Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s Son of the Storm is a West-African inspired high fantasy, and the first book in the Nameless Republic series. Being a die-hard fantasy fan, Son of the Storm was one of my most anticipated books of 2021. With extensive worldbuilding, well-built and layered characters, and intense writing, Son of the Storm makes for a strong first book in a series and it’s one that’s going to make the wait for the second book painful indeed. However, even though I liked Son of the Storm for the most part, I’m kind of sad to admit some aspects of this book didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
Son of the Storm starts off at the great city of Bassa in the continent of Oon, and centers around Danso, a young Bassai scholar who is prejudiced against for being a Shashi—the child born of a union between a mainlander and an outlander. Danso is to be joined to the obstinate, callous Esheme, but he doesn’t want the life everyone seems to have planned for him. Instead, he wants to escape Bassa and seek out the truth about the outlander mother he never knew.
When Danso comes across Lilong—a warrior from the Nameless islands outside the Bassai city borders, who has supernatural powers the Bassai have always been led to believe are mere myths—Danso becomes privy to the secrets the Bassai leaders have been keeping about the world outside their city. With Lilong at his side, he sets out on a journey to discover his heritage, and finds out everything he had known about his people and his continent had been an illusion.
Son of the Storm is told through several points of view, with Danso, Lilong, Esheme, and Danso’s attendant Zaq being the primary PoV characters. None of these people fully belong to the highest caste in Bassa—the Idu class—and therefore it was really intriguing to see the author explore caste, systemic oppression, and social privilege through the eyes of these so called outsiders in the Bassai high society, and how some of them strive to claim their own places in the very society that scorns them at every step, while others yearn to escape.
One thing about the book that grated at me a lot was the extremely slow pace of it, especially in the second section out of the four parts in the book, when nothing really seemed to happen for a hundred pages or more. The worldbuilding here, however, is done extremely well. I loved how the author keeps giving us tidbits regarding both the history and geography of the world throughout the book, especially in Danso’s chapters where he mentions songs and stories from Bassa he has had to learn as a Jali novitiate, and Lilong tells him about the Nameless islands, giving their world a realistic, lived-in feel. Even though Son of the Storm might seem a little incomprehensible at the beginning with many fantasy terms and background knowledge about Bassa and the continent in general thrown in within the first fifty pages or so, it starts getting interesting once you reach Esheme’s chapters.
I adored Danso as a protagonist, with all his naivety and his love of stories and his desire to know more about the world outside Bassa, but Esheme was definitely the most interesting character in this book. Her cunning and ruthlessness makes her the exact opposite of Danso, and her rise to power within the Bassai society was fascinating to read about, even as it makes you uneasy every step of the way. With Zaq, it was compelling to see the perspective of a person who remains loyal to the very people who have oppressed him since his birth and his reasons for doing so. As for Lilong, she’s the typical warrior love interest many fantasy books have, and since I failed to find her likeable, I was sort of glad that she had fewer chapters than Danso or Esheme.
To sum it all up, while I did have issues with the pacing in this book, I really loved reading about Danso and Esheme, and will definitely check out the second book if only to find out where the story takes them next. If you’re a high fantasy fan and have loved books like R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War or Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun, you’d want to read Son of the Storm as well!
Son of the Storm is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From one of the most exciting new storytellers in epic fantasy, Son of the Storm is a sweeping tale of violent conquest and forgotten magic set in a world inspired by the pre-colonial empires of West Africa.
“Everything I love in a fantasy novel. Damn good stuff!” —Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings
In the ancient city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy.
But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire.
