Daniel N Fite's The Prince of Ileria
A Book Review
Very rarely have I read a book that confused me as to its genre. I guess the first would have been in my early twenties when I read Harry Turtledove’s Guns of the South at a time when I didn’t know there was such a thing as Alternate History. Daniel N Fite’s The Prince of Ileria may well be the second time. Don’t get me wrong. I really liked the book. I just don’t quite know how to classify it.
On one hand, Prince of Ileria has a LitRPG feel and I’m sure that’s how a lot of people would classify it. On the other hand, there are no stats, no health bars/totals, the spells work but then again, the spells in Dragonlance and Eragon work and no one ever called those LitRPG even though Dragonlance is based on an actual D&D setting. So it’s either high fantasy or it’s LitRPG or maybe it’s both but I can’t see saying that it’s neither. It definitely falls in there somewhere. I’m still trying to figure out where though.
It has an interdimensional feel to it. The titular realm of Ileria isn’t a game world. It’s a real place that can only be accessed with magic. Well, okay, they call it “the Weave” but it’s magic. Pinky swear. Then again, I like the concept of the the Weave because it can be used to explain just about any form of magic based on the character’s “true self” (a nebulous but useful concept) and that makes the system adaptable to whatever the story needs. And Fite works it that way, too. His characters always seem to have the ability they need but he always makes it make sense with the character. I like that.
One thing I am sure about with The Prince of Ileria is that it is definitely Young Adult fiction. I’m okay with that. It’s handled right. Main character Nate deals with the normal high school stuff as seen from a geekish perspective: He deals with a bit of bullying. He has girl problems. His step brother in a wheelchair and, while that may not be something that every high schooler deals with, it’s certainly not outlandish or hard to believe. In a lot of ways, Nate is just a typical teenager. There is one exception though.
Nate is probably an orphan. His parents went out one night and didn’t come back. He’s not sure where they went. He won’t give up his hope that they’re out there somewhere and, in fact, spends large amounts of his time looking for them. I admire this kid’s tenacity. Nate is like a pitbull with half a steak in his mouth and a cramp in his jaw: It might hurt to get through this, but that’s not going to make him stop.
And yes, living high school from a geekish perspective did certainly suck at time, and Nate is no more exempt from that than I was. The fact remains that he gets through it the same way I did; however he can. It’s not easy but it’s doable and Nate is not some Mary Sue type. He has to go through what he has to go through to get through the day. And he has his after school Oreo cookies to help him through the day. This makes me wonder how he’s never heard of Keebler Fudge Stripes which are objectively a far better cookie, but no one is perfect and I will forgive him this flaw.
The action sequences in The Prince of Ileria are pretty awesome while adding to my confusion about whether the book would fit better as modern fantasy or true LitRPG. Some of the spells Nate uses are from a Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game he plays, and he does seem to have a mana pool of sorts but nothing is detailed as far as its game stats. Nate gets progressively more tired as he casts and that makes since but it’s still more reminiscent of Raistlin Majere than it is of Jason Asano or Capellini, level 80 Undead Warlock, currently located in Dornogal wondering when it’s time to do another Delve.
Huh?
What do you mean “Who is Capellini?”
Seriously, if you can hear tell of a World of Warcraft character named after a form of pasta and not IMMEDIATELY associate it with me then we don’t game together enough. You should fix that.
On the other hand, I’m not really sure why I’m obsessing over this. It’s not like it matters. I just can’t help it. It’s like that three day old mosquito bite that won’t stop itching. Like, it should make no difference in my life but I can’t stop thinking about it.
There is a highly entertaining supporting cast as well. Nate’s female friend Jan plays a role in his life that should be familiar to many guys who weren’t one of the cool kids growing up. His brother Thomas and he have a relationship common among siblings only they don’t want to admit it. Nate’s adoptive mother Marge is a well meaning pain in the posterior. Florian owns the local gaming store and he’s so covered in geek juice and 80s nostalgia that even Ernest Cline is jealous. There are others but I don’t want to give too much away.
My only complaint with The Prince of Ileria is that it tends to be a bit predictable in parts. I thought I had the ending figured out at one point but it turns out that what I had predicted actually come with about a hundred pages or so left. There was another part that I predicted almost perfectly. I am an aspiring author and I do study how this stuff works but there were a couple of parts where either they were telegraphed way too much or I’ve gotten a lot better at spotting things than I thought I have. And I know myself and my reading skills really well.
All in all though, it was a good book and I’m looking forward to the next one.
Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Stolen Twillas
The Prince of Ileria
Daniel N. Fite
Viviente Publishing, 2025
The Prince of Ileria and Keebler Fudge Stripes available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.