An intriguing secondary fantasy world that capably hits many of the expected notes of epic fantasy
Sometimes, only a proper multi-POV epic fantasy in the classic style (or seemingly so) will do. There is something that still gets me, decades into reading epic fantasy, about starting a brand new world, delving into new lore, a new map, new characters, and a new tangled skein. And to see what is new, fresh and different this time. So for me reading epic fantasy is a combination of comfort reading (something sorely needed in these times) and the hope for innovation and the unexpected at the same time.
So we come to Of Ash and Salt by Daniel McGee. I’m going to look at it through an interrogation of the framework of epic fantasy and how his work matches it and how well it executes it.
What makes an epic fantasy, well, epic fantasy?
There are Wikipedia definitions, the tradition of epic poetry, the sense of stakes (which I wrote a well-regarded article about for SF Signal once upon a time). My own conception of it has evolved from my reading of the genre, reading of criticism of the genre, and my own biases, perceptions, and expectations. There is no one correct definition of epic fantasy, but there are definitely expected elements that overlap in most people’s minds.¹ But this list below are the ones I focus on for an epic fantasy:
Secondary world locale, widescreen
Epic fantasy takes place on a big stage in a secondary world. Most epic fantasies, unless they are being transgressive or subversive, will thus have a prominent map in the front of the book. Diana Wynn Jones taught us the importance of such a map in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. A significant portion of the map will be covered in journeys and adventures in the course of the narrative.
How does Of Ash and Salt measure up? It’s got a map in the front helpfully entitled “Aminara, the Land of Origins” in a parchment-like style. We have scenes that start in the far north of the map, Hein’s Crossing, as well as the capital city of Crownhold, and plenty of places in between. One of the main POV characters, Aiden, makes the journey from one to the other, having numerous adventures in the process. Eila, the other major POV, stays in Crownhold entirely. We get to visit a fair amount of that map, and see a variety of types of locations, from the frozen north to the desert to dense urban districts.
Stakes and scale
Epic fantasy should have the fate of a nation, at the very least, if not the fate of even larger polities and considerations at stake. I’ve described the scale of stakes going from personal, through city-state, kingdom, and finally epic. A novel, no matter how written, deciding the fate of an alley in the capital is not epic. The fate of a single city often is not (although if it is, say that selfsame capital, the stakes can approach epic by implication if not explicitly). When we start getting the fate of kingdoms and the political future of continents, we’re in epic territory. And if you throw in gods and extraplanar powers, you are in epic fantasy for certain. But those stakes can as often be set large at the beginning as set small and then snowball and reveal wider concerns. The farm girl who becomes a paladin hero to an entire kingdom is a classic form of this.
Thus, for Of Ash and Salt, what starts off as Aiden concerned about his wounded father, and Eila concerned that her best friend might have his automatic-conscription secret magical talent be discovered, fulminates in both directions into stakes involving the fate of the kingdom, and more than just the kingdoms as well. There are machinations, a rebellion, multiple polities and a lot going on across the landscape. The conflict and stakes that our protagonists encounter feel much larger than just their story alone.
Deep time
In keeping with stakes and scale, epic fantasies know how to leverage deep time to their best advantage. A new fight between rising city-states is barely on the edge of epic fantasy. A boiling struggle between two nations that have a backstory of having been in conflict for a century? Or, say, the burned-out embers of an empire three hundred years dead roaring back to life? Now we’re getting into epic fantasy territory. And if you have, say, machinations and conflicts of elder races going back thousands of years, or even gods and goddesses, you are well and deep into epic fantasy now. The narrative weight of deep time magnifies and increases the scale of the conflict.
Of Ash and Salt gives us plenty of deep time aspects to the conflict. We get hints of lost, fallen technology powered by a now depleted and inaccessible resource, Firesalt. We have a wizard, Ledarein, who is clearly much more than the conjurer of cheap tricks that he seems at the beginning of the book, especially when we meet his enemy and adversary, Sadrel Kirn. Sadrel has dark plans of his own and is far less subtle about his magic. We even get an inconclusive magical duel between the pair at one point in the book. These two have a long, long history.
And then there are two powerful weapons, the Itille and the Darsaad. We get a look at the latter first, for its arrival causes consternation, and plotting, in the capital city of Crownhold. Where it is and what its counterpart, the Itille, can do, are teased out over a longer period. But they are clearly artifacts of an older age, with a deep history and power that informs and impacts the present.
Magic
The mention of the magical weapons brings to me another necessary element to epic fantasy and that is magic. I suppose that an epic fantasy could be written without it, in theory, but a completely mundane fantasy without even a hint of magic in it is rare. Even A Song of Ice and Fire, which is probably much lower on the overt magic scale than a lot of epic fantasy in the first volume, still has *some*, and magic clearly is seen to exist in Westeros and beyond. But in general, magic is usually more than that in epic fantasy. Magic helps with the deep time, the sense of scale, and the widescreen fantasy world.
