Against All Gods: The Age of Bronze: Book 1

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If you want a smaller selection, including the famous Gilgamesh, check out Dalley’s Myths from Mesopotamia. The gods here are very much in the Greek mold and -- as the title suggests -- a major part of the plot. The large ensemble does mean that there perhaps isn’t as much time for some characters to develop as you might see in a different style of book, but that’s forgivable when the overall story is so hard to put down. I mean, the guy will bust out a brilliant heroic fantasy one year, release an outstanding space opera the next, and now he brings us a historical fantasy with mythology. Era, a Godborn dancer and entertainer who travels with mysterious child Daos who seems to receive prophetic messages from his toy bear.

Their powers aren't dimmed, but their minds waning, the divine court includes a PTSD war-god prone to bursting into tears, a sea goddess who never goes near the water, and a goddess of love who can't differentiate that from lust and spends more time tweaking and refining her 'look' more than a Kardashian woman has plastic surgery. Throw in the various gods and their own plot lines and there is always danger of confusing the reader. I picked up another book in the genre recently in which there is an almost Marvel comic book attitude to combat – this is all to common. If you want something a bit different from the usual high or epic fantasy, this one should satisfy you on a number of different fronts.To me, the human element was what let me down, and ultimately made it hard for me to truly enjoy this book. Honestly it hurt a little to finish this book knowing there are no others in the series completed yet. The gods themselves are all colourful individuals and whilst, as the villains, you can never quite feel sympathetic to them, you do find yourself wanting to at least understand them better.

The names were unfamiliar to me, and I had a little trouble discerning the various names, but it became apparent we have a "mediterranean" type sea surrounded by various city states and cultures. On the face of it he seems to be little more than an archetype but Cameron draws him with such wry humour and humanity you can not but help like him as much as you do bald Polon (of course I’m going to rep my fellow scribe). He is absolutely clueless in some finer dealings with people and women in particular, but he knows how to battle.

I really wanted Against All Gods to be this amazing story that would take me away to the Bronze Age. It’s a well written and engaging story and I am very much looking forward to reading what happens next.

The individual strands of woven deftly together by the end of the book and seeing our fellowship assembled and proceeding with their task will be a major draw for the sequel. There is chilling foreshadowing however, that should the audacious mortals somehow manage to survive, and in fact succeed in their quest, will they simply become that which they despise, providing more of the same sort of cruelty and capriciousness, if they manage to supplant their divine masters? The tyranny of the gods is absolute, and they are capricious, malevolent and almost all-powerful, playing cruel games with the fates of mortals for their own ends . Meanwhile, performer Era, uses all her wits, athleticism, and courage, to flee death and destruction, and along the way adopts an enigmatic young orphan boy, whose stuffed bear seems to predict the future.Thank you to Hachette Book Group and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! As stereotypical as ragtag group of misfits in this scenario sound, it's exactly what I enjoyed about it.

I fear a “here’s the new boss, same as the old boss” outcome, if any of the humans manage to remain alive by the end of the series. This was done easily since so many people were meeting other people in different scenarios, so you got to know the individuals by being told what was good about them from the perspective of other individuals. The landscape is beautifully depicted by Cameron, lovely, yet utterly bleak and brutal at the same time. Most of these characters' just meandered through a number of challenges until they all came together, and then the true plot happened.With this set-up (and I have told you nothing not contained in the prologue and chapter 1), Gammash begins to put together a rogues' gallery that feels like a Bronze Age RPG party: Zos, a powerful, if aging, mercenary; Era, a dancer and swordswoman who is the by-blow of a noble and temple dancer; Pollon, a scribe, archer and former priest; Hefa-Asus a giant smith and his apprentice, a tough-as-nails young woman named Nicte; and Daos, a young orphan who just may have a teddy-bear that is channeling a god. It's the blood-soaked, monster-filled bonanza with the absurdity of Record of Ragnarok and it's not even attempting to be anything else. I sure nobody would appreciate my going through the book and pointing out parallels with real world bronze age cultures and I have given enough to convey my impression of the world, I think. It may seem disconnected and unnerving to begin with, but trust that all the threads weave together to create a revenge-worthy rebellion.