Teaser

Azure is an assassin, with dreams of one day killing his way out of debt. But when he takes on a contract to protect an elderly woman, he soon learns that life isn’t easy for people with prices on their heads . . .

Review

I’m going to start off with a hot take. I think that murdering people is wrong. Yes, even if you’re being paid to do so. Maybe this isn’t such a hot take, because most legal systems agree with me. However, when we delve into the murky worlds of science fiction and fantasy, assassins seem to be incredibly popular. Edgy loners with cloaks, daggers, and lasers, they’re just so gosh-darn stylish and cool. Right? I don’t think we need to run every work of fiction through the lens of modern-day cultural morality, but I do find it odd that we seem to have settled on an idea of assassins as glamourous cool guys, heroic in their struggle to get their man. Don’t believe me? Just ask the average moviegoer what they think of John Wick.

Let’s backtrack. James Islington is best known as an author of epic fantasy. He burst onto the scene with his Licanius trilogy, which I read in the middle of my fallout with the genre and found incredibly tropey, and is in the middle of another trilogy. Somewhere, he found the time to put out this piece of cyberpunk adventure, which is ostensibly a standalone but also sets up its own sequels. Scion is short, little over novella-length by my estimation, and is that sort of book which presents nonstop action, violence, and plot twists. The kind of book the kids go crazy for these days. Trust me, it’s a scream.

However. A very big however. It’s also very, very bland. I am admittedly not a cyberpunk fan, but there is nothing new or innovative here. There’s a dash of Altered Carbon, and a whole load of Deus Ex, to the point that several chapters felt like walkthroughs of levels from a computer game. Fight some monsters, meet a contact, things go sideways, fight some robots. Even at its short length, Scion rapidly becomes repetitive. The world is as shallow as a puddle, populated only by people Azure knows from his past, who offer favours or betrayals in due course. One of the things Islington is regularly praised for is his handling of plot twists, but everything in Scion is predictable. Sometimes painfully so. And it’s not that the twists are well foreshadowed revelations, it’s just that they’re obvious from the get-go.

When I started listening to the book, my initial impression was that there was a poor alignment between text and narrator. As the book progressed, I realised that wasn’t fair Scott Aiello. The narrative voice is juvenile and annoying, yes, but it’s intended to be so. There is a reason for that given towards the end of the book, but it really does feel like the main character has the thought process of a teenage gamer. Like the worst gamers I’ve run games of D&D for, Azure seems utterly uninterested in being a part of the world. He’s there to whack stuff and earn loot. Aiello is doing as instructed, but it’s tedious to listen to. There is no depth to Azure’s characters. No hidden dimension to his character. He just is.

I didn’t completely hate this book. The action sequences are well-executed. Pun intended. The story is unremarkable, but it does hold together. As a piece of fiction, it works, so long as you don’t mind your brain switching off for a few hours. It’s also hard to stay mad at something you can be done with in a single day. Like John Wick, Nobody, or countless other action flicks, it’s entertaining. But if we ever get the sequel that is hinted at towards the end, I doubt I’ll be queuing up to buy it.

Audio Stats

• Narrated by Scott Aiello
• A Standalone Novel
• Published 2026
• Runtime 5hrs 50mins