I rarely find myself utterly captivated within the first few chapters of a novel. It's a demanding standard, I admit, and one I hold particularly high when a writer manages to genuinely shift my perception of what's possible in the realm of world-building. However, Sazar's The Life and Death of Cedric has undeniably done just that. From the outset, the world is presented not as a fantastical landscape, but as a carefully constructed, profoundly unsettling reflection of a history both brutal and beautiful…