Heroes of Seige is the first instalment of Tony Johnson’s five-novel-long epic fantasy series, and it also serves as his debut novel. His series boasts epic battles, monsters, magic, and characters to tug on your heartstrings. Being the first book in the series The Story of Evil and a debut novel, Heroes of Seige is rough around the edges but, at its core, full of possibilities and promise. 

Johnson shows promise in his writing; there is no doubt about it. Regardless, addressing some of the rough edges surrounding the story of Heroes of Seige is important. Johnson has a habit of relying heavily on telling us about the world and spends less time showing us. This is a common struggle for debut fantasy others and even veteran authors, for that matter, who write epic fantasy. The world is often so big that it is hard to balance showing and telling. As a result, many authors opt for heavy telling, or info-dumping, early in their stories to get much of the world-building out of the way sooner rather than later. This is a precarious move and works for a few authors. Johnson’s writing struggles as a result, often reading more middle-grade than adult, especially in the book’s first half. This improves somewhat as the book progresses, and I expect to see further improvement in overall writing as the series progresses. 

The story and characters of Heroes of Seige are its strongest points. It’s evident that the characters live rent-free in Johnson’s mind with thoroughly fleshed personalities and backstories. Fantasy characters are not often relatable when it comes to their backstories because I don’t know about you, but I am not an orphan who got adopted by a knight, but that doesn’t change the fact that Steve’s motivations and inner turmoil are relatable. A book’s emotional intrigue often makes or breaks it, but Heroes of Seige uses it to its advantage. 
Heroes of Seige is a quick and fun read and a promising start to a series of potential. It suffers from a few debut-novel woes, but it’s worth a try if you prefer emotional and character driven stories.