Expectations are important. For relationships, for instance, making sure that everyone’s expectations are agreeable going is perhaps one of the most important factors for long term success. If the couple has differing expectations regarding children, religion, work / life ratios, or any other such important thing, then they either better rectify that or find new partners.

However, expectations are an important part of entertainment too. While people usually expect to be surprised in a certain way, there are limits to what they’ll accept within those boundaries. If you go into a comedy show, you expect to laugh. If you go to a TED talk, you expect to learn something new and maybe laugh if the presenter does a good job. If you go to online blackjack, you expect to have win and win some dolla dolla bills. However, If you go to a comedy show and get lectured about the horrors of Dachau, it might be informative, but it sure as heck wasn’t what I signed up for.

Movies and novels and all other kinds of storytelling have this give and pull too. When I sit down to read a Brandon Sanderson novel, I expect some kind of epic fantasy featuring heroes and wars and good and evil, with deep themes. When I watch a slasher flick, I expect to be scared and amused and frustrated as to why that stupid girl keeps tripping over nothing every ten feet when- sorry, where was I?

Right. Expectations. If you set up the wrong kind of expectations and don’t deliver, this typically is disastrous. Not always- sometimes we can be pleasantly surprised. But most of the time. The newer Star Trek shows, for instance, are a perfect example. The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, and the movies all established what Star Trek is.

It’s a thoughtful, introspective work of science fiction that explores many compelling thought experiments, philosophies, and scientific premises. It’s a series that tackled big questions and gave thought provoking answers. So when I sat down to watch the newer Star Trek: Picard, I was not expecting to watch a fan-favorite character get murdered by eyeball drill. I would say that that falls safely under the category of “disastrous”.

“Chronicles of Everfall: Shadow of the Conqueror” is a novel that did not meet my expectations. This is a self-published novel written by Shad Brooks, who makes educational content about medieval history on his YouTube channel, Shadiversity. As a result, I went in expecting a Brandon Sanderson-Esque epic fantasy but ended up getting something quite different. But was it good? Short answer, yes.

The Premise

Our protagonist is Daylen Namaran, also known as Dayless the Conqueror, the Great Bastard, the Scourge of Nations, and various other equally unkind titles. But well deserved. Daylen was once a mighty emperor who rebelled against the aristocratic houses of old after they murdered his family and rose as a unifying monarch in the name of the oppressed people. To ensure that the evils of old would not happen again, Daylen brought all property under the control of the government and forced people to work to feed the otherwise starving nation.

So yeah, he basically invented fantasy communism. And just like real communism, it was an abysmal failure. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Daylen was no exception. He removed people’s freedoms. He became paranoid. He took hundreds of women forcibly (some as young as fourteen). He invented airships powerful enough to annihilate cities. And did, when one dared rebel against his despotic regime.

Eventually, the entire world rose against him. Eventually, they bested his armies, and he was forced into hiding. With everyone presuming him dead, Daylen hid and planned.

And hid. And hid. And hid.

Twenty years later, our story begins. And Daylen, having seen a world no longer under his thumb, despises himself and everything he ever did. Old and feeble at the age of eighty-two, Daylen decides his time his come and decides to throw himself off the continent.

Which, ironically, would be the key to his salvation.

The World

The story is set in the world of Everfall, which consists of a series of massive floating islands. Should one fall off the edge, they eventually loop around to the top of the world, such that if you don’t collide with anything, you’ll fall forever and ever until you starve to death. Unless you’re carrying either Darkstone or Lightstone.

Exactly as the name implies, Lightstone emits light, but Darkstone behaves differently. If it’s not exposed to light, the stone will fix in place and cannot be moved (even in midair). As more and more light touches it, the stone gets easier and easier to move until it’s simply pushed forward. This is how the islands can float and the airships can move.

However, if you carry one of these stones with you as you hit the barrier, you explode.

Daylen, being the massive melodramatic nonce that he is, decides to carry both with him on the way down. Not only does he not explode, but he’s returned to his youthful body and given magical superpowers.

