Wesley Chu is one of those authors I’ve always been meaning to read. And when I was invited to participate in this blog tour, I knew I had to say yes! The Art of Prophecy is a fun, action packed story full of your favorite elements! Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Prophecies don’t make heroes: they only choose them. When Chosen One Jian falls short of his prophesied quest, he must find his own path to greatness.
The prophecy is clear: Wen Jian is the Chosen One, born to defeat the immortal Eternal Khan and save the kingdom. The only problem is that the prophecy is wrong.
Jian has been raised in splendor, trained by the best warriors, and celebrated before a single battle has been won. After all, he’s the chosen one, selected by prophecy to defeat the immortal god-king and free the kingdom for good. But when the prophecy is proven to be incorrect, Jian still has to find a way to succeed—and maybe even become a hero in his own right.
To save the kingdom, an unlikely band of heroes rise: Taishi, an old grandmaster who swore her days of battle were over; Sali, a warrior re-evaluating her allegiances; and Qisami, an assassin with questionable values. Together, the four embark on a journey more wondrous than any prophecy could foresee.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
The Art of Prophecy is a story that balances elements you might recognize from other fantasy stories – like mentors, chosen ones, and prophecies – with a wuxia inspired fantasy world and heart. We immediately start off with a chosen one who ends up being not so chosen and ends up on the run with an unlikely mentor who he’s not even sure knows her stuff. There’s a sense of danger and stakes while also providing plenty of humor. I loved how for each of these elements, Chu twists them.
Presents us this mentor/mentee relationship with training sequences, but then complicates them. Chosen ones who are suddenly useless when the big ‘villain’ is killed. It gets to this kind of core question of what happens when our prophecies were wrong. When we thought we were training up to something. And it turns out that we might have made a mistake. What do we do now?
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The Art of Prophecy examines religion, destiny, and war all at once. Being able to see through different characters, Chu allows us to get a sense of scale, of the moving pieces that are slowly encroaching. If you’ve been searching for a fantasy which takes some inventive twists and is a great series opener, this is for you. Find The Art of Prophecy on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon UK, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.
