Voidverse by Damien Ober (book review)
The Sinker arrived on the day of Deciding, bringing news from a distant brother. Fairviel was a peaceful rock amid the Sink, the void that surrounds everything. Each year, boys that are of age decide to rise or to stay. To jump into the Sink and rise up and see what they can find. Perhaps they can find the fabled Central City that exists at the centre of everything. People that sink in the void are distrusted on Fairviel. Thanked for the news that they bring but carefully watched for sinking into the void is the opposite of the aspirational rise.
Emery dreamed that night of sinking into the void, the friction of the Sink whipping around her, something pulling her downward into the endless black. To save her son, she will follow the Sinker down and find a world beyond the pastoral peace of Fairviel.
The Sinker hasn’t thought of her name in many rests. She is no longer what she had been born. She is a creature of the Sink and the rise, moving through the void and adding to her map, sword ready and eyes quick. But the past has a habit of coming back to bite and hers has more teeth than most.
‘Voidverse’ is almost a high fantasy novel. Just replace villages and towns scattered through a wilderness with communities on rocks, like asteroids, in a vast void that you can jump into and survive. These are not rocks suspended in space as we would understand it. This is a void that can be travelled by a prepared traveller. This is a void that you can tether your cow in to save space. These communities of people on their rocks are simultaneously alone in a vast blackness but also connected by it. The roads are difficult but all it takes is a jump into the unknown and a good map, just like in any good fantasy novel.
Ober delivers a beautifully problematic fantasy world, with ships that can traverse the void and strange anomalies that can power things, heal or hurt, that are possibly magical but more likely scientific. This almost-fantasy world is so different to anything I’ve read. While the descriptions of the blackness and the roar of friction got a little old as the novel went on, the fractured world remains intriguing. Is it half-formed or shattered? At no point did I believe that this world was intended to be the way that it is. This world is broken and wrong and people are just surviving. How and why is what I hope to discover.
The characters each have their own intriguing plots. The Sinker has her deadly past that is deadly not just for her, but everyone it encounters. Emery has a recurring dream that is driving her into the unknown depths of the void, away from her peaceful village and family. They meet Crooked Arm, a prince of a powerful rock and learn of a strange prophecy. Each character’s story links together and uncovers more of what I was most interested in, the world. While the characters are interesting, for me they are vehicles of the greater mystery that is the world and the void. For me, this meant that I wasn’t emotionally engaged with the characters as such. They were figures on a screen for me, not people that got under my skin. Which makes sense when you see Ober’s resume of screenwriting, which includes the very strange ‘The OA’, a show that again had me more intrigued for the world than specifically the characters that showed me that world. Not in a bad way, but in the way that the world is also a character which is built by these human-shaped characters.
Well worth a read for lovers of epic quests, revenge, strange prophecies and bizarre worldscapes. This book simultaneously reminded me of classic high fantasy like Tad Williams’ ‘The Dragonbone Chair’ and the TV show ‘The Expanse’ (yes, the show is based on a book but I have yet to read it). While it took me a little while to find my way into this novel, I am going to be waiting to see if there is a sequel (I hope there is a sequel) to just learn more about this strange space that Ober has created.
LK Richardson
February 2026
(pub: Saga Press/Simon & Shuster, 2026. 336 page hardback. Price: $30.00 (US), £22.00 (UK). ISBN 978-1-66806-560-0)
check out website: www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Voidverse/Damien-Ober/9781398535916