This is a book with a great premise. There’s an invasion into hell, to try and destroy it, led by reincarnating great souls. Scorio, the main character, awakes in a new reincarnation cycle with no memory of who he is or what he’s done. But he must have done something terrible in a past life because he’s instantly banished from the academy and thrown out into the wilds of the surrounding caverns.

This is a great start but what actually attracted me to Bastion was the world. The first novel is mostly set in a city, which is itself set along the inside of a giant tube, a wire strung along the middle providing light and warmth. That’s not something you read about every day. And the world was wonderfully thought out. We learn a lot about the hierarchies and dominions of hell and everything is a satisfying amount of details, with more wonders hinted at. A really good start for a series.

Scorio has the same drive and determination that’s usual in Cultivation novels. The book is mostly told from his point of view and, as such, he gets most of the character development. Not that the others are lacking, they do enough, but they’re definitely a bit hollow compared to him. No one is exactly complex or different from anything seen before but there’s no one I’d call two dimensional. It’s a fine cast of characters, each with their own interesting thing.

As it is a Cultivation novel there’s a lot about inner growth and mana control. There’s a strict hierarchy of mana which each have different effects and honestly I didn’t quite get it. In some ways it felt a bit pared down from other Cultivation magic systems but that’s not a bad thing as some of those can go wild.

The plots fun as well. It takes a nice number of twists and turns, there’s always something going on and generally it’s fun to read. My main complaint with this book is that it could have very easily been two books and might actually have been better as such. The book is 824 pages long and, structurally, there’s a point that would have made a nice ending to a first book halfway through it. I don’t have anything against long novels but in some ways this book was beginning to drag. There was also repetition on information, a bit of a refresher on how the magic system works and the like. Again, it would have been fine if it was in two different books but as one large book it felt a little cluttered.

All in all though I really enjoyed my visit to this world and I’m looking forward to returning with the next book.