An Inkling of Flame by Z.B. Steele

At a Glance: Impactful Story

An Inkling of Flame is a story about found family, duty to a higher calling, conscription, and mysterious powers, told through a framed narrative where Layne recounts his conscription and training to an inquisitor, and it’s all accomplished well in under one hundred pages. This book has depth, grit, humor, and is full of emotional highs and lows in a way I’ve never experienced in a novella format.

The story is told in reverse, we start with Jayne being captured by a mysterious inquisitor who demands the full story, and Jayne reluctantly complies telling his story from early days, to the church, to conscription and training, and then Jayne’s brutal foray into his first time at war. It works well, I’m personally a big fan of the framed narrative because it can add a bit of extra emphasis to the story, which I think in a novella really helped.

The characters are certainly a standout in this, with each having their own unique voice, and witty banter throughout adds some light in a fairly dark setting. The found family doesn’t feel forced, and in the end I didn’t get sick of any of the characters when they’d show up on the page.

Usmal: Land of Deities

While we only get a small scope of the world of Usmal it’s self, what we do get is a deep look into it’s religious beliefs and some insight into the Deities that rule it and conscripts it’s inhabitants into service for war. The two primary deities we focus on are Reign who is the diety in control of his lesser gods who each run a faction of belief leading to conflict throughout the world.

The magic system is only eluded to for the most part in this shorter story, but it is directly tied to the different deities of the world, and manifest through a small group of devout followers conscripted to their service. There is active war between the different religions, which is what leads our conscripts out into the fray, and gives us a glimpse into the way these elemental magics manifest.

Character Bonds: A Found Family Quartet

An Inkling of Flame does an incredible job of creating meaningful bonds between Layne and our other characters Sharp, Spark, and Harwood. Layne’s story is one of redemption, he goes from social outcast and through the help of his friends finds purpose through faith and service to them and Tidur. They are thick as thieves, with their psudo leader clearly being Sharp, who is Layne’s best friend and savior on more than one occasion. He is the voice of reason, and drags Layne up from outcast to beacon of the group.

Spark and Harwood are both great characters who have incredibly unique voices, Spark is the only woman in the group, and she is sharp tongued, and quickly became one of my favorite characters to read. Her banter with the group was always funny, and added some levity to the dire situation they found themselves in. Harwood was a bit slower on the uptick than most of the group, but was just as lovable and did a good job at rounding out this quartet.

While there is a protagonist, he shows up much later in the story and anything I really write about him would spoil the book, but there is the over looming threat of the war to come that really sells the stakes in this, and our protagonist once he does make his appearance really adds to the tension and the mystery that surrounds him certainly leaves me ready to read Whispers of the Storm.

Divine Conscription: Outcast to Solider

The framed narrative offers us flash backs from Layne’s point of view in a faster pace than you would get out of a full length fantasy, but what Steele does well here is eliminate all filler content without it feeling like you’re missing anything. We get some small glimpses from the Layne of today in his conversations with the inquisitor, but most of the story follows Layne through his early days after joining Sharp and the crew up through the war.

Sharp’s introduction in particular was really well done, and helps solidify the bond in a way that feels earned and not convenient. Steele’s ability to focus on the building of character bonds through banter, shared struggle, and a few more serious and pointedly quiet moments with our quartet makes this an amazing read from start to finish.

The ending will probably be the most contentious point in this book for folks, if you’re going into it like I did with the intent to read Whispers of the Storm then it will feel well placed and leave what I consider a great hook. If you’re someone going into this to read it standalone, I can see it feeling a bit abrupt and leaving you with questions, but not enough questions that makes the story feel incomplete.

Between the Sheets: Plutonic but Meaningful

An Inkling of Flame keeps it’s focus primarily on the found family aspect of our quartet and never ventures into the romantic realm, the only spice you’ll get out of this one is some of the dirty jokes made by the characters to poke fun at each other, earning this a 🌶️(1.0) on our spice scale.

