Ambessa Medarda is a woman to be feared. She has led conquests and armies. She has slain legendary beasts. She has made grave sacrifices in pursuit of glory during her ascent up the ranks. And for this she was rewarded: She entered the realm of death and was granted a vision of herself upon the throne of the vast Noxian empire.
But before she can lead her empire, she must fight to become head of her own clan. With her family betraying her, enemies closing in on all sides, and unseen forces moving in the shadows, every day proves more dangerous than the last. But Ambessa will not bow. She will burn the world down to claim her place in it.
by Mike
Attention Arcane fans! This is the tie-in novel to the Netflix animated series based on the video game League Of Legends. Ambessa, one of my favorite characters in it, and one of my favorite villains, gets her much needed backstory in this one. C.L. Clark, author of the Magic Of The Lost series took one of these first expansions on the Arcane universe upon herself. And I’d say she succeeded in fleshing out a missing link in the story of the characters involved. The Netflix series coined quite some foreshadowing and backstory that couldn’t fully resound, and this book neatly fills in the blanks with younger versions of known characters and – without any spoilers – some really cool new ones we’ve only heard of in passing.
So. The setting is Noxus. A kind of tribal region in the lore of the games that consists of warring clans. I read it as having cultural inspirations from Roman, Viking and Tribal West-African cultures, which was a nice blend. Then, Ambessa, the ruthless matriarch as we know her to become is not quite that yet; The story sets her up to first overcome some (initially) interestingly set up political, miltary and mystical obstacles. But I should say that the way the book then decides to work through them has more of a cat and mouse structure. Which is to say, it chooses some back and forths, twists and turns to a kind of military road trip, intercutting with the more interesting parts of politics and magical experimentation that bodes bad tidings for everyone. This structure did not particularly work for me, though in the end it did not take away from the satisfaction of the Ambessa character fully embodying her not so ethical code of honour. And the shadow threat and origin story of another main character that finally get established are the biggest pay-off.
