Manhattan lives with his guardian Tom in the crumbling ruins of Old Los Angeles. His clothes he wears, the boots on his feet, and a necklace he must protect are his only possessions. In a run-down house on the edge of the city, Manhattan and Tom have distance themselves from the chaos.

Meanwhile, Tom has sheltered Manhattan from the reality all around him. The guards who are supposed to protect the people are abusive and hostile. The people are forced to live day by day on nothing more than scraps of burnt bread. Soon enough things begin to change. And when a routine trip to the market ends in tragedy, Manhattan is left with a choice: join the Renegades in their fight to bring hope back to the city or leave his destiny and everyone behind.

‘Legacy’ is a dystopian adventure from the pen of American-based author, Ean Lanning. It’s written in the first person and the past tense. Our hero, Manhattan, is being brought up in desperate circumstances by his guardian, Tom. They eke out an existence from scraps they obtain from the local market, subsidised by home-grown vegetables. They live in an alternative world where Los Angeles is divided in two with those living inside the city walls having a much better quality of life than those in the old district where there’s insufficient food and the community’s infrastructure is crumbled and decaying. There are ruthless guards to keep the poor away from New Los Angeles and the whole area is ruled by the despotic Lord Maddus who lives in a luxurious palace.

Manhattan’s circumstances change and he’s befriended by Ford who helps him join the Renegades, a group of freedom fighters who are intent on bringing as much disruption to the oppressive regime as possible. After an intense initiation, Manhattan is accepted and grows up as a member of the tightknit group. Their ultimate aim is to overthrow Maddus and replace his tyranny with a much fairer, more egalitarian society. As the story develops, we witness Manhattan’s inner struggles as he tries to come to terms with his emotions and an unshakable feeling that his friends are keeping secrets from him and he does not fully have their trust.

The writing style is a little unpolished with repetition of some words, for example ‘without’ appears three times in the same sentence. A few more end-of-chapter hooks would encourage page-turning but the author makes a good attempt to use similes and metaphors to add colour to his descriptive passages. He also introduces some foreshadowing to help keep the reader engaged. I found the pace a little uneven and would also have liked more backstory to contextualise the tale and maybe fewer detailed fight scenes, if the author was mindful of the page count. The relationship between Manhattan and his main foils works quite well and there’s potentially scope for another adventure.

There are some sound ideas here and in spite of some exposition and sentence construction issues, this is a good read and should appeal to fans of the tried and trusted theme of good versus evil. I also like the book cover which conveys a real sense of a dark and forbidding dystopia.

I’m unsure if this book is aimed at a teenage audience but I’ve reviewed it as such and awarded four stars.

I was born and raised in Kansas. I am from a small town called Chanute. I was raised by a single mother. I joined the United States Marine Corps a few years after I got out of High School. I have gone on two deployments (Marine Expeditionary Units). On those deployments I have been to Thailand, Okinawa, South Korea, Singapore, India, Kuwait, etc. After, my four years, I was homeless for a time. I went to Riverside City College, and continued onto University of California-Riverside.

I received my BA in English as a first generation college student. I enjoy reading, writing, playing videos games, playing sports, watching the Las Vegas (Oakland) Raiders, and baseball. I am the father of three girls, I live in Riverside with my wife and her son.