Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a story about power, thirst for knowledge, casteism, and of course.... loads and loads of magical elements.
The main protagonist is Danso, who is a mixed-race Bassai Scholar novitiate, trying to find a place in the elite Bassai society. Although he is one the most talented and smart people, who never forgets anything once he has read it, he still finds himself in trouble in his scholarly life. Danso's thirst for knowledge got him into big trouble when he tried to save Lilog - a yellow-skinned who only existed in old tales until now.
He goes so far as to defy his betrothed Esheme, who belongs to a very powerful family. Danso and Lilong run along with Danso's second Zak, to unknown far beyond to save themselves from Bassai soldiers and Esheme's hunters. Throughout this journey, Danso discovers a magical weapon that he now wields, which now makes him more curious to understand it. But it's just not him, but his enemies have discovered something too, which is a threat not only to Danso but to all.!
The characters were good but weren't too interesting at the start. Danso felt a little too weak and naive as a character, but he is supposed to be that since he is portrayed as a simple scholar. Lilong felt more like a basic fighter than anything else. She didn't get much interesting throughout the book though. Esheme sounded like a teenager with her whining and attitude in the beginning. But later, she turned into this bitchy queen that felt apt to the story. I guess these characters grow on you slowly.
The story itself felt a bit boring with just info-dumping and world-building in the first 100-150 pages but started getting a good pace right after that. I was so close to DNFing this book, but thank god I decided to stay. It gets really good after that. There was a lot of "What the hell....??! NNNoooooooo...!" moments in the latter half, which makes the story interesting.
Although the book is based on magic, it isn't the defining element, which is good. I love when a story has more than just a magical thrill. It's very character-driven which makes it more relatable. The story is told by multiple POVs, which is a kind of dangerous territory, as a lot of people don't enjoy multiple POVs. It's easier to mess up a good story since people can't really understand what's going on. But Suyi has done a tremendous job at writing the novel using these pov's which aren't distracting at all.
To summarise, Son of the Storm is a well-written novel in The Nameless Republic series, with high hopes for the upcoming novels in this series.