Uptown Oracle Reads… Emissary

Emissary E B Brooks

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Ewan O’Meara dreams of becoming the greatest adventurer Veridor has ever known. Problem is, there haven’t been any epic quests since the ancient war of independence. His parents keep badgering him to take a respectable profession, and the overbearing Church soaks him for penance gold every time he dies.

When he encounters a young woman fleeing arrest, he can’t resist helping her. At first glance, Treanna Rothchild needs it: she’s clueless about Veridian life. But she has other skills that defy Ewan’s understanding, and she knows things. Unsettling, seditious things the Church wants kept secret at any cost.

And she’s here to raise an army.

Risking both life and soul, Ewan follows Treanna where no Veridian has been, but he must come to terms with the harsh world she reveals as he discovers how much they have in common—and how much they depend on each other to survive.

The prologue of Emissary starts off by introducing us to Maximillian who is a legendary figure in this world, and it shows some of his great accomplishments. I enjoyed how it set up the fantasy setting, and it led me to think a bit more cynical because this scene contrasts with the hero figure our main character looks up to in the rest of the book. The villain calls out the heroes as taking action (like war) which are less than righteous and “bad” in a way villains have been accused of. It definitely sets up the rest of the book which has our main characters sometimes make tough moral decisions.

After the prologue, we realise it was more of an initial cutscene as this world is set up like a video game. When losing against monsters you don’t die, you respawn at your bindspots however you can be logged out which is when you fully die. There’s info screens, IMs between characters and even inventories which have limits but allow our characters to carry a lot more than a normal human would be able to. The world is a traditional fantasy game with armour, skill trees, quests etc and I was really interested by the concept.

Our main character Ewan is then introduced to us as an adventurer, and I guess for any game the “main character” would have a bit of a hero complex. But Ewan wants to be a legendary hero like Maximillian, and at times this made his character make annoying decisions. At the same time, if this was a video game the main character would be getting involved in every little side quest to prove themselves, so once you move past that his character is better. By the end of the book, his story arc leads him to think more and depend less on the video game aspects that ensure his safety too so he does improve.

What I liked about Ewan was that he had a tight knit family unit in the book, that actually acted like family members. His sister, Kate, was his partner in crime when growing up as she’s a crafter. As anyone who plays games would know, having someone with the skills you don’t have in your party really helps you get through quests easier. On top of this, his parents are caring without being overbearing to the story and the dialogue feels realistic. Kate is probably my favourite secondary character, so I hope we see more of her in the second book.

Our other main character Treanna, is nicknamed Tree by Ewan and I think this decision by Ewan to pick a name for her as soon as they meet explains her character a lot. She is a starting point of the story for Ewan to be involved, a way Ewan is pushed forward, and kind of the reasoning for the second half of the book but she’s mostly there for Ewan to be the hero. The romance felt off for me, it hit almost every relationship milestone possible in the first of four books. This was too fast, and I think if instead of romance the focus was on giving more depth to Tree’s character it would have read a little better even if romance did eventually happen in a later book when they knew each other more.

What I did like about Tree’s character is that she levelled up to be a mage in Veridor and this brought more fantasy into the fold. I liked how similar to Kate, she brought a new set of skills and class to improve on Ewan’s warrior/adventurer style of fighting. Plus, her character was the perfect way to introduce new aspects of the world to us as readers, Ewan would explain things to her or she would react towards new or different things throughout Veridor.

Without spoiling the book I want to talk quickly about the second half of the book. The first half is very fantasy in setting, with sci-fi elements in terms of technology. The second half is all sci-fi and unfortunately didn’t feel like it had as much depth as the first half. This is mostly because of the characters I think, I found Veridor’s citizens to be more interesting and have more behind them than the other characters we meet with Tree. This kind of mirrors how much we know about Ewan, and how little we know about Tree as well. However, we met a lot of new characters in the second half that I just don’t think we had enough time with to care about them like we do Ewan’s parents, Kate and Paul.

The overall writing skill isn’t awful, but it could be improved. It probably does need an editor to go through it to tighten up the story in places, work on sentences that don’t quite work, and there’s some spelling errors. There’s also some info dumping around the start, mainly about the video aspects such as the menus, respawning etc. Emissary is, I believe, a debut book and it’s also been self-published so I fully believe E.B. Brooks will be able to improve his writing as the series goes on in these areas and so I’m excited to read more from him.

As a whole, Emissary is a thoroughly enjoyable (and quick!) read that captures your attention. Whilst some parts are easily predictable, you still want to find out the “whys” behind them, and continue reading. I’d recommend for those who love both reading and gaming!

Positives of Emissary

• Good initial tone of the story and story arc
• Brilliant integration of video game elements

Negatives of Emissary

• Stark difference between first half and second half of book

I received Emissary by E.B. Brooks from the author. This is an unbiased and honest review