A promising premise. [Master of Sorrows by Justin T. Call]

Every dark lord has an origin.

You’ve heard the story before: an orphaned boy, raised by a wise old man, comes to a fuller knowledge of his magic and uses it to fight the great evil threatening his world. 

But what if that hero were destined to become the new dark lord? ...

Of the academy’s many students, only the most skilled can become Avatars—warrior thieves, capable of infiltrating the most heavily guarded vaults—and only the most determined can be trusted to resist the lure of magic. More than anything, Annev de Breth wants to become one of them.

But Annev carries a secret. Unlike his classmates who were stolen as infants from the capital city, Annev was born in the village of Chaenbalu, was believed to be executed, and then unknowingly raised by his parents’ killers. Seventeen years later, he struggles with the burdens of a forbidden magic, a forgotten heritage, and a secret deformity. When Annev is subsequently caught between the warring ideologies of his priestly mentor and the Academy’s masters, he must finally decide whether to accept the truth of who he really is … or embrace the darker truth of what he may one day become

I was really excited to read Justin T. Call's Master of Sorrows. I was expecting some version of the hero turns villain trope, à la Anakin Skywalker. A story where the protagonist embraces the shadows, embraces the so-called wrong path. But that's not what I got. At least not yet. Per GoodReads, this first entry in a series, the Silent Gods series, is to be followed by at least three other books. The story so far is that of a would-be hero in training, and the overall story seems to be going the route of the hero fighting destiny to become trapped in destiny as a villain but maybe then a hero?

SPOILERS AHEAD. The main character, Annev, lives in a bonkers society where perceived deformity at birth merits your immediate death and the death of your parents. Weird eugenic fantasy world, check. Through wonderfully pacing we learn of Annev's day-to-day, his challenges, his aspirations - his coming-of-age story. Annev's biggest challenge is his biggest secret, he's missing a hand.

There was, I suppose, disability representation? But it's weird, because the character, being a part of a marginalized group in world, fought so hard for a place in that world. But not to change it, to join as a member. And that's a commentary for many kinds of assimilation, but it was a bucket of delusions for the character. It's also that bucket of delusions that built the drama. Annev's doomed from the start romance and his futile attempts to build a life of lies were frustrating from the start. I'd say the frustration was never relieved, but I guess the solid writing didn't really draw much attention to that fact.

There's also something to be said for the lack of dialogue from female characters. This is barely passing the Bechdel test, if that at all, and I'm sure failing other, more rigorous female inclusivity standards at the same time. There's a character who can be interpreted as an attempt at a Black-coded character, but it doesn't stand. And even if that character did stand I'd have more issues with the character traits then assigned. And even with those complaints, halfway through the book I still wasn't sure how I would be rating it. Was it going to be a high 4 tipping over into 5 stars? Or just a solid 4? I'm not sure when it all started to change for me, but change it did.

My early eBook copy was 656 pages, so the book was of solid length. If it needed to be longer it should have been because that last part felt very rushed. The tense battle at the end, another annoying fantasy novel trope, tool, whatever, felt purposefully incomplete, likely leaving logical space for the planned sequels. I just couldn't by some of the characters' motivations and actions towards the end, they felt convenient and subdued.

I don't necessarily feel like I'm expecting to be surprised in future books, because really, I wasn't much surprised by anything in this one. The whole weird Hephaestus parallel thing is an issue in itself. The physically unconventional being pushed to the margins and shunned, being treated disparately and burdened with the ignorant superstitions of the ignorant is a fantastic thing to explore. But you can't make a Hephaestus parallel without drawing up the trash aspect of Hephaestus. You can't make me sympathize with a character to then make him full of blind, unjustified rage.

Long story short, this was not the story I was expecting or hoping for. I'm generally interested to see how the story will progress but I'm not entirely captivated. Disability representation, but also trash characters? So this was a 3 star read for me.