Review: Of Prophets and Pinioned Angels by Kyle Fox

Plunging once more into the bleak, battle-scarred existence of Jacobus, the dauntless fallen knight of Korigane, Of Prophets and Pinioned Angels by Kyle Fox is the masterful second book in his Tales of Exile series.

After shearing his way through endless horrors in the first book of the series, this doomed warrior is now tasked by an angel to liberate even more souls from the creeping darkness and brimstone that befell his home. The angel Ezrea tells him of other kingdoms, where other battles must be fought, and more blood must still be spilled, in this dark, mystical, and visceral journey.

On a mission from a Wingless angel with decidedly murky intentions, Jacobus must seek out more blessed turpentine – a soul-freeing substance – for the righteous tasks that lay ahead. Along the way, he is enlightened by a vampiric alchemist that the road he has been set on may be a false one. What’s more, there is a mysterious necromancer shadowing his path, who may be seeking to manipulate the delicate scales of life and death.

Unlike the first book, this installment is plot-heavier, as well as more philosophical and alchemical, with extended sections of dialogue and dynamic interactions between characters, rather than each chapter laying out one monstrous fight scene after another. The conversations tend to stray towards the mystical and heady, but there are still bursts of lush prose that provide readers plenty to think about: “…wisdom and knowledge really are each like fruit… Cultivated from the smallest of beginnings, planted in the unsown lands of innocence and ignorance. Its health nurtured into abundance. Tilled into fertile fields and worked with cognitive labors to multiply and bear more of its own…”

As Fox has shown in the past, his penchant for savage language leads to vivid descriptive passages throughout. As Jacobus moves through the ravaged realms of this book, he witnesses the “burnt-out skeletons of family homes tainted into crematoriums” and must battle “hulking abominations” and “storms of bones,” not to mention his own self-doubt and shattered faith. He is grieving the loss of his kingdom, and the piles of bodies he has left behind – both foes he has slain and countrymen he has mourned – which the reader can feel right along with him.

In Book 1, Jacobus was forged mainly in violence, which didn’t allow for many other aspects of personality to come through. In this installment, however, that has changed; he is more self-reflective, suspicious of others’ intentions, willing to listen, and generally less likely to immediately slay whatever stands before him. There are still bursts of action and gruesome details, but the overall story is far more nuanced and polished. An even greater revelation beckons near the end of the book – the blighted setting of these Grimdark tales may not be that fantastically far from our own world, as there are subtle references to an earlier era of massive human expansion, unchecked greed, and even moon colonization, known as the Lost Ages.

Alchemizing mythology, magic, religion, and a post-apocalyptic dystopia into a highly readable brew, Fox’s graphic imagination continues to be a dark delight.