Sebastien de Castell did it again. With the very first sentence, I'm hooked. I have absolutely no idea how he does it, but I love it.
If you enjoyed any of his previous books, you'll likely love this one too, as it features all the signature humour, friendship dynamics, and rich world-building. I adore his writing style. It's effortless to get completely lost in the story as the pages fly by. Yet despite this easy flow, there's so much happening and a complex world with unique magic to explore.

In this book, we follow Cade Ombra, a mercenary wonderist (aka mage) who, along with his friend (?) Corrigan runs into trouble with their current job. They subsequently stumble into a new assignment that presents numerous challenges from the start. One significant obstacle: they need a team of seven to complete it.

Cade Ombra is, as expected, lovably sarcastic chaos. I thoroughly enjoyed his perspective on the world around him and his interactions with both his environment and other characters. Cade believes he's one of the bad guys, constantly questioning his morals and what he's willing to do—and what those around him might be willing to do... Another aspect I deeply appreciate about de Castell's writing is how distinct each character feels. It's always clear who's speaking. The banter is spot-on (one of my favorite elements in books, especially epic fantasy) and provides welcome levity against the darker aspects of the story.

The characters grow and develop significantly throughout the book, and I'm so glad that this is a series, as I'm nowhere near ready to part with these characters! I'm particularly drawn to morally grey characters and lovable jerks. And watching very different & contrasting personalities unite toward a common goal is absolutely my kryptonite.

I loved how the world unfolds gradually; we receive information precisely when we need it, both regarding the world and the magic system, and concerning Cade's background.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. I had a wonderful time reading it!

(Though if you don't connect with the humour or writing style in the synopsis, you might want to skip it. While these elements are exactly why I love de Castell's books, his distinctive style might be difficult to enjoy if it doesn't resonate with you from the start.)

The Malevolent Seven is wickedly sharp, brutally funny, and gleefully dark in all the best ways. Sebastien de Castell takes the tired “band of mercenary mages” trope and absolutely detonates it—what’s left is something chaotic, morally twisted, and impossible to put down.

The voice of Cade Ombra is pitch-perfect: cynical, snarky, and full of bite, but layered with just enough vulnerability to keep you hooked. His reluctant alliance with the other “villains” is one of the book’s strongest points—watching this mismatched crew of dangerous misfits clash, banter, and occasionally save each other’s lives is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.

The magic system is gritty, inventive, and refreshingly costly; every spell feels like a gamble with real consequences. The worldbuilding strikes the right balance between grim and absurd, always reminding you that in this universe, morality is messy and survival rarely comes clean.

What really sets this apart is tone: equal measures sardonic comedy and grim fantasy. One page you’re laughing at the absurdity of murderous mages arguing like siblings, and the next you’re blindsided by a moment of raw emotion or brutality.

If you enjoy fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still delivers depth, action, and characters you can’t stop thinking about, this is the book for you. A gloriously unhinged ride from start to finish.

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Sebastian de Castell has cemented himself as a favourite author with The Malevolent Seven. From page 1 I was laughing and continued throughout. There are moments of gravitas and Sebastian nails the timing to be feeling for this characters, appreciating the hardship and also questioning their sanity. It’s unhinged and accurately turns some fantasy tropes upside down.

Cade is one of those characters that you question throughout but you are cheering for the underdogs every step of the way, and as a character driven reader I appreciate their chaotic vibes. The collection of “very bad people” really challenges perspectives, and if you ever need to go on a suicide mission, these are the people I want in my corner.

I really appreciated this didn’t end on the same note as every other fantasy and the characters are exploring morality on a multifaceted level.

Creo que a The Malevolent Seven le vino bastante mal que su título sea muy similar a The Maleficient Seven, se puede confundir fácilmente. Y no es menos cierto que la obra de Sebastien de Castell tiene referentes similares a la de Cameron Johnston y recurre al mismo prototipo de villano que te tiene que convencer de lo malo que es regando todas sus intervenciones con humor y mala leche, no necesariamente en ese orden.


Me gusta muchísimo la idea de partida del libro, la necesidad de reunir a siete magos para una misión que no tenemos muy claro cómo afrontarán, pero que sabemos sin duda que será peligrosa. de Castell decide presentarnos una plétora de personajes, para luego deshacerse de ellos como quien tira de la cadena y sacarse de la manga otros aún más atractivos. Dice mucho a favor del saber hacer del escritor la consistencia del mundo mágico que crea, donde cada categoría de mago puede ser más objeto de mofa que la anterior. Al final, todos tienen algo valioso que aportar, pero lo que nos hemos reído de ellos por el camino, eso no nos lo quita nadie.

El libro también está plagado de referencias sexuales, sobre todo sobre el nada despreciable retorno de inversión de un burdel acuático, aunque a veces algunos de los comentarios se pasen de zafios. Ahí creo que el autor podría haber medido más sus palabras y menos los órganos sexuales de los implicados.

