Title: LEGACY (Lost Legacy Book 1)
Author: Mark Swirsky
Rating: 4.5
Review Copy
Fantasy author Mark Swirsky has penned an exceptional study in simple world-building and engaging character development. Set in the mystical world of Alakkadia, LOST LEGACY: Legacy Book 1 is full of adventure and successfully portrays young Legacy: an orphaned youth who sets out from an island prison on a multi-faceted quest of allegiance and faith.
When five-year-old Legacy Boshagon is exiled with his parents to the island prison of Ausgas, his future is dire and unpredictable. His father Donald, having been forcefully dethroned as President of Estadia by a traitorous coup, is no longer in power. The family spends their days in harsh confinement, fighting off murderous insects and living in uncertainty. Legacy has a determined personality and mantra to survive his current life: “Mother, I will change things. I will make things right.” After his parent’s murders, he escapes the island prison with the help of his uncle—but quickly finds himself on another trajectory that alters his future in immeasurable ways.
Swirsky creatively plots the novel with a focus on faith, providing ample room for Legacy to grow and evolve. While initially vowing revenge for his parent’s deaths, he eventually contemplates the values of justice over vengeance. He also discovers unique magical abilities endowed by the creator El Bara: a direct nod to God. Swirsky’s Biblical influence is easily received in the faith-based passages throughout the novel, lending another layer to the narrative’s various themes.
Influenced by The Lord of the Rings, Swirsky portrays the fantasy genre well. Unlike Tolkien’s wieldy worldview, however, LOST LEGACY is more compact and accessible. Complete with an easy-to-digest topographical map of Alakkadia, this book doesn’t suffer from very complicated world-building or an over-abundance of characters. It also incorporates interesting creatures (e.g., Canids, stalkers, wrogs) that place LOST LEGACY in a simplified Tolkien-esque frame.
The novel’s only detractors are that it speeds ahead in time a little suddenly, leaves a large gap of time unaccounted for, and would benefit from closer proofreading (as there are some punctuation issues). Flaws aside, though, LOST LEGACY is an engaging, worthwhile fantasy filled with an original landscape, an intriguing magic system, fully rounded characters, and complex moral decisions. Readers who enjoy Tolkien and faith-based epics are sure to invest in this tale of going from Lost to Found.
The beginning of a trilogy set in the mystical world of Alakkadia, Mark Swirsky’s LOST LEGACY: Legacy Book 1 excels in portraying the title character’s development of faith.
~ Allison Barilone for IndieReader
Canids – Upright, wolflike beings with a sharpened sense of smell, who are relentless hunters and make deadly assassins. Dwelling in Conag, the eastern canids farm while the western canids are nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Crotolids – Huge, sentient birds with powerful beaks who rule the land of Venestra. Primarily pacifists, the crotolids with their superior eyesight and flight make excellent scouts. They are polytheists but mainly worship the eagle god, Horus.
Dwarves – Being short, stocky and muscled, dwarves are well-suited for metal work and mining. The orcs drove them from their native land of Barangor, forcing them to live underground in the vast cavern system of Dagoria under the Central Spine. They worship El Bara when they can get around to it.
Humans – Humans are the most populous race on Alakkadia, living in Estadia, Chilia, and Rushinsk. A distinct group of humans are the drostigi who live in the floating city of Aslandia and serve as peacemakers for El Bara. El Bara has given them the powers to camouflage themselves and form impenetrable shields out of air.
Orcs – Orcs stand six feet tall, are gray-skinned, and sport large protruding canines from their lower jaws. They excel in fighting and live to conquer. Most live a nomadic life but some have settled in Corundum after displacing the dwarves.
Sawatches – Sawatches are ape-like, sentient humanoids that live in clans in Mongovia. They dispute their northern border with the people of Rushinsk and resist the incursion of the crime syndicates of Chilia, which seek to steal gold recently discovered on Sawatch land in the Hesperia River.
