I’ve been meaning to post a review of this book for so long I can barely remember what the plot is. Not that there was much plot to begin with. Let’s recap before getting to the gnawing of bone and gnashing of teeth. SPOILERS.
Recap: The scrumptiously named Eva Forge is a Paladin of Morgan, the God of War. Morgan is a dead god. He was thought to be murdered by his brother Amon, also dead. The setting city of Ash was built by Amon, the Scholar, but is now ruled by the third brother, Alexander (who gets to be god of everything seeing as he didn’t die). Morgan is a dying cult, so when its members start being targeted for death by mysterious and powerful forces, it is up to Forge to figure out what is going on before the cult disappears forever. She and her trusty articulated sheath. And her angriness. Forge is always angry. It’s like reading about yourself if you lived in a steampunk era with living gods and guns and curses and had neverending PMS.
Yeah whatever.
Forge discovers a nasty secret (with the help of a seer and a cop with a welsh name) that could tear Ash apart. Which it more or less does at the end.
The Good: Wellll. The cover artwork for the Pyr edition I have is pretty nice.
Not bad right? Except I don’t imagine her like this at all.
The idea of Ash is interesting – a steampunk city that runs on what I imagine is some sort of eldritch magic. The unification of science (steampunk) and fantasy (spellcasting etc) is consistently evident throughout the book. Warriors use spells but also carry swords and guns.
The Cult of Amon was by far the most interesting aspect in the, but little was explained of it – how it works, the story behind the scholar turned betrayer, the shunned librarians with their shackled superpowers deserved more page-time in comparison to the less than charming Eva Mary Sue.
The Bad: Quiet a few. This book was not a good one, but I’ll narrow it down to a couple of things that irked me the most.
1. Eva Forge. She started out promising, and then turned into a whiny-assed anger management candidate. She’s supposed to be really badass and take-charge, but the way she’s written is like a petulant superpowered adolescent. IT’S MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY. DISAGREE AND YOU’RE WRONG. I’M ALWAYS RIGHT. Which leads us to the inherent issue I have with this lady. Mary Sue-ness.
That’s right you irritating, self-righteous, un-mystiqueal cow.
See, I’m pretty sure the book implies that with the Gods fallen at the end, and the existence of nascent gods among the populace has been brought to light, Forge is herself a God – perhaps the most powerful at the time (I think I finished my comma quota with that sentence). Now. Nowwwwwww. She strikes me as a Mary Sue mainly because even when she’s wrong, she’s clearly always right. But even though she’s rude, whiny, abrasive and likes to waste time indulging her anger, people thinks she’s awesome. Even when she’s intimidating people to do what she wants, or wasting precious time telling everyone all the hardship she’s been through, or being unnecessarily angry, she’s still always in the right. Overbearing righteousness and a tendency to lay on the self-sacrifice orchestra – she reminded me a lot of Anita Blake and her everyone-sucks-except-me attitude.
2. The Plot. I did not really understand it. Partly because I was rushing to the end of the book. There was a lot of pointless meandering as I recall, and I didn’t know why Eva did this or that half the time. As far as I know, the plot is Eva Forge Kills Everything.
Like this, but lacking awesomeness, summer glau and basically every attractive element.
3. World Building. The problem I had reading this book is that the ideas were there, but they are never fully realised. It’s like ideation constipation. It’s frustrating as heck to keep expecting the book to live up to expectations (Amazon seems to love it) and it just keeps not doing that. It’s like, oh follow the interesting plot point…to a fart. Seriously.
The author has the image of this complex world in his mind, but his attempts to convey them to us is confused and one-dimensional. He should take a break and read Greg Keyes’ The Waterborn, a beautiful and awesome work of fantasy that does incredible world-building.
4. Articulated fucking sheath. What. the. hell. is.it?
IS THIS WHAT YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT YOU PRETENTIOUS SWORD-CARRIER?? WHY CAN’T YOU USE A SCABBARD LIKE EVERY OTHER GODDAMN SWORDSPERSON. Ass.
The Ugly: This book reads like a fanfic of a WoW paladin or something. It feels lazily written and lacks a certain maturity that adds weight and results in a good book in genres like steampunk and fantasy. I was surprised to discover that Akers was not a first-time author; this was his second or third book in fact.
The Verdict: Not worth the time. For a more satisfying read, I’d recommend The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder instead.
deerkitty.wordpress.com 