The Ninth Rain (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy 1): shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award 2018

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It's cleverly done and fun to boot, well worth a read. On top of that, the ending promises so much more for the next instalment. It made me want to step right inside the book to take a look around (despite the poor sanitation and serious potential for untimely death). Tormalin the Oathless is an Eboran(a nonhuman race) warrior and Vintage’s guard/companion. He is extremely vain and selfish. He wants to drink good wine, wear fashionable clothes and enjoy life.

Seriously, I want to buy a thousand copies of The Ninth Rain and go around tossing them to clueless people that don't know this book exists. One mistake I made the first time I read this book was skim-reading the epigraphs. I would HIGHLY recommend taking great care and time in reading the epigraphs since most of the world-building is explained in these sections. Don’t skip the epigraphs – you’ve been warned!

Because it took me a while to get into this story, but I knew the author would deliver in the end and I do not want you to start and give up if you are not familiar with the author. The fate of anyone unfortunate enough to fall afoul of the Jure'lia burrowers - tiny insects that crawl inside their victims through whatever orifice they can find (although they usually dig through the eyeballs), and hollow out the body from the inside, turning the lifeless husk into a drone that serves the worm people.

There’s just continuous fascination in this book which was provided through its rich world-building. Honestly speaking, I’ve been getting fatigued from reading medieval-European fantasy setting. I have nothing against it—I love it, actually—but this particular setting is everywhere; stumbling upon them more than ten times in a row can get very tiring. The intricate world-building that Williams has created in this book/series was a delightful feast for my imagination. I’m serious, the author has some morbidly vivid imagination. Creatures conjured out of nightmares, a giant tree named Ygseril—most likely inspired by Yggdrasil—that dropped fruits that became war-beasts, then giant bats as transportation, behemoths, and many more intrigues that I suggest reading firsthand. I simply need to read more of this world.Big Bad: The Jure'lia queen, imprisoned within Ygseril's roots until she is unwittingly freed by the protagonists, at which point she revives the worm people to lay waste to Sarn once again. Various friends from the U.S. and Canada told me that for some unfathomable reason this series is hard to get on that side of the world. Which is an utterly deplorable state of affairs, really, but we do live in a crazy, nonsensical world. Bullying your local library into buying a copy of this masterpiece might be an excellent idea, and if you've been planning a trip to the Old World, this is the perfect time for it as The Poison Song, the last installment of the trilogy, is just about to be published. Whatever you have to do to get your hands on this series, do it! The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams is the first book in The Winnowing Flame trilogy. This was my first novel by Williams, and I dived into it with high expectations, as many friends of mine have expressed much love for her books. I can firmly say, I will now be joining other reviewers in singing Jen Williams’ praises too, as this book was simply spectacular. The Ninth Rain skilfully blends fantasy with sci-fi and mystery, it contains a grand Tolkien-esque world, and characters that feel incredibly real and fresh. This is very much high fantasy at the top of it’s game.

The continent of Sarn where our story is set, has suffered from many alien invasions from an enemy known as the Jure’lia, the worm people. The Eboran empire, a once wealthy and prosperous place, for centuries has been the central defence against this formidable foe. Their tree-god, Ygersil, would deliver various war beasts that would aid the valiant Eboran warriors during the battles, and each time the Jure’lia were defeated. However, in the last assault, known as the eighth rain, a final climax between Ygersil and the Jure’lia caused the death of the sacred tree-god. Now, Ebora is in ruin, the race is slowly dying, and Sarn faces the ever terrifying prospect of another invasion, but this time without their defenders. The sap of their great tree, ingested orally, made Eborans what they are, and not only that. On each invasion Ygseril would respond with its own share, contributing with rain of fighting and killing beasts Eborans would rode to battle. Except that human blood turned out not to be their saviour, but their curse, for drinking blood brought incurable decease called Crimson Flux.The Jure’lia were defeated, but through the ages all knowledge of what exactly happened was lost. What is known is that the Jure’lia all died at once, their giant ships plummeted from the sky and crashed all over Sarn. I have some thoughts on this book I just needed to express/write down. Fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead, and also some vague spoilers for another fantasy series which I'm going to use to draw parallels to this one - namely Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings. Weeds and wolves – that was all that was left of glorious Ebora. With few ghosts that still linger in it.