The Magic

Taking obvious inspiration from novels like Brandon Sanderson’s “The Stormlight Archive”, Shadow of the Conqueror goes for a Hard Magic system. If you’re interested in learning the differences between Hard magic and Soft Magic systems in fantasy novels, I highly recommend watching the video by “Hello Future Me” on YouTube about the subject. But for the purposes of this article, I’ll be brief. Basically, a Hard Magic system is one where there are explicit rules about what the magic can’t do (Like in Avatar the Last Airbender, or anything by Brandon Sanderson), whereas a Soft Magic system is one where the only rules are what the magic system has been shown it can do (like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings).

Shadow of the Conqueror goes for the former, with lots and lots of explicit rules for how everything works, that will all be explained to you in great detail if you can be bothered to read through it. Like, there is actual math and physics involved. Math.

Actually, it’s pretty cool overall- although a lot of the explanations get frontloaded into the novel in the form of infodumps while Daylen is experimenting.

The Moral Dilemma

The whole plot is built around a single question: Is Daylen redeemable? Is it even possible for him to be redeemed? Is the world ready or willing to forgive him?

Considering the scale of Day lens crimes (as one Goodreads reviewer put it, Daylen was basically pedophile-Stalin), almost everyone seems to agree that Dayless the Conqueror deserves to die. Including Daylen himself- although he’s convinced that “The Light” (Read: G-d) is determined to let him live so that he can continue suffering from his guilt. He believes that is why he was turned young and believes that that is why he was given his powers- so that he can fulfill some sort of purpose, find some small redemption, and suffer with himself all the while.

Like two of my other favorite authors (Brandon Sanderson and Orson Scott Card), Shadow of the Conquerer is written by a devout member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints- more commonly known as Mormonism. It’s clear that Shad M. Brooks’ views on redemption have intermixed with the story- that everyone deserves a second chance and can be deemed through repentance. It’s not a bad thing. Every artist adds their own philosophies into the works they create and lets people step into their worldview, even for a little while.

It’s just that on this particular issue, I disagree with the conclusion. I won’t spoil how it ends, but I do think Daylen gets off easy. I don’t particularly care how much guilt Daylen himself feels over his crimes. There are lines of no return, which, in my opinion, must be punished. Even if that person can be redeemed, it’s the crime itself that has to be punished.

I’m not Christian. I do believe in the concept of “an eye for an eye”- which isn’t literal, as most people seem to forget. In the old testament, this means that a man that breaks another man’s hand must pay the victim however much a court deems that man’s hand to be worth (basically, his livelihood). If you steal a goat, you must pay back two goats, etc.

Daylen Namaran is responsible for nearly thirty million deaths. The novel basically gives Daylen a slap on the wrist for it but delivers death penalties to men who have committed far less enormous (but still horrible) crimes. Daylen is at least self aware enough to recognize the hypocrisy, but the narrative itself doesn’t if that makes any sense. Sure, Daylen bemoans having to live another day with his immense guilt, but… he’s still alive? Returned to his youth, given magical superpowers, and reunited with once mortal enemies and even one of the girls he repeatedly raped?

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t fit my worldview of justice.

Overall

Now let me be clear: Does the fact that I heavily disagree with the implied moral compass of the novel make it a bad book? No. It’s very enjoyable. It’s very well written, with solid characters and an intriguing moral dilemma. The fact that I’m here, ranting about how much I disagree with it, means that in one sense, it accomplished its goal of getting me to think. I didn’t agree with every outcome of Star Trek. The writers of that show ended up at conclusions I would not have come to, and neither did Mr. Brooks. Which is fine! If everyone thought exactly the same as I did, that would suck.

I went into Shadow of the Conqueror expecting an Epic Fantasy, set on a world-shattering scale. Instead, I got a smaller scale but far more thought-provoking novel than I had ever initially expected to get. Many fantasy novels avoid the non-PC issues (like ham-fisted racism is bad metaphors) to keep a wider audience, and I appreciate that Shadow of the Conqueror doesn’t compromise to tell the story it wants to tell.

Plus, any story, fantasy or no, that dunks on communism gains my respect.