The Prospected Family: Volumes from the Void Book I by Mike Ekstrom
The universe and, indeed, reality itself are in peril. For the fifth time. And it’s all because of a family of supernatural beings who can’t help themselves from conspiring against each other.
Father and Mother have tried and tried. Their marriage of opposites—Father a being of Darkness and Mother a being of Life—is tasked with balancing the universe with the help of their children. But each time, they and their brood fail. Each time, the family is destroyed, and must be reborn anew. This may be their last chance to get it right.
That’s the challenge at the center of Mike Ekstrom’s mythical fantasy novel, Volumes from the Void: Book I, The Prospected Family. It’s a tale of cosmic scale told in a cinematic style that sweeps readers into a version of reality that is divided into realms: the Pre-Life, where souls await their birth on Earth; Life, where Earth resides; After-Life, where souls go between lives; and the Void of Impossible Things, a nowhere place that divides each part from the others.
Each of the children has a job to do in this cosmic order. There’s Helena, queen of the After-Life; Madrina, who spends much of her time in Life looking after a human Vessel she’s created; Davias, the thinker who assists with Pre-Life souls; The Hunter, who reaps souls from Life and brings them to the After-Life; and then, there are the twins, Elias and Eliza, who ferry souls to and from Life along the River Styx.
A TEETERING BALANCE
On paper, the siblings balance the two forces mixed in their veins; two of them have a greater propensity for Darkness, two for Life, and the twins should be able to remain pretty neutral. That was the intention, at least. But in reality, it’s more complicated.
It doesn’t help that Father and Mother have been locked in a passive-aggressive battle of wills for millennia. Or that they tend to conscript their children in clandestine plots against each other, often with unintended consequences. But what really mucks up the order are the allegiances forged between their various children and the ambitions harbored by the darkest ones. It was their undoing four times now. And, the way things are going, it’ll be their undoing once more.
Ekstrom does an admirable job of creating a universe that’s both mythologically familiar and yet unique. His visual style of writing and fast-paced plotting keeps readers engrossed in the story. The entanglements, deceptions, double-crossings and steps-ahead stratagems of the various family members are fascinating to watch unfold.
It all culminates in an epic battle between the forces of Darkness and Life, full of visceral action and cunning heroics. Not everyone in the family will survive intact.
Fans of such works as Neil Gaiman’s American Gods or Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series will find much to their liking, the former for its mythology-building and the latter for its familial skullduggery. At just under 200 pages, Volumes from the Void: Book I, The Prospected Family, is a quick and exciting read that will leave you wanting more.
This book is also available for purchase at volumesfromthevoid.com.
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About Mike Ekstrom:
A fantasy writer born and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona, Mike Ekstrom creates tales that are bound to the mystic and ethereal while intertwined with the human condition. What began as a personal project going into college, The Volumes from the Void, has taken him over fourteen years to craft into a developing five-part series.
Having written since a young age, he has been able to combine his education on World Religions and his perspective as an Autistic individual to create unique characters, worlds, and stories based on the collision of musical inspiration and real-world scenarios. When he is not writing, Ekstrom finds his tranquility and escapism in a variety of mediums, whether those be video games, fencing, or the newest LEGO set.
