Light and Shadow, Yava and Nava, aka the Otherworld, faith and disbelief — all of these are intertwined in the fantasy series «The Magician from Knyazhgrad» by Ukrainian writer Serhiy Pylytiai. It consists of three books: «Keys to the Afterlife», «Seven Seeds of Death», and «Tree of Life», published in 2022, 2024, and 2025 respectively by «Traveler». The author also has a book «Kibejank. Neon Stories», which we have already written about. In this review, we’ll talk about a trilogy of Slavic fantasy with admixtures of Scandinavian and Celtic mythologies, with elements of combat and epic fantasy. Did the author succeed? Is this series worth the attention of the reader and fans of this genre?
Pluses:
an original and colorful world based on Slavic and Scandinavian mythology; a lively and complex protagonist; magic and poetic spells; a dynamic plot, many quest events that do not make you get bored; laying down deep and complex themes
Minuses:
very simple cover and poor quality of two of the three books; dryness of each work, not enough descriptions, reflections, details, etc.; illogical and untrue decisions and actions of certain characters; characters simply and easily overcome any difficulties
«The Sorcerer from Knyazhgrad» / «Чаклун із Княжграда»
Author Serhiy Pyltyai
Publisher «Traveler»
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 216, 216, 216
Cover Soft
Year of publication 2022, 2024, 2025
Size 145×200 mm
Website mandrivets.com
The main character of the trilogy is Igor Varyazhich. He is a sorcerer who performs various tasks for a fee. But this seemingly routine profession has a much more tragic story behind it: he is looking for his sister Bohdana, who was abducted to the Otherworld right before his eyes. The guy will do anything, even openly bad and cruel things, to find his sister. But to do so, he needs three rare artifacts that the sorcerer is hunting for.
The theft of his own blood, i.e. his personal motive, becomes the driving force behind all the hero’s decisions, making the story relatable and understandable. Even when it comes to gods, the unification of the three worlds, or other high matters. Ihor is not idealized at all: sometimes his actions are openly uncomfortable, sometimes desperate and selfish. But it is this unpredictability and realism that makes him alive.
Structurally, the first book «Keys to the Underworld» is built as a series of quests. Then the plot takes a more complex and darker turn, but this series of obstacles does not disappear. In «Seven Seeds of Death», the story will turn from a combat fantasy into an epic one, as they will start summoning an otherworldly god and trying to break the boundaries between worlds. The third book «The Tree of Life» brings the story to a climax, uniting the world of humans and gods. The whole thing also moves from Slavic fantasy to almost purely Scandinavian with Celtic motifs. The series itself gradually grows from a private drama into a cosmic mythical epic story about power, love, sacrifice, and the consequences of human actions.
The world-building is one of the main advantages of the trilogy. In this pagan world, reminiscent of Kievan Rus, with princes and Vikings, foresters, house-men, alves, water-men, dog-men, werewolves, dragons, netopyrs, a ton of other creatures, and even leprechauns coexist peacefully.
You can also feel the author’s diligence in thinking through the magic system: Ihor’s spells are always in verse, none of them are repeated, and the characters sing from time to time, which adds a special atmosphere. Pyltyai managed to create an immersive effect, when the pages turn into a gateway to another world. At the same time, I missed a more detailed description of the characters’ everyday life and a simple world map that would somehow structure the cool world invented by the author.
One of the series’ strengths is its distinctive multilayered nature. It’s not just the adventures and quests of a sorcerer from Knyazhgrad, but a story about how love and loss can change a person beyond recognition. Igor appears as a hero and an anti-hero. His decisions may seem cruel, but they never leave you indifferent. It is also important that the author is not afraid to show the consequences: every spell or fight takes something away from the hero, and does not remain spiritually free for the protagonist.
The language of the novels is simple and rhythmic, but not overloaded with artificial archaism, so the text is easy to read even when the plot jumps between worlds.
In other reviews, I’ve heard that the author allegedly writes «cinematically», but I don’t think so. Cinematic — is when events prevail over descriptions, reflections, and dialogues. And here we have mostly dry text. That is, the author either didn’t write enough dialogues, characters’ reflections, descriptions of the world, the environment, etc. at first, or later, during the editing process, he cleaned up» all this too much. This, in my opinion, dried up» all three novels.
Each book is 216 pages long, which is very short even for a combat fantasy. And here we have an attempt at the epic, where we need to explain more, give depth, stretch and decorate the text artistically. We don’t need 600 pages, but I’m sure the books would definitely benefit from adding another 50-70 or even 100 pages. Often, the taste of books is felt in the details, and here they are missing.
The characters also suffer from a lack of volume, clarification, and various details about them, but Igor Varyazhich can be called the most developed. His motives and actions are clear and logical, and he is quite voluminous, but not everyone is so lucky. For example, his sister Bohdana, who later gets her own storyline, looks like an inanimate figure in the author’s hands. She does what she is told, and in the end her great motives are leveled and end up in nothing.
In general, the book is full of adventures, obstacles, and difficulties for the characters, but they overcome all of them easily, very easily, or fairly easily. Whether the hero is facing a magical leprechaun or the All-Father himself, it is almost effortless to deal with him, overcome him with magic, or resolve the situation in some other way. It would be better if there were significantly fewer of these quests-adventures-difficulties, but each of them was really difficult, on the verge of possibility, but the author came up with a lot of them, but did not take care of the complexity.
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