Book Review: Goldsong
- Dan
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Today on the blog, I have a review of Goldsong by indie fantasy author Beth Hudson. Goldsong is the first novel in what I believe has become a quartet.
Book Review: Goldsong
Having previously read Runedance, I had a decent idea what to expect in Beth Hudson's Goldsong. If anything, learning more about Traedis's backstory made me appreciate the character all the more. Traedis is a reluctant king, but she has been chosen by the gods to be the monarch of her city, and she intends to do her best to fulfill her duty. Alongside her reluctance, Traedis faces a host of challenges: an unruly populace who do not desire a monarch despite the will of the gods, demonic entities who have cursed the city, and perhaps most dangerous of all, members of her own family, who are expert assassins.
My main criticism is that the danger presented by her family members, namely her uncle, often seems distant. Traedis and her allies often suspect that he is the unseen hand directing the machinations against her. Still, he doesn't appear directly on the page, per se. Fortunately, there are plenty of other obstacles for her to tackle, such as having to break hexes cast on the city by powerful entities and dealing with the heads of state of rival nations. Indeed, the worldbuilding in this novel is top-notch.
In the course of reading Goldsong, I came to realize Traedis is a highly analytical character. In a science fiction novel, she would be a scientist, saving the day either by studying bacteria under a powerful microscope or performing insanely complex calculations that would even stump an artificial general intelligence.
If you are looking for a high fantasy yarn set in a richly detailed secondary world with a reluctant hero who is cool and calculating under pressure, Goldsong is worth a read.