In the Andram lands, which have mountain ranges to its west and south, and oceans to its east and north, there lives a human community of “ore” owners. Ore is life force. Those who have the ability to access their ore can move objects, heal others, or gain a range of information by exchanging the power within them with nature.
There is also a special and forbidden group of ore-related abilities. For example, leaking… Leakers can steal life force. That is why leakers, considered dangerous, are sealed and expelled from the Andram lands when they are discovered.
Sealing is a procedure that destroys a person’s ability by tattooing a metal-containing paint into his or her skin. For the metal functions as a kind of Faraday cage and prevents access to the ore. Iron bracelets are also used for the same purpose, but of course, while a tattoo is permanent, a bracelet is only good until you take it off your arm.
Note: The book is only available in Turkish. I hope it will be translated into English in the future.
NINES, DRAGONS AND MYSTERIES
“Two weeks ago, mass fish deaths were seen in the lake near the western border city of Suria. When I researched it, I came to the knowledge that Suira is one of the cities with the highest loss of ore and talent.”
Page 30
In recent years in the Andram lands, the number of children born with talent has fallen, and abundance has vanished. Moreover, leakers, instead of being deported, have begun to disappear. Kyte and Neira Namu agree to investigate this. One of them will explore what happened to the leakers, and the other will sail to the Nines—part of the Nastar mountain range—where dragons are believed to have lived centuries ago, to learn about the fate of the groundwater.
Set in a fantasy world called Gael, this book features many races, societies, and characters. As you read, they each settle in their respective place on the map you build in your dreams. Authors know that the hardest thing in multi-character books is to establish a balance among the characters. The Seal Breaker has accomplished this task extremely well.
There was not one single point where I would go, “I wish we could see this person somewhere” or “Well, that place is mentioned but it should have been described in a little more depth.”
BALANCE
The Seal Breaker is a successful book, which elaborates a fantasy world and where things reach a conclusion, and I enjoyed reading it. It is also the first volume in the Gael Scripts series. In the following volumes, I hope to visit the remaining lands of Gael and embark on brand new adventures. I highly recommend it to fantasy lovers.
There is a balance in the amount of work that goes into the depiction of the characters in their personalities… There is a balance in the spaces and the events… In fact, even ore power, the main element in the book, rests on balance. What more can I say! Read it!
Let’s move on to the spoilers part now.
What follows includes spoilers.
If we had attained the kind of technology that would add new features to our bodies by editing our DNA, I would have liked to be like the dragons in the book. Or to meet a dragon… To sometimes transition to human form and sometimes to dragon form … To soar in the skies, to live on the earth.
While reading the book, I supported the people of the Nines, not the people of Andram, except Neira 😄- Can you condemn a race that has two wings on its back to dance with the winds under the blue sky into the underground, into darkness? Aren’t they right in getting angry, in taking revenge, in poisoning your underground water?
There are good and bad in both races. The bad of the dragons are more frank and honest. Often, they are in solidarity–even though this solidarity might get broken when a human intervenes. Wicked people, on the other hand, are insidious and treacherous. Moreover, they act so as to sabotage each other.
I’m looking forward to the next books with excitement, and I’ll just say “I’m on the dragon’s side!” and go. Hold on a second, before I leave, I’ll tell you something else, which I just thought of.
I wonder what would happen if Neira’s seal were permanent. As I read those passages, I kept saying, “Ryntar, please tell me you made a real seal, you sacrificed your ore for Neira’s life!” However, she couldn’t resist and immediately revealed that the loss of power was temporary. I guess I’m cruel to some book characters. Fortunately, Neira’s ore worked well in the rest.
This was my comment. I’m really going now. Many fantastic worlds!