Review – Chasing Graves by Ben Galley

I’ve been meaning to get on the Ben Galley bandwagon for a while now, but my immense TBR has continued to hinder my attempts. When I got a chance at an ARC with a (hooray!) deadline, I finally got to check out one of the best self-published authors out there. So here goes –

In the Arctian Empire, the gods are dead. In the capital city of Araxes, if you make the mistake of walking the streets after dark, you’re liable to join them. Araxes, the City of Countless Souls, trades in shades. People who die a premature death are bound to a coin and essentially sentenced to an afterlife of servitude. There are rules to prevent abuse of such a system, but like many bureaucratic ideals, they are weighed down and prone to abuse. Soulstealers prowl the streets at night, killing the unwary (and sometimes the wary) and selling their souls to the highest bidder, secure in the knowledge that the system will never catch up to them.

Caltro Basalt is a safecracker, hired to come to Araxes for a very plush-sounding job. He’s barely off the boat, when he’s lying dead in the streets, his soul bound by a soultrader (i.e. stealer). Unwilling to be a slave, he continually strives to gain his freedom, often paying a tough price for his efforts. When his owner learns of his old life and skills and aims to make use of them, Caltro believes things are on the up and starts to dream of a different life (death). But then there’s that talking cat.

The world the author has built is amazing. Based on Egyptian mythology (apparently, I’m no expert), the City of Countless Souls is a metropolis where the living walk amongst the dead. There is a class structure, like every city, but the shades are treated with disdain by all, often by each other. The characters are fantastic, colourful and well-rounded, with the vile soulstealer Temsa a personal favourite, although the others more than pull their weight. Amongst all this world and character building, the grand scheme of things (the plot) is barely hinted at, but a number of juicy subplots give us plenty to sink our teeth into. If you like your fantasy dark and well-written, then make sure you grab a copy of this when it comes out on December 7th. Money well spent, I say.

An emphatic 5/5 stars.