📆 Publication Date: 8th October 2026
⭐️2/5 stars
📖 Length: 540 pages
📱 Format: ePUB
⏳ Read Time: 18 days
Synopsis
Vordell was beautiful once. Its people lived in harmony as they harnessed the power of light – until darkness came. The Iron Sky smothered the suns, the earth split, releasing vicious creatures, and the long-buried Dar’rak reclaimed the world above.
A high-ranking commander, Soraya Tollmere has spent most of her life on the front lines of the brutal war that followed. By day, she leads covert missions across ruined lands through enemy territory. By night, she meets with a Dar’rak defector who has kept humanity alive with his steady stream of secrets.
But when a lead that could turn the tide of the war draws her into enemy territory, Soraya is captured by The Demon, the Dar’rak’s most feared soldier. His orders are simple: break the human commander and uncover humanity’s greatest weapon.
As devastating truths unravel and loyalties blur, Soraya must decide who to trust in a world where light is dying… and where her greatest enemy may be her only salvation.
What I thought
The premise really grabbed me, so with so many readers on NetGalley rating this over 4 stars, I was expecting to enjoy it a lot more than I did. A ruined world, a fifteen-year war, dangerous creatures and a human commander captured by one of the enemy’s most feared soldiers? There’s plenty there that should have been right up my street. Unfortunately, I found the actual reading experience a bit of a struggle.
Let’s talk about the world-building, because there’s certainly no shortage of it! You can tell a lot of thought has gone into creating Vordell, its history and the events that led to the world becoming what it is. I do appreciate a well-built fantasy world, especially when there’s a complicated history behind it, but for me, this felt a bit overkill.
The first 40% of the book felt heavily focused on establishing said world, and explaining how everything fitted together. I wanted to get stuck into the story, but instead, I felt like I was spending a lot of time taking in information. Then came the middle, which felt quite empty, with not enough happening to keep me properly engaged. It wasn’t until the final 25% that the story finally started to feel like a story and by that point I was ready to tap out.
That’s a lot of book to get through before things really get going! I think this is where the world-building became a problem for me. It wasn’t that the world itself was poorly thought out, but that so much time seemed to be spent establishing it without enough happening within it to hold my attention. All that detail needs to serve the story, and I often felt like the balance in this book was off.
I also struggled to connect with the characters. Soraya is a high-ranking commander who has spent much of her life fighting in a brutal war, while the Demon is a feared enemy soldier tasked with breaking her. There’s plenty of potential in that setup, particularly with the secrets, divided loyalties and dangerous bond hinted at in the synopsis. I wanted to feel invested in their story, but I never really got to that point, and a lot of their dialogue also felt rather childish, which made it even harder to take their characters seriously.
Another issue for me was the genre blend. Although Under the Iron Sky is marketed as a dystopian sci-fi fantasy, I found the science fiction elements way too overpowering. I just couldn’t get on board with faeries and spaceships sharing the same page!
That’s not to say sci-fi and fantasy can’t work together, and I know plenty of readers enjoy both in the same book. It simply wasn’t what I enjoyed about this one. Combined with the heavy world-building and the slow pace, it made it harder for me to settle in.
And perhaps the biggest disappointment is how little I remembered of the book when it came to writing this review. I finished it, but almost as soon as I’d closed it, I found myself forgetting the story and the characters.
Thank goodness for notes.
Overall
So much world-building, a middle that went nowhere, and characters I couldn’t give a toss about.
By the time the story finally showed up, I’d mentally clocked out 😂
2 stars – And I’ll be giving book two a miss.
Interested in picking this up?
Amazon – here
Bookshop.Org – here
Thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK, Cornerstone, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Until next time… may your next read be more memorable than mine. 🖤
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