So what does Of Ash and Salt have? As mentioned above, we start with Ledarein, who looks at best a hedge wizard, but we also are introduced to the Darsaad right away. We get the aforementioned magic duel, the mention of Firesalt, and other feats of magic and possibly lost technomagic as well. Magic doesn’t overwhelm the narrative, heroism, or the action of the characters, but it is an essential part of the fantasy world.
A big cast of characters
Epic fantasy, in my view, should have a wide range of characters for us to interact with, meet, and preferably follow. There has been a tendency lately in epic fantasy to really narrow down and screw down the number of POVs we get in a book. In the logical distillation of this trend in some cases, you get a single POV for the entire narrative. In some ways, that can make things even harder on a writer than a reader—how do you convey the sweeping scope of the world and the conflicts if it is limited to one porthole, one perspective? It’s epically difficult to pull off. I am more commonly seeing 2 or 3 narrators, and far less often the Martin or Jordan approach. POVs also often need narrative momentum to really take off, and too many can mean that getting invested in the characters is harder.
But beyond just POVs is the fact that an epic fantasy should feel populated, and dare I say, diversely populated. If you are in fact going to go epic, having all your major characters be clones of each other from the same locale does a disservice to the writer, their world, and the reader. So having a variety of characters along various axes, even if they aren’t narrators, helps give the world depth and scale.
So our primary POV characters are the aforementioned Aiden, son of the leading man of a northern village, and Eila, an orphan in the big city of Crownhold. We’ve got the magicians, street gang members, Ildara, the exiled princess turned warrior, scheming nobles, senators, kindly grandmothers, merchant, nomadic clans and a whole lot more. The world feels lived-in, inhabited, and full of people to meet. The author does a great job in distinguishing and differentiating his wide cast, and not just Aiden and Eila, but the others come to life as well. I could have wished for, old-fashioned that I am, for a Dramatis Personae.
Themes
Novels are never just a pile of events and characters, but this is especially true of epic fantasy. This is where the bones and DNA of Tolkien as ur-epic fantasy come to the fore. Tolkien plays with strong themes and it is those themes that elevate Tolkien in many respects to being the work of literature that it is. Good and Evil, Honor and Duty. Sacrifice. Honor. Loyalty. When to take a stand. When to resist.
Duty, honor, responsibility, the tug of conflicting needs and demands, loyalty, and doing what is right fill the book. Throughout, our protagonists are faced with dilemmas, questions and internal and external conflicts. Novels have to drive on conflict, and not just external ones. Time and again, Aiden is pained by the need and desire to help his father, and Eila pushed and driven by the need and desire to save her friend from a dread fate. This is the meat and drink of well written epic fantasy and the author brings it to the table effectively.
Immersion
Finally, for a true epic fantasy for me, I need all these elements to come together and to immerse me. Put me, the reader, fully into your world. You can worldbuild by lore, by explication, by quoting texts and in-world histories and resources. If you are that kind of book, you can use footnotes if you want. But put me into the world, with your writing, and make me meet your characters, bring all the elements together and truly bring to life a fantasy world, epic saga, a tale of characters, conflicts and more. If I miss my subway stop, then I know I have a true epic fantasy on my hands.
On those metrics, Of Ash and Salt succeeds capably. I was immediately hooked into our two main POV characters, and the switch back and forth was well executed and kept me turning pages to see what was happening to Aiden, and to wonder what Eila was up to now given the latest chapter, and then back again. With the successful widescreen approach of Aiden having the cross-country adventure to give us a smörgåsbord of locations, people, and situations, and to have Eila make us really feel her small section of Crownhold (the walled-off district of the Evergreens is a clever and interesting invention, making me think of a number of historical inspirations from our own history). The mystery and magic of the magicians, the secrets of the two weapons, Firesalt and more helped bring the sense of wonder to the page.
Finally, Of Ash and Salt is the first in a series. Although as stunts, you can have epic fantasies in as little as one volume,² generally epic fantasies are at least duologies, sometimes trilogies, and in some cases longer still. Epic fantasies, in order to do all the things listed above, need pages and space to grow and fill the reader with everything they have to offer. Thus, this book has an ending, but really the story has just begun for the characters. In a traditional and classic and welcome fashion, the novel has an epilogue that suggests the scope and scale of the conflict is larger than previously suspected or known. That, too, is part and parcel of the epic fantasy tradition, and Of Ash and Salt takes its place nicely within it. I look forward to more books in the Emorean Prophecy.
Highlights:
- Epic fantasy beats along the old straight track, well executed
- Engaging and deep themes
- #TeamIldara
Reference:
McGee, Daniel. Of Ash and Salt [Ruby Cave Publishing, 2025].
¹ Complete sidebar here, for Americans: What states do you consider to be in the Midwest? The maps of what people consider to be the midwest are fascinating. Iowa is clearly in the midwest for any conception of it by nearly everyone, but you get real interesting cases as you move away from it. So it is too with elements of epic fantasy. So consider all I have to say in that light.
² I am aware of all internet traditions, and also that The Lord of the Rings was written as one book and was split into three.
