“ She paused, and the world fell silent. It wasn’t the absence of sound—birds still chirped outside, Cloud still snored in his sunbeam, and the distant murmur of city life continued. But underneath it all, there was a quality of silence that felt wrong. Like the world was underwater.”

The Seven Rangers is a multi-POV, secondary world fantasy with a lot of action right from the start. One of the coolest aspects of the concept and worldbuilding is Penrod’s take on the existence (and brutality) of humanoid angels. The first 30% or so of the book is largely taken up by a sudden attack upon a human settlement by these angels, who easily destroy the armed forces trained to defend the humans’ home. There’s shades of Enochian myth to the narrative, which as someone who’s academically interested in the reinterpretation of rebel angel stories, was immediately intriguing. I was also very taken by the fazeau–avian mounts used by the humans in combat and who are thought to be immortal (or, at least, very hard to kill).

There’s a lot that I loved from what I read of Seven Rangers. The concept of the world is intriguing (and it’s hinted that there’s a lot more going on with the angels and the humans they’re using–a possibility that the angels believe the humans can’t feel, are perhaps a simulation, or even something still weirder. Certainly, the novel’s subtitle, Harvest, points in a certain direction). Penrod was also able to get his emotional hooks in me at a variety of key moments during the combat. There’s a powerful authorial voice here that impressed and moved me.

Where Seven Rangers falters and why I’ve set it aside for now is that, despite relatively clean prose (and some gorgeous writing here and there), by 33% I was still left guessing at a lot of foundational elements of the world and context that I felt I needed in order to fully immerse myself in the story. I love being dropped into a world and trusting the author that the worldbuilding will unfold as I read, but here there was too much for too long that felt unexplored. It was compounded somewhat by mechanical clarity issues in terms of where characters were during scenes, how many people were with them, etc. None of it, on its own, is major stuff (it can belabour a text when an author describes every crook of an elbow, every pace across a room, etc), but the addition of one scene-setting line at the start of key location changes would have made this a much stronger read. As it was, I found myself pulled out with some frequency as I tried to find my footing or re-read to see whether I’d missed a line. Additionally, while Penrod very successfully tugged at my heart strings during emotional moments, I’m not sure I could meaningfully pinpoint the individual voices and personalities of the different point of view characters. Although the combat was emotionally intense, it may have been worthwhile for the novel to spend a little more time establishing the feel of the world the reader is entering, along with the tone of the book.

All in all, Penrod is clearly a very talented writer and I’d love to read another version of this novel that was perhaps a little more forthcoming in providing context both at the micro and the macro level. I loved the fazeau, what I gleaned of the worldbuilding, and Penrod’s skill when it comes to crafting big emotional moments. That sort of thing is my bread and butter as a reader, so I mean it as a high compliment.