Book Review: White Light Red Fire BY Robert Reid

   

 

White Light Red Fire – Robert Reid (4 stars)

I felt this book in my chest. Not because it is gentle, because it is not, but because it is so clear about what conquest does to ordinary people who just want to farm, raise families, and watch the sun go down in peace.

White Light Red Fire drops us onto the island of Andore where Oien, an old alchemist with a terrifying relationship to a red stone called othium, forges an alliance with King Dewar to invade Bala and strip it for power. The plot moves from rumors to invasion to hard choices, and I liked that the resistance is not romanticized. Villages burn. People flee. The cost is real.

What held me, though, was the emotional spine: Alastair Munro and Angus Ferguson, two Banoran farmers who feel like brothers, trying to stay human while war demands they become something else. I appreciated the way their bond stays central even as the story expands into councils, campaigns, and ancient forces. The mentorship and spiritual weight around Ala Moire hit me especially hard, and the grief that follows does not get smoothed over.

As someone who is always paying attention to power, I enjoyed how the book contrasts Bala’s clan based democracy with Dewar’s rule by fear, and how othium becomes a metaphor for extraction and ambition that never knows when to stop. And the ending, with love and celebration interrupted by old evil, felt earned.

This is a big story with a lot of moving parts, but its heart is simple: freedom is not abstract when it is your home.