I started reading ‘Blood Over Bright Haven’ by M. L. Wang over the weekend and was completely blown away. I think the first chapter of this novel is the best I’ve ever read. It somehow established massive stakes, multiple great characters, an immediate call to action, and an interesting fantasy world to boot. It’s easily the most action-packed first chapter I’ve ever read too, and the emotional investment it got out of me within ten pages is more than some whole novels. Seriously, I can’t understate how incredible the intro is.

The story begins with a dying tribe making their last ditch attempt to reach to safety. It reads a bit more like a prologue than a true chapter one with how it plays out, but I’m more than forgiving it for that nitpick. I won’t be able to get across the depth of emotion the perspective character, Beyern, goes through in trying to save his family, but I can tell you that I’ve never gotten as upset over a first chapter before. Their tribe, who live in an unforgiving tundra plagued by something known as blight, once numbered in the tens of thousands. Now there are but forty left, the only ones not killed by blight and starvation. Their salvation awaits under the magic dome of the city of Tiran, which keeps out the blight and creates an area of warm weather, but to get there, they’ll have to cross over a frozen lake. Its not the thin ice or the freezing temperatures that Beyern feels so threatened by though. Blight is waiting beneath the ice, and begins to take his fellows one at a time as soon as the two-mile crossing starts. Streamers of light erupt from the ice to pierce the skin, and just a touch is enough to kill, unravelling their bodies like packaged meat. Will Beyern make it across the lake in time with his sister and niece? And even if they do make it, will they be able to carry on the tribe’s legacy into the future?! Read to find out!

Okay, I don’t want to spoil it too badly, but I think you can probably guess what happens. Wang is able to establish the kind of stakes I dream of with this horrific crossing by making it about more than just a character. She highlights many of the tribe’s long-held traditions as Beyern watches his fellows die horribly to blight. It’s not just his people he’s losing, but his whole society, a once-great nation reduced to puddles of blood behind him as he sprints to safety with his niece in his arms. Their children are all that stand between them and extinction now.

Pushing the stakes hard, all the way up to a societal level is difficult to execute in normal circumstances, but Wang was able to do it smoothly within only ten pages or so. It’s so easy to slip into meaningless statistics, but these people were not just names or numbers. They felt like well-developed characters. The skills, traditions, and memories they carry are all summed up in relation to Beyern in just a sentence or three, but every single one who goes down hurts. It was also a sneaky way to inject a huge amount of world building into a small, tension-fraught package, which I can’t help but be a little jealous of too. The gut-punch at the end just as they reach safety ties the chapter up nicely, and flows right into the next chapter. It’s so good it’s hard to wrap my head around.

I can’t wait to read the rest of this. It slows down a lot in the second chapter, but the stakes are still relatively high and I’m once again immediately invested in the new characters that show up. I’m certain this book will be a great read.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley