‘Incursion’ by Mitchell Hogan: Religion, Sorcery & Swords With a Hint of Demons!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the author for providing me with an advanced copy of Incursion in exchange for my honest review.

• Title: Incursion
• Author: Mitchell Hogan
• Publisher: self-published
• Pub. date: 7 July 2020
• Series: The Necromancer’s Key #1
• Page count: 500
• Source: NetGalley
• Genres: new adult, fantasy, romance, action & adventure

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An immersive and ambitious new series from the Aurealis Award winning author of A Crucible of Souls.

A corrupted power stirs from beyond the grave.
A sacred order of knights sworn to protect the world from evil.
The Necromancer Queen will rise again.

Seventeen years have passed since the Necromancer Queen Talia was overthrown and slain, and her capital city destroyed by the Knights of the Order of Eternal Vigilance.

Anskar DeVantte, raised in the sacred disciplines of the Order, is now ready to face the brutal initiation trials to become a consecrated knight-sorcerer.

But the further Anskar rises in the ranks the more his faith wavers, and he is beset by harrowing dreams and uncertainty. As troubling powers awaken within him, a schism grows between Anskar and his hallowed Order, and he draws the hungry gaze of the vanquished queen’s fanatical followers.

As Anskar pieces together the mysteries of his early life, and begins to understand the malevolent forces gathering in his path, he finds himself with a crucial choice to make:

Remain loyal to the Order’s righteous mission, or control the dark powers growing within him.

Either way, his destiny is steeped in war. The only question is, which side will he be on?

Content warning: blood & gore, consumption of alcohol, death of animals, death & executions, human trafficking, racism, sexual content, slavery

I chose to pick up Incursion because I need something that was hard high fantasy with some heavy world-building and creative magic systems. I had no idea what I was walking into, of course. I had never read anything by Mitchell Hogan or read any reviews of the book, but I thought I’ll give it a try since the blurb was interesting. Fortunately, I wasn’t disappointed!

The story starts with a brief look at the end of the war raged by the Knights of the Order of Eternal Vigilance against the Necromancer Queen of Niyas, Talia. The Knights triumph and take over the island kingdom, but there is an ominous prophecy of the Queen rising again that hangs over the lands.

Seventeen years later, the Knights are settling into Niyas and have established much of mainland trade on the island. Anskar DeVantte has grown up at a stronghold known as Branil’s Burg among Knights of the Order for most of his life and is now ready to embark on his own journey into knighthood. However, Anskar has begun to question the way of life he’s been led to believe in, in the ways of the god Menselas who the Knights follow as well as in the lessons his teachers impart.

As Anskar and his fellow recruits go through the trials of Knighthood, he begins to search for the identities of his absent parents, the truth behind the Knights’ disturbing actions, as well as stumble through his own trials of friendship and romance.

• I loved the world that the author has created in Incursion! The first book takes place exclusively in Niyas, so I am excited to see more of the mainland in the following books of the series! I think the way the author managed to weave religion and race into this world in a way that mirrors real-life issues we see today. This somehow made this strange world not so strange after all.
• The plot is really well done! I think the better way to describe it is that it’s deceivingly well-done. At first, I thought I had a good handle on where the story was heading, but the author threw in some really shocking plot twists that turned the story in a whole different direction a few times.
• Anskar was a surprisingly innocent protagonist for a high fantasy like Incursion! I felt almost bad for the dude because he is felt like he could be me if someone dumped me in that world out of nowhere. But this guy has been living literally within the stronghold for seventeen years, so I’m not completely surprised by his character.
• I really liked the action and adventure once the story shifted beyond Branil’s Burg. I cannot believe Anskar survived sticking in there for seventeen years because I got a little bored by the time a few chapters were done. The quests Anskar and his friends embarked on were really exciting! I feel like it’s a taste of what will probably come in the future books.
• I really like the attention the author paid to the religion, racial tensions and language barriers in this story. I haven’t read enough high fantasy but the details really stood out in this story, so I would say that’s something worthy of credit.

• The pace of the first third of the book is really slow. There is a lot of world-building happening with Anskar going through his daily life at the Burg as well as seeing some of the culture and history of Niyas. It is pretty interesting stuff but it can really put off someone from reading the rest of the book, which would be such a shame because the story really picks up once the trials really start.
• Like I said before, Anskar is pretty innocent due to his sheltered upbringing, but oh god, this boy is really stupid sometimes! LOL! I think this is probably a pretty subjective thing but sometimes I just did not get why he couldn’t think things through sometimes. But I will give the boy credit for the slow growth his character achieved by the end of the story though.
• The romance was a little confusing. Personally, I am not a fan of the ‘will they won’t they’ type of romance, so the back and forth between Anskar and his love interest really annoyed me at points. I am actually a little confused about their chemistry too. They’re messy and a little all over the place, but I’m still strangely invested in them? LOL!
• I cannot stand details that are unnecessary and over-descriptive, so when I ended up reading almost two chapters about the smithing trials that Anskar had to face for his Knighthood, I did not enjoy that! Almost none of it made sense and I was frankly frustrated by all the unnecessary detail that the author went to.

I went in expecting an action-packed high fantasy with some heavy world-building, and Incursion by Mitchell Hogan did not disappoint! Though I was a bit put off by the beginning’s slow pace, the confusing romance and the pesky details at times, I was still thoroughly entertained by the story overall. I am excited to see more of the intricate world-building, the daring adventures and action as well as get some answers to all the questions Incursion left me with, in its sequel, so I can’t wait to pick it up!

When he was eleven, Mitchell Hogan was given the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to read, and a love of fantasy novels was born. He spent the next ten years reading, rolling dice, and playing computer games, with some school and university thrown in. Along the way he accumulated numerous bookcases filled with fantasy and sci-fi novels and doesn’t look to stop anytime soon.

His first attempt at writing fantasy was an abysmal failure and abandoned after only one page. But ideas for characters and scenes continued to come to him and he kept detailed notes of his thoughts, on the off chance that one day he might have time to write a novel. For ten years he put off his dream of writing until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He knew he would regret not having tried to write the novel percolating inside his head for the rest of his life. Mitchell quit his job and lived off dwindling savings, and the moral support of his fiancé, until he finished the first draft of A Crucible of Souls.

He now writes full time and is eternally grateful to the readers who took a chance on an unknown author.

A Crucible of Souls won the 2013 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

Mitchell lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Angela, and daughters, Isabelle and Charlotte.

Have you read Incursion or will you be picking it up?