Candle & Crow is the third (and final) book in the UF Ink & Sigil series by Kevin Hearne. Released 1st Oct 2024 by Penguin Random House on their Del Rey imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback due out 1st July 2025 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is a really fun series with an ensemble cast and an intricate and well built world (the same settings and tangential political/magic governmental bodies as his Iron Druid chronicles). This series will likely already be on the radar for fans of the iron druid books, but if not, it's an entirely worthwhile side-series. The external characters make an appearance in this installment of the series as well, along with Al's other compatriots, Buck Foi (a drunken cursed hobgoblin), Nadia (pit fighter and office associate extraordinaire), and their tricked out Scooby-Doo-esque wizard van, as well as Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite, and assorted wizards, fey beings, gods, goddesses, demigods of various combinations, monsters, and human bureaucrats (ew!).
This time, they're globe hopping saving the multiverse, with a side-quest to try and resolve Al's double curses, and everything still really wants to kill them. Many of the characters in this book are Scottish (Glaswegian specifically) and the author has made a herculean attempt to translate the language and accent. It's mostly successful and readers won't have any trouble following (and will chuckle at the vernacular). Readers unfamiliar with spoken Scottish will find parts of the book slow going, but will be richly rewarded for the effort. The language is rough, but not egregiously so. There is violence and destruction aplenty (again, used in context). For readers familiar with the author's other work, it's on a similar level (or roughly equivalent) to Jim Butcher, Charles Stross, and the like.
I loved the
vernacular. Readers who hate transliterated accented dialogue will
probably be somewhat annoyed, but it truly is worth the effort. Some of the
dialogue surprised an actual guffaw out of me, and that's a pretty big
deal. I found it genuinely funny and I really wish there were more forthcoming
in this world setting - maybe some short fiction or another spinoff series?
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 11 hours 4 minutes and series narrator Luke Daniels delivers an absolutely virtuoso performance. Most of the story is heavily dialogue driven and Mr. Daniels has a superhuman, awe-inspiring delivery, hopping between Glaswegian, adenoidal RP public school bureaucrat, central plains Canadian, and telephone app London (Al's curse means the telephone talks for him) - without a single fumble. Sound and production quality are very high throughout the read. It was emphatically not a straight read-through as evinced by the "bloopers" at the end of the recorded book (which is highly recommended).
Excellent book. One of the best reads, and *easily* the best audiobook experience of 2024.
Four and a half stars. Five stars plus plus plus plus for the audiobook version.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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