Okay, let’s start off with the fact that this is a really good book. I’m saying this up front, because I know I’m going to waffle in places out sheer ignorance, and I don’t want to put people off.

Rob Hayes has been making a bit of a name for himself in the self-published fantasy community, but this is the first of his books that I’ve read, and it won’t be the last.

Never Die is set, I think, in an alternative world version of China. (This is the waffle bit, by the way.) With possibly a bit of alternative world Japan. Or not. Here’s the problem. I know sod all about the history and mythology of China or Japan, other than having watched a few Wuxia movies. So I don’t actually know whether Hayes has based his story accurately on Chinese (or Japanese) mythology, has done it loosely, or whether this book bears the same relationship to Chinese / Japanese history and mythology that, say, Game of Thrones does to British history and mythology. The fact that I keep saying Chinese / Japanese shows just how ignorant I am about all this. It’s probably best to say that I should leave any discussion of his use of history and mythology to people who know what the fuck they are talking about.

So, onto the story. Legendary swordswoman Cho, known as the Whispering Blade, is killed in the defence of Kaishi City against a bandit army. Then, she finds herself resurrected and bound to the will of a strange boy named Ein. He needs her help to kill the corrupt Emperor of Ten Kings. She isn’t the only hero the boy needs, and he proceeds to resurrect and recruit other heroes, all of whom have powers of one sort or the other. Some of whom aren’t actually dead and who have to be killed first by Cho and her comrades.

Hayes does a wonderful job of taking us through this world with its heroes and monsters, all the while carefully dropping in hints that things aren’t quite the way our characters believe them to be. Time in particular seems to be passing oddly.

A couple of things on the negative side, none of which are enough to stop this book being a recommendation. There are a few places where another round of proofreading would have been good. No book is ever 100% free of typos, but from time to time, the number became noticeable and distracting. This is also not a character-driven story (which is okay; not every story should be). We never get incredibly deep into the characters or incredibly close to their point of view. Again, this isn’t something that is wrong with the book, but if you prefer your books to be character-driven, you may enjoy this slightly less. That’s not to say the characters are poorly done. Cho, and the other main hero, Zhihao Cheng, the Emerald Wind, are the best realised, but all are believable and engaging. They are just not massively deep.

While this is, to some degree, a martial arts fantasy, it doesn’t try to shove in too much action, instead letting the story drive where the action occurs.

Overall, despite my waffling review, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be picking up more of Hayes’s work.

Four and a half stars