En algún sitio se ha hablado de la tendencia actual a basar los libros en un grupo de tipos malvados, a priori, que acaban salvando el mundo, como Los Diablos de Abercrombie. Pues aquí tenemos la demostración de que ya existía esa corriente hace dos años, que es la fecha de publicación de The Malevolent Seven pero seguro que nos podemos remontar más, por ejemplo The Maleficient Seven es de 2021. Y seguro que si rascamos algo más, encontraremos referentes más antiguos.

Que la fuente del conflicto que vemos en el libro sea la eterna lucha entre el bien y el mal… pues no sorprenderá a nadie, pero no es menos cierto que el autor hace tabula rasa con lo que todos podríamos esperar y dejar el camino expedito a unas continuaciones que espero no tarden en llegar. Y mi consideración de Sebastien de Castell ha mejorado respecto a Play of Shadows, así que no descarto leer más cosas suyas.

I haven't read any of Castelli's books in a while, so it was just the right time to read the first part of his new series. There's humor and grit here, as is typical of De Castelli, and his fantasy is delightfully enjoyable.
The main character in this story is a mage who sells his skills to the highest-paying warlord, so he can be on one side of the battlefield one week and on the other the next. But this last job, he encounters actions that don't dwell well with his relatively low opinion of people and their greed. So he does something forbidden, but it fits better with his beliefs, but now he has to flee to save his life.
And then he's offered the chance to right many reckless crimes if he meets seven mages at a certain time, in a certain place, and defeats them. But to do that, he needs to gather his own seven mages.
He has his own idea of ​​who he needs to find to join the gang, but fate has other plans and on the way to the gsathering he finds five other and unexpected important souls.
This epic quest is so exhilarating to follow, all these grumbeling wizards and the additional tasks they have to complete on their journey to find their next companion or unexpected helpers and situations. Until they finally arrive and the final death struggle.
Great read!

What a fantastic start to a new series from Sebastien De Castell. I adored the Greatcoats and this is just wonderful too. I cannot wait to read more.

The Malevolent Seven is a fast-paced, gritty back-stab-fest of magic and the blurred lines between good and evil. Cade Ombra, mage mercenary is fresh off the battlefield having won for his employer (a supposed divine prince) only to be told their next task was to murder all of the survivors of the losing side. Overcome by conscience, he decides to take matters into his own hands, only to find that someone has beaten him to it and murdered the prince, a crime he was going to commit, but didn't, but for which he is arrested. Ombra soon finds himself in the middle of numerous forces moving him and his growing team around like chess pieces as the fate of the world starts to become the stakes.
This was a fast-paced, witty and gripping story where there was enough exposition of the elaborate magic system, but not to Sanderson levels. The cast of characters were unique and well established with witty dialogue between them and each brought something to the team.
The blurb referred to this as "Pratchett meets Deadpool", which I scoffed at, but damnit if it doesn't fall right in that gap (maybe not quite the same level of humour as Sir Terry, but enough lightheartedness, and all the witty narrative of Deadpool).
A gripping and entertaining read.

3.5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2024/05/09/the-malevolent-seven-by-sebastien-de-castell/
My FIve Word TL:DR Review : I Didn’t Love This One

This is one of the books I requested last year that was derailed when family issues took centre stage. I’m trying to catch up with some of my backlist books this year and with that in mind bought the audio for this one so that I could read and listen to it. To be fair, although I didn’t love it this was an easy read. It has plenty of wit, interesting magic and characters that are both bad and good and this is an author that I really like and enjoy his sense of humour.

The narrator is Cade Ombra, a mercenary wonderist who isn’t as bad as he likes to think. Basically, anyone who practices magic is known as a wonderist. The magic is fuelled, if you will, by different elements or in Cade’s case, the demonic realm. Cade can summon demons, in particular he has one demon that acts as his agent and supplies him with magical spells – although this is in exchange for other goods – nothing is free. As the story begins Cade and the other wonderists are at the end of their current mission, basically warring and murdering and are offered a new and lucrative mission, one that Cade is not keen to engage with given it’s deadly nature. Long story short Cade winds up being hijacked into the mission and he sets off with his buddy (of sorts) and a couple of others in search of some other team members Seven is the magic number after all.

So, my thoughts and feelings are as follows.

I love the writing and the sense of humour and this isn’t really a surprise for me with this particular author as I already know that I enjoy his style.

This is one of those cheeky, tongue in cheek type stories that isn’t afraid to poke fun at some of the tropes. On top of this the characters don’t fall into that ‘all out good or bad’ bracket. There are plenty of grey areas here. Cade for example keeps things from his fellow wonderists, secrets that he is afraid would make them think less of him. But.although this story relies on a good dose of humour this is balanced out by an equal dose of grimdark, death and blood.

Something about this author always gives me a swashbuckling feel to his stories and that’s also something I really like.

I think the plot was a little thin however and although we had skirmishes along the way I felt my concentration waning at certain points. Like I said, I had no problem reading this but at the same time there were definite highs and lows and times where I felt the plot was in need of some strengthening.

Overall, I certainly didn’t dislike this book. It was definitely an easy read but on balance I prefer the latest series by this author – the Court of Shadows.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.

