The Proud Pada, by S.G. Blaise, is a mystery and adventure novel brimming spectacularly with plenty of action and moral choices. The primary and secondary cast of characters is interesting. Each has a unique voice and interacts well with the others. The main character, Lilla, is strong, active, and makes lots of responsible moral choices that drive the plot. The novel is plot-driven, yet, it has a strong character growth through Lilla.
Plot-wise, the narrative beats are incredibly well-balanced and spaced out. Every moment of falling tension is soon met with high, kinetic bursts of fast-paced adventures and mystery built upon mystery. And after every motion of high excitement are the slower-paced chapters that develop lore, training, and characterization. The novel starts with a quick pacing in the first quarter. It slows down slightly afterward as it explores its B-plots. However, befitting an adventure subgenre, the novel’s pacing is fabulously gripping throughout. It ends with several resolutions toward the last quarter. The author has masterly crafted a fantastic and thrilling, page-turning story, with one increasing tension and climax after another. Last, the novels begin with a bang and end with a bang (or many bangs, to be more precise). The story concludes wonderfully with Lilla’s witty response to the sinister plots of the main villain behind the mystery scenes that happen in chapters 2 to 4.
Of equal merit is her masterful and evocative prose, which is always pleasurable to read. They avoid the excesses of purple prose as they are incredibly streamlined and well-edited. I have learned a few interesting ways to write from her, which I will incorporate in my own The Eternal Reflection future novels (“multi-hued radiance” and “green-tinted” – I will remember those!). The writing is minimal on cliches (I spotted only one) and repetitions (such as hot-and-cold-and-then-cold-to-hot being used three times) and is very streamlined altogether. The writing also shows a high degree of verbal creativity and variation, which is the hallmark of good prose. Last, her prose is clear and easy to follow, with a readability level that is easy for even the tired mind to process.
The novel seamlessly blends many things at once in an attractive and attention-grabbing manner: (1) the mystery of the murder of one character, (2) the training behind Lilla under a devotee monk, (3) the lore of the various gods and how they got their powers along the interstellar politics of the alliances, (4) good moral choices, and (5) the banalities of everyday life and interaction between the characters. The main plot follows clause number 1. I should stress that it is enormously challenging to blend plot lines 1 and 2 together. As a novelist myself, I experienced this in my second and third novels, which both had a training arc. It took me a second edition republication to get the pacing and narrative beats correct, which S.G. Blaise did very well.
For instance, training arcs cannot be too long or dragged out. However, S.G. avoids this issue by spacing out training and inserting various action scenes that drive the plot in between. The training is enriched by the “banalities of everyday speech,” where trainees and trainers blend their daily conversations in a natural, organic manner. The training arcs had minimal info-dumping and were delivered through action, which provides a fast-paced and thrilling experience for readers.
The novel has a solid characterization of the main character. Lilla is proactive, and this increases after the mid-point. She has a firm moral compass and will give up her interests to choose the right option. And she is likable and intelligent, using various well-thought-out methods to defeat her adversaries and free her comrades. In book three, there is further character development in Lilla through the advancement of her powers of Transfiguration.
The characters all have unique voices, and the most significant achievement is their natural, emergent, and organic forms of dialogue. Every character has a distinct voice, such as (1) Lilla’s interaction with people of various strengths of friendship (like her loving nature toward her lover, Caldum, or her harshness toward the god, Laoise), (2) Devotee Zorion’s more authoritative and instructional/formal manners, (3) Laoise’s overbearing arrogance and unabashed cunningness, and (4) Moira’s intrusive ways of instructing Lilla.
There is an impressive amount of lore build-up throughout the entire novel. Without giving away spoilers, it explores how gods got their powers concerning degrees of worship. Then, there’s the exploration of the democratically-aligned 19 planets versus monarchic-authoritarian systems. Finally, there’s the lore regarding the types of magic, such as Lume, or Acerbus magic. The last point is interesting, as it covers how some beings have inherent magic in them and others do not.
Editorially, The Proud Pada boasts high excellence in its editorial quality at all three levels: content editing, line/scene-level editing, and copyediting. I spotted only one very minor proofreading error (can anyone else spot it?) throughout the entire book and zero typos throughout.
There are minimal content-level issues. First, she carefully avoids the extreme info-dumps through dialogues, as some authors like Philip Pullman, Andrzej Sapkowski, Isaac Asimov, and Michael Crichton (Ursula Le Quin does it sometimes too). Info-dumps are minimal, and S.G. spreads the exciting and intense lore throughout the novels in bite-sized but relevant chunks. She provides them only when readers are intrigued by them. Second, S.G. must have hired outstanding editors – because her first plot point and mid-point arrive almost precisely where a seven-point structure novel typically has. Third, I spotted no dialogue formatting issues; the dialogues were all straightforward to follow since they followed a standard style. Although she has many scenes with 5 or 6 conversing characters, they all follow the same train of thought for each scene, which makes it easy to follow the dialogue.
Altogether, The Proud Pada combines high editorial quality, page-gripping pacing, satisfying plot resolutions, strong characterization and voices, interesting and immersive lore, and substantial moral choices. This is the strongest of the three books S.G. has written. I have read her last two books, and she has borrowed the strong plot-driven element of book two and the artistic prose of book one and imbued them into book three.
As an author of six published novels myself, and read hundreds of novels, I have very high standards and expectations. Thus, I will end with: The Proud Pada is truly a masterpiece!
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Reviews with images
Great sequel!
I’ve followed this series since the first book was released and I’m happy to say I’ve enjoyed each book, and each book has gotten better and better! The stakes continue to be high in this book, so there is plenty of action to drive the plot forward. I love how the author manages to keep the plot going while not sacrificing great character development and depth. I feel like with most books this is an “either/or” scenario, but not here! I really enjoyed the epilogue, but also was left rocked by that cliffhanger. Can’t wait to see where book four takes us!
Top reviews from other countries
Maria pagesofmaria
S.G. Blaise has done it again with another exciting installment in The Last Lumenian series!
Reviewed in Italy on January 13, 2023
Chiara _ckarys
Another exciting installment full of twists and adventure!
Reviewed in Italy on January 15, 2023
Teah Gillingham
Exciting and well paced
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2022