And the constricting mists infect the lands with fear. The Witnesses pray so that they may not turn into one of the forgotten.

And finally, as the Morning Bell tolls, a new Seed to purge the Evil is born, but is it too late? The rot eats away at mortals.

It has been a thousand years since the last Seed abandoned their duty. As some of you may know already, this is a novel inspired by Kentaro Miura’s Berserk and FromSoftware’s Soulsborne franchise, specifically in the case of this book, Dark Souls trilogy. “Stories had a bad habit of taking on a life of their own, spreading like a disease, growing until it no longer could no longer be contained.”Įleventh Cycle is the first out of planned four-or five-books in the Mistland series by Kian N. I do not think any of these content warnings mean spoilers, but if you want to be completely surprised entering this book, I will mention the content warnings at the end of this review. The author has included content warnings at the beginning of the book, and I will repeat that in this review. Before I proceed with my review, this book is not for the faint of heart.

Fortunately, despite my high expectations, Eleventh Cycle is undoubtedly an excellent character-driven grimdark fantasy novel. And ever since I got the ARC two months ago, I have been inching to read this novel but decided to hold it off until January because my instinct says I would love this one, and I wanted to start my year with terrific books. Ardalan, but seeing the cover art and hearing the main inspirations for Eleventh Cycle back then was more than enough to seal the deal. Even though I haven’t read anything by the author yet back then! This is indeed my first time reading a book by Kian N. And this book was submerged into my list of most anticipated novels with ease. I still maintain my warrior spirit by choosing to protect my tribe, to protect my family.”Įleventh Cycle is due to be published less than a month from now, but I first stumbled upon it on December 2021 when Ardalan revealed the title and cover art (illustrated by NinoIs, designed by Shawn T.

“A warrior is not a killer, is not someone who only fights with axe and shield: it is someone who fights for a reason. Berserk and Dark Souls fans, this page-turning epic grimdark fantasy novel is written for us. Published: 1st February 2023 (Self-Published)Įleventh Cycle is one of the best books I’ve read. Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy, Dark Fantasy ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Eleventh Cycle by Kian N. Ardalan