I haven't read a high fantasy that I really liked in quite a while.
I loved the world-building (I see that some don't really enjoy it, but for me it was great) and in the beginning I was afraid I would actually have to remember all the (what I thought) clans and their respective members, after seeing them in the beginning of the book, but do not worry, that is not the case.
I also enjoyed the style that the book was composed in - with jumping between the different stories that slowly melted into each other.
I loved that you came to care for most of the characters.
I read the book just after I got home from spending a week in Nigeria, so in my mind the world in the book was from that area (you can feel the African heritage), and I think that this added an extra layer for me while reading the book.
Were some of the things obvious? Yes, even most of them, did I care? Nope.
Can't wait for the second instalment.

Tolkeinesque in ambition and scale, drawing inspiration from West African and Southeast Asian mythology as well as final fantasy boss battles, Ayinde’s Song of Legends Lost is quite simply a work of art.

M.H. Ayinde’s stunning first novel in her Invoker Trilogy, A Song of Legends Lost, is a beautifully woven story which presents a decolonised Tolkien-scale fantasy world that feels both faintly familiar yet distinctly different from anything I have read before. At almost 600 pages long with incredibly detailed lore, this is a story which I savoured and studied rather than engulfed. As with Tolkien the reader is expected to immerse themselves in a universe which is vast and intelligent, rewarding effort rather than casual page turning. Making the decision to read this brilliant first entry of the trilogy at a slower pace meant that I took time to truly appreciate how much imagination was poured into writing.

A bold and challenging fantasy epic which reads as a love letter to Ayinde’s favourite media whilst succeeding in being something distinct to itself. I especially loved how unashamedly nerdy this fantasy epic was. Ayinde’s battle system of summoning ancestral spirits draws heavily on the Final Fantasy games series in which characters summon Aeons to destroy opponents. This was most evidently demonstrated through the Chained Man who Ayinde herself shared in a promotional reel as being a nod to the infamous Aeon named Anima. Characters such as the Chained Man had me catching myself asking aloud: “am I really reading a decolonised fantasy epic with FFX bosses in?” However, all this nerdy referential writing does not come at a cost to originality. Nor at any point does the book get bogged down with its references in a manner which would prevent an unfamiliar consumer from fully enjoying the universe.

In conclusion, I urge lovers of nerdy fantasy to step into Ayinde’s wonderful universe. I expect that I will be thinking about A Song of Legends Lost for a very long time.