Rise of the Forgehearts
Title: Rise of the Forgehearts: Shackled Steel-Book One by Emily Huffman
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Genre: Fiction,Science fiction, Fantasy
Themes: Steampunk, Sentient, Epic Quest, Mentorship
R-O’s journey to the meaning of life
Filled with magic, curiosity and empathy, Rise of the Forgehearts by Emily Huffman is an epic adventure of one robot’s journey in finding their destiny. R-0’s existence has always been dedicated to one simple directive: protect the king. Like all the constructs, they complete their orders without thought or feeling. But when a magical phenomenon sweeps over Haiden, the constructs transform from mindless metal to fully sentient beings. Despite their potential, not everyone views the change favorably. When constructs begin disappearing, Haiden’s council sees it as proof of the constructs’ nefarious intentions and threatens to decommission them all.
This was an advanced reader request that I didn’t quite finish by the release date (oops!) but I thoroughly enjoyed this original robot story set in a magic kingdom. With vivid storytelling and empathy, Huffman tells R-O’s journey to find the meaning of existence and that there can be more to the life they have previously known. I love that this story is written from R-O’s point of view and in the 3rd person – they/them. It provides a delightful level of ambiguity to R-O that forced me not think of the robot as ‘she’ or ‘he’ but as a person. There were qualities that fit female and male characteristics but not enough for me to definitively decide on a single gender – I found this to very intriguing.
Although this book is on the longer side (there was a lot of world building), I found it to have a quick pace and had loveable characters. R-O almost seemed child-like in how they processed emotions and the relationship that developed between them and the king, a mentoring father son relationship. I enjoyed seeing R-O’s growth into a more sentient being and their ability to question good vs evil, being included on missions and quests, and navigating dangerous situations. They became so human-like, it didn’t feel like I was reading about a robot anymore. I do wish there had been more character development for the other characters such as Ryder; I would have loved to learn more about this scaled being and their background. Or even some of the people the King knew when he visited the city. Maybe there’s a potential spin off in the works??!!
If you’re looking for a steampunk robot driven adventure with lots of royalty and questionable allies, I recommend Rise of the Forgehearts by Emily Huffman. I am highly anticipating book 2!
If you love this book, then you’ll love The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson.
