Book Review: The Source of Magic by Hans Dubbelman (Triban #1)

 

Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Triban #1: De bron der magie.

You know, not judging a book by its cover goes both ways. An absolute gem of a book could have a cover that's outright crap, but a bad or boring book can also have a fantastic cover. Make of that what you will. Spoilers ahead.

We're introduced to Ashran, one of our protagonists in a world where magic is fleeting. The evil warlord Gor still uses it for taking over kingdom after kingdom, however. Ashran, a young trainee in a form of low magic called "Tribanspeech", and his friends have to find a way to stand against Gor before he can cause yet more bloodshed.

Yeah, the plot is very basic, but that could still be executed well. After all, I really liked The Green Fire (Het groene vuur) by Eva Raaff, which uses cliché fantasy characters, tropes and story-beats yet still was executed very well. This book, meanwhile? I hate to be mean but I really did think it was a snorefest.

I wasn't invested in the characters at all. Like, not even remotely. And when I don't care about any of the people I'm making this journey with, why should I care if anything happens to them? Ashran wasn't even that major in the defeat of the villain in the end, it was his friend (I think his name was Nevran but can't check to confirm, already returned my library copy) who did it. And the princes (Robijn was her name?) was just...there I guess to have a strong female character around but again I just didn't care. Like, I don't even remember anyone's name with certainty outside of Ashran and Gor. Which is not good. They had so little personality they left practically no impact.

I will give the book credit for having some interesting world-building, however. I like the idea of magic and Tribanspeech being somewhat separate things in this universe. While in our (the reader's) universe both would definitely be considered magic, in their world Tribanspeech is just kind of seen as more natural and magic is more-so seen as something negative and separate. Tribanspeech is the ability to make people or things obey your will, by the way. So if you say "bloom" to a flower, it'll bloom, etc. It doesn't always work and it's stronger with some people than with others, but it's definitely a power that's kind of its own thing outside of magic, at least in the Triban universe. Kind of a dying power and artform as a lot of Triban order members are killed here. But at least Nevran(?) is very adept at it and saves the day.

I also spotted quite a few grammatical and punctuation errors so, you know, those shouldn't be in a final version of a published book.

But still, despite some interesting concepts I just...didn't care. I finished this book, but only because I don't like DNF'ing things. I also won't be checking out the future books in this book series.

Rating: 2/5