In envisioning a world that has a little bit of everything, Nick Alimonos has reached a literary sweet spot in Ages of Aenya. 

Blending together the naturist and brutish heroics of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard’s Conan, John Carter, and Tarzan, with ancient epics like Beowulf and the veritable cornucopia of heroic tales from just about any piece of Greek mythology, Alimonos has seamlessly blended sci-fi elements with heroic feats and ancient technology to create a tale that is just as much about the heroes as it is about Aenya, the world they live in, which is overflowing with history that plays out in multiple chapters in this sometimes nonlinear tale. 

Ages of Aenya brings together disparate lives towards one singular threat connected to the titular world’s long forgotten past, which is linked to an ancient civilization that brought about a cataclysm that changed conditions on the world irrevocably. It has one ocean, and with one side of the world bathed in eternal scorching daylight and the other trapped in a lethally frigid night. The small habitable area is now forever subject to the whims of the world to which it is tidally locked, where day and night result from eclipse phases between the sun and the world it now orbits.

Thelana and Xandr are “savages” from the idyllic land of Ilmarinen, driven from their homes and families by starvation and war. Theirs are the ways and customs of a people to whom the very concept of clothing is alien in their paradise land, cut off from the civilized world, forcing them to adjust to life in the greater world. 

Xandr is a student of an ancient order of monks that becomes a wandering hero, while Thelana, finding little acceptance anywhere for her stubborn refusal to conform, turns to thievery, which is a profession that lands her in a fate worse than death.

That is, until her path crosses with Xandr in the decadent city of Hedonia, where a falling object from the heavens impacts the world and unleashes hell upon the unsuspecting kingdom. Armed with an ancient sword that he cannot rid himself of, he and Thelana set off towards the source of the city’s terrible turn of fortune: The “falling star” that has released an ancient terror from a forgotten civilization upon the world. 

Then, in the faraway city of Northendell, they are joined by a mysterious girl named Emma, who was exiled from her home by its ignorant leaders. She is protected by Grimosse, a flesh golem from Hedonia, who has mysteriously bonded with her. Guided by secrets of the world’s forgotten ancient past, and with the occasional help of a time-displaced sage, this unlikely team follows the path of destruction this visitor to Aenya has caused as it treks ever northward, with one singular objective that will place the world into another cataclysm from which it will not survive. 

There is so much to unpack in this story that to say much more truly would be saying too much, as Aenya is a world rich with a history that connects deeply to every event in the adventure of the four protagonists, who each come from very different worlds.

Even Xandr and Thelana, though of the same people, have had radically different upbringings that have led to equally disparate worldviews. Characters’ backstories range from Xandr’s upbringing amongst a strict order of monks, to Thelana’s origins among a loving family of farmers, to Emma’s solitary, lonely life in the farthest reaches of civilization in her world where she lived like an outcast even from her taciturn father. 

More fascinating still are the roles that Xandr and Thelana play in both saving their world and building its history, especially in a very sudden, yet captivating time travel segment where a sacrifice will be made that will determine the fate of humanity towards the point of the story’s actual course. In addition, there are the secrets that Emma stumbles upon as she discovers information her father has been hiding.

Alimonos weaves a tale that, though hard to understand where it will all come together in the beginning and is admittedly slow to start, builds the book’s world through every object, in the history of the cities and lands, and in the characters’ experiences. 

Equally fascinating is the interweaving of science and magic to the point where it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, as both seem to have their origins deep in the world’s dynamic history.  During the course of the tale, the world is almost like a character itself, with the history of Aenya, built bit by bit, creating the stakes that come to fruition at the climax. 

It is truly an epic that the author has put a great deal of love and time into and is a tale that will stay with the reader via the world’s rich history and how it pieces together every step of the heroes’ journey.  I believe that, despite its slow and disconnected beginning, Alimonos has put together a tale that is truly special and will spark the imagination of any reader looking for true adventure in a world that grows with every page turned. 

7/10; Well Recommended