I feel out of my element writing this review. I rarely read fantasy stories except from JRR Tolkien, Cindy Young-Turner, J. K. Rowling, or C. S. Lewis. I am also not Muslim and only have the passing familiarity that I gained from my comparative religion classes in college many years ago.
I do know something about good writing, strong plot and character development, climate change, world conflict, and fun. This novel has all of those. Mr. Razi has created a complicated and detailed world that manifests itself as a flat coin rather than a sphere. The protagonist, Mizan al-Wasati, is an olive-green skinned goblin with large ears. At the beginning of the novel, Mizan has just completed his higher education and is beginning his journey back home on his flying carpet, which is not functioning properly. Mizan is going home with an education but not a job, so his future starts out working in his family’s diner, which is not where his education should have placed him. But it sounds pretty normal even among humans.
History is extremely important in Mizan’s world and the inhabitants appear to live with all of it almost all the way back to the earliest days. And there are conflicts among the various races—elves and goblins and dwarfs. And there are conflicts about where they live and why they live where they do. All of those issues compel life on the Coin to continue on as it is, even if it means destroying it.
This is a complex novel. It is not a Harry Potter mood, but subjects that are pertinent to today’s world of humans. There are many levels conjured from Mr. Razi’s mind and experience of Muslim, Sri Lankan American, son, husband, father, engineer, singer-songwriter, fantasy novelist. I occasionally got lost, but it was a story I didn’t mind getting lost in.