The above is my own opinion.

Sebastien De Castell is an autobuy author for me. I have loved everything that he has written and this was no exception. I loved the characters. Loved the plot and cannot wait to see what he releases next.

I loved the witty, darkly humorous writing style of this book, the protagonist's voice was really strong and although I hadn't read the previous books in the series, I was able to work out enough from the protagonist's reactions and attitude towards events that I was able to follow along. The worldbuilding and magic were intriguing, and I also enjoyed learning more about the secondary characters, each with their own motivations which really did make it feel like a D&D campaign in novel form!

📚 r e v i e w 📚

the malevolent seven - sébastien de castell

at this point, i don’t think sébastien de castell can write a book i don’t like. after binging the spellslinger series last year, i was looking for something as witty and irreverent with a more grown up edge and sébastien came through.

the malevolent seven is super witty, full of morally grey characters and has dungeons and dragons energy that is accessible and interesting. whether you’re a fan of fantasy or not, you’ll enjoy this - it is fun enough for you to bump along learning about the magic system but also pokes fun at various fantasy tropes - which those of us who are familiar with fantasy novels will find meta. no one writes humour quite like sébastien de castell and i am praying to all deities that this will become a series.

the malevolent seven is out now - make sure to give it a read and then devour the rest of his backlist.
thank you to @netgalley for the early copy

This was my first experience reading Sebastien's work, and I will definitely explore his other works after reading this.

I liked the story very much. Sebastien de Castel's tortured, morally grey characters are so enjoyable and interesting to read. The world-building was took some time, and was definitely a 'trust the author' to give you what you need situation. It takes some time until you glean all the information. But the plot was unique and not an obvious read.

I absolutely loved this! Sebastien De Castell is one of my favourite authors and this book did not disappoint! His writing was perfect and I really enjoyed the growth of all of the characters.

My only slight gripe is a very personal one and I feel like this would have been better as a duology to flesh parts of the story out - but that could also be because I usually don't like standalones because I love big worlds with lots of world building and character development. This was just missing a little bit of that for me as this is a fairly short standalone

I was so excited to read this one, and I wanted to love this book, but this story and these characters just didn't work for me. I have loved the books by Sebastian De Castell. I have read so far, but this one just wasn't for me 😪

Thank you to Netgalley, Quercus Books, and Sebastian De Castell for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an arc of this title in exchange for this honest review.

The book was decent, i suppose. I wasnt overly invested in the story alas and my atention started slipping about halfway through.

The Malevolent Seven is my first experience of reading something by Sebastien de Castell and I was not disappointed. It was funny, dark and thoroughly entertaining.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

(Not to be confused with maleficent Seven by Derek Landry) A jobbing wizard who is a bit of a bastard, but not a complete bastard gets manipulated and blackmailed into taking on a job. Blackly funny, with some interesting worldbuilding.

I was a huge fan of Sebastien de Castell's Greatcoats series and so was eagerly anticipating this one. I think perhaps my expectations were a little high because I did struggle to get into this one initially.

The Malevolent Seven is a very enjoyable read, its quick and witty and full of interesting, outrageous characters, must like Castell's previous works. The book follows a group of mercenaries after a job goes terribly wrong and they have to go on the run. The characters as always were brilliant and the pace was fast and kept me reading. The fight scenes were heart racing, and possibly my favourite part of the book and the banter, well, Castell really shines when it comes to that.

I did feel that this one wasn't as strong as his previous works but that could just be bias. I consider the Greatcoats to be among one of my favourite series and this one had a lot to live up to.

All in all though it was an enjoyable read, and another funny, down-to-earth, fantasy ride.

Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC!

The Malevolent Seven by Sebastian de Castell

3.5 STARS

I do enjoy Sebastian de Castell's work and his previous Spellslinger series was a favourite. This is an odd mix of anti-hero's who become the hero's but not quite - I enjoyed it; others will not. The overall layout - think MCU but the opposite.

"In case I hadn’t made this clear already, we’re not exactly the good guys.”

I went into this book not fully knowing what to expect, except that I was 100% sold on the blurb and you know what?...it totally delivered!

In this story we follow our main protagonist, Cade Ombra, a mercenary wonderist (in this world, a specialist mage with an affinity for different magics) who finds himself in a spot of bother when a job he is working on goes TOTALLY tits up, so unable to deal with the fallout, he finds himself jumping into the next job...which he isn't entirely sold on.

As a condition of this job, he must acquire another six wonderists to make up to a band of seven...what follows is the collection of the strangest, most wonderful rag-tag band of characters ever.

I was totally hooked on the writing style of this book, short chapters that suck you into the world and the humour throughout was so well done and had me laughing out loud A LOT. I cannot wait to see where Sebastien de Castell takes us with these characters next, because I find I am really quite attached to them all now, despite how questionable some of them are - I NEED more!!

Thanks so much netgalley and publisher for the ARC! I had such high hopes for this one that I went and pre-ordered a nice signed edition even before I finished it - score!