Steele does an amazing job at the found family trope and using the lense of the shared conscripiton under Tidur gives it a fresh feeling of a familiar take. The relationship between Layne, Sharp, Spark, and Harwood feels like you’re sitting in on stories being told from a group of long time old friends who have been through everything together. You can feel the love they have for each other in every scene, especially when they’re relentlessly breaking each others stones in ways only true friends could.

Bro Reading Comfort: Grimdark With A Beautiful Cover

An Inkling of Flame doesn’t have any spice outside of a few lewd stories and crude jokes, it doesn’t shy away from the trauma and brutality of war but it’s perfectly fine to read on the plane or subway earning it a 😳(1.0) on the comfort scale.

I want to take this point to gush over the cover because it’s beautiful, the stained glass framing of the fox is incredible, and might spark the “what are you reading” conversation, but never in a negative way.

Only thing I want to forewarn is that if you’re someone who has trouble masking your emotions when reading scenes that are brutal emotionally then you may want to save this one for home.

Darkness Factor: War Is Brutal

This book is filled with dark themes around trauma, abuse, suicide, and the horrors of war which earns it a 💀 💀 💀 (3.0) on our darkness scale.

An Inkling of Flame doesn’t shy away from the tough realities of what war can bring, the fight scenes have the necessary brutality to convey the horrors of war and what comes with it, but never crosses the line of being gratuitous to illicit shock.

Steele also explores redemption, but in order to get there we spend some time in the depths of what create an outcast through Layne and his past full of trauma. We also see that Layne isn’t alone in that trauma through different experiences of his friends and what has led them to their service under Tidur.

Book Battlefield: Grimdark Novella

I’ve only read a few fantasy novellas before, and in my experience usually something is sacrificed to fit the format because I’ve found that they often still have filler content and something is traded for that.

An Inkling of Flame accomplishes something pretty amazing that I didn’t feel any specific things was lacking, it felt like character development was certainly the focus, but there was clear plotting, world building, and stakes that didn’t feel rushed.

Kudos to Z.B. Steele on being able to create a compelling story with memorable characters in less than 100 pages, it’s truly amazing to me. The character work was stellar and the highlight of the book as I read it, and I can certainly feel the inspiration of Joe Abercrombie in the way these characters interact and the voices they are given.

Should You Bother?

For Grimdark Fans: This one is a must read, it’s truly amazing that there is something like this out there, short form but full of impact and the grittiness I expect from a grim dark novel.

For Joe Abercrombie Fans: I truly could feel that level of care and detail put into these characters and interactions the same way I did when reading something from Joe.

For Novella Fans: This was great, it’s a quick read, full of fun banter, trauma, and surprising depth for such a short book.

Final BroMantasy Verdict

An Inkling of Flame was honestly something special, I was skeptical because in my experience fantasy novellas usually fall a little flat, but Z.B. Steele has shown me that the format works if you cut the filler and focus on the important things like deep character work, good but not dense world building, and an interesting plot. This book was fun from start to finish, it’s fast paced, witty, and not afraid to explore some darker themes earning this one a 4.25/5.

Z.B. Steele has taken a tried and true formula for grimdark and packed it into less pages than some prologues while managing to keep the impact the same as if this book was 350 pages. Steele is certainly an author to look out for if you’re a grimdark or fantasy fan in general. His creative use of the framed narrative I believe helped keep this story on track without the need for filler and was a brilliant use of the style.

An Inkling of Flame has some amazing banter as well, anyone who has had close friends for a long time knows that razzing each other is just part of a normal conversation, and one of my favorite things was how Steele inserted an “outsider” into the group who had to witness and question if these people even liked each other because of how unmercifully they hounded each other at every opportunity. The book balances that banter with some pretty dark moments, exploring some difficult topics, and doing it in a way that lets you feel the emotional weight of them without outright telling you how sad or grim they are.

The exploration of the emotional toll of war was incredibly well done, Steele managed to paint the perfect contrast between war from the perception from those who have never fought in one to the young people coming back from their first fight and seeing exactly how brutal and awful it really is. This book was such a pleasant surprise for me, and I can’t wait to see what Steele manages to do with more than 100 pages in Whispers of the Storm.

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