The Restored (Secret Records of Axel Font #2)

For a review of book 1 in this magitech action thriller reminiscent of Arcane, see The Effaced.

As I’m putting together my end-of-year wrap up post, The Effaced has floated around within my Top 10 reads of the year. Unless I read something mind-blowing in the next week, I think it’ll probably stay there. Begley has been pretty clear that the commercial failure of this book has hit him hard as an indie author (only 16 ratings on goodreads as of this post), which sucks because he’s doing a lot of creative things in the progression fantasy subgenre, and one of the few in that arena writing queer characters. The sequel didn’t quite live up to the hype I threw behind the original, and solidified that it should probably be read after his Journals of Evander Tailor series for the best experience .

Elevator Pitch:
Book 1 set up a bunch of threats (Axel’s old owner, a mysterious demon, a shadowy cabal of ruthless capitalists with too much power), and this book more or less locks in on the demonic threat more than any others. It expands the cast to focus more equally on around 5 characters instead of staying locked-in on Axel. It also featured a rather extended battle sequence bouncing between perspectives, which formed the core of the page count in this book.

What Worked For Me:
Begley’s approach to Demons is really cool. In a multiverse where each plane’s apex threats are different and interesting (with the material plane’s archmages by far being the most mundane), Demons are really weird. Their power is stored in literal thrones each of which carries a theme (Pride, Greed, Love, etc), and the owner of that throne changes far more than comparable threats (Archangels for example) rise or fall. He invested pretty heavily in demonic threats and allies, and this was the highlight of the book for me. It gave me lots of ideas for my regular role-playing-game group. I’m very excited to see what the final series in this world will have in store: all we know currently is that it will focus on a druid who specializes in making contracts with various other planes of existence. I assume it won’t be Fae or Demon focused, as both of those got a significant amount of screentime in other series. Will we finally get to see the Dreaming Judges?

In terms of queer representation, Begley continues to hit the nail on the head for casual representation in high-octane stories. Axel is bisexual, but it never really is a big deal in the story. His romance arc gets maybe 10 pages of screen time throughout the whole story (his growing collection of adoptive kids rescued from fates similar to his own childhood is much more of a focus). This is the type of story I wish I had as a kid, who would have binged the series and delved far deeper into the lore of the world than my adult self has any desire to.

What Didn’t Work For Me:
My biggest complaint in this series is that I think Begley has committed a bit too hard to complicated magic systems. As someone who has read the previous series in this world multiple times (and that series was set in a school), I’ve got a much more solid grasp of the terms Begley was throwing around than the average reader diving into this series. I was confused more than a couple times, and it was this more than anything that makes me think this duology probably won’t be a good fit for those who haven’t read his original series in this world.

It’s also clear that this book didn’t get a final level of proofing or line editing it needed. I think this was probably because it was clear from book 1’s performance that it wasn’t going to be a good return on investment of time, but it had a lot more errors than a typical Begley book does.

Conclusion: if you like action packed hard magic systems, this is a good fit. Otherwise, probably not worth the time (and it breaks my heart to say so).

• Characters: 4
• Setting: 4
• Craft: 2
• Themes: 2
• Enjoyment: 3