DRC Review: The Tower of Beggars by Torsten Weitze
Release date: 1 September 2026 (14 July 2023 Germany)
Rating: All the stars/5
Book box(es): None, to my dismay
Synopsis: When Niri’s nuncle dies, the coal girl finds herself suddenly penniless and alone on the streets of Brightburgh.
Her already perilous situation is further complicated by her heritage – she’s half Aeldae, a descendant of the people who enslaved the humans of the Splinterlands centuries ago. This alone brands her as both an outcast and a target.
Clinging to a glimmer of hope, Niri possesses a special coin that will grant her admission into the prestigious Stormfell Academy, renowned for its magical and martial training.
However, her hopes are dashed when she learns that the coin only provides access to the Tower of Beggars. To truly benefit from the Academy, she must find a way to pay for the lessons.
Driven by desperation, she turns to the ruins at the foot of the Stormfell, combing through the remnants in the hopes of finding a way to escape her dire circumstances and change her fate…
Review
This hidden gem came to me in a Buzz Books Sampler as a Read Now—and wow! I'm impressed with it. I love when books from different languages make their way into the English market where I can read them because the writing style and approach to the genres I frequently read provide a much needed break from the increasingly and frustratingly glutted general and even indie SFF market here.
Weitze's progression fantasy series centers on a young orphan, Niri, who gains admittance to a magical academy where she learns more than just how to use magic and fight—she learns what she needs to want from life. Weitze also doesn't just give readers a mishmash of maybe a smattering of Harry Potter with maybe a dash of The Witcher, readers get character development, camaraderie, and intrigue. Take it from a person who absolutely detests and loathes any kind of fight training in a book—even that aspect was interesting to me on these pages.
Niri doesn't arrive to Stormfell as a blank slate, either. Weitze takes this coming-of-age dynamic and gives it a bit of a shift—Niri knows quite a bit about the history of the world, its mythos, and the stories of the gods; and her knowledge puts her in the spotlight of some right nasty zealots who lurk in the background.
The Tower of Beggars blessedly gives readers what I find most lacking in fantasy today. Common elements and tropes inextricably tied to the genre aren't simply sloshed together and served to readers like stone soup with a side of gimmick bread; instead, Weitze takes these elements and reforms them from the same lump of clay to bring a different form of what's already there. Everything doesn't seem just to fall into place at the end as a setup for the reset in the next book, yet the metastory still makes a clear path through the narrative forest.
I highly recommend this book to fantasy lovers. I'd say it's alright for more advanced readers on the younger side, about 14 and up, to read on account it doesn't have language or sexual content, though I haven't read the rest of the series to verify anything that may or may not be coming up. Be advised, it does have some moderately descriptive violence and some starkly bleak situations.
My profuse thanks to Absurd Ventures and Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for the DRC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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