader or e-reader app, though, rather than trying to read the pdf on your phone or computer.  The formatting fits much better on a kindle screen or app than just as a pdf, and that can be important in how easily one falls into the story.

In terms of characters, I would have a hard time really describing the differences between three of the main characters- Voran, Mirnian, and Sabiana- in terms of personality.  Perhaps I simply wasn’t perceptive enough, but I can better describe their flaws than I can their personalities and strengths.  And they are flawed characters, painfully realistically in some ways.  When a character keeps falling to the same flaws or refuses to move past a flaw, it is true to life, but it can be frustrating to the reader.  Thankfully, the characters never reach a point where I disliked them, but it did lower my enjoyment to see my “page count” decreasing while feeling like the characters weren’t really moving anywhere.  I also wish I better understood the virtues of the characters so I could better cheer them on.  The most distinct character is Voran’s sister, Lebia.  She is the “counterpoint” character, the one who embodies the virtues lacked in the other characters, and as the counterpoint, she might be seen as a “flawless” or “saintly” character, and to an extent she is.  However, as the moral example of the story who does actually change a bit, she doesn’t feel like a cheap, lazy character but more like a paragon, if a young one.  And because her virtues are clearly on display, I wished for her happiness more than I did anyone else’s within the plot.

The plot itself is actually pretty interesting.  There is a group of invaders that are pretty simplistic to the point of not really feeling human.  The people of Vasyllia, like our heroes, also don’t really talk about the invading peoples as if they were humans, and overall I found the invaders to be the least threatening and most off-putting element of the book.  A boring set of barbarians based on the Huns.  The interesting evils are those involving the corruption of Vasyllia, how they’re failed to live up to the standard to which they were called.  Political intrigue and character conflicts are well-fleshed out, harkening back to the histories of Israel in a way that emphasizes the ability for even “good” humans to be corrupted by complacency, fear, or desire.  It was these conflicts that pushed me through the story more than anything else.

However, they aren’t my favorite part of the book.  Out of every other element of the book, one stands out: the titular Sirin.  Every scene with the Sirin is the best part of the story.  They feel like the parts the author most enjoyed writing, and the Sirin themselves capture the difficult balance between intimacy and otherness often connected with a feeling of the magical.  They dominate every scene they enter and embody an atmosphere lacking for much of the book, one that gives the sense of having entered into the author’s world.

Overall, The Song of the Sirin is an enjoyable book.  It’s rough in many ways, and I’m glad I got it at the discount I did because of those flaws, but it’s plot and characters are interesting.  Most of all, the Sirin scenes display potential for the author, and I look forward to seeing if Kotar will be able to embody that potential in his future works.