Lucien21 Books 2016

[Lucien21]

Age of Myth - Michael J Sullivan

First in a six book series. Legends of the first Empire.

Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between men and those they thought were gods changes forever. Now, only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer; Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom; and Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people. The Age of Myth is over; the time of rebellion has begun.

I havn't read any of Sullivans other series so i'm not sure how it fits in, except for the fact that it is set in the same world but 3000 years before the other books.

This novel did a good job of setting the scene. It is a small twist on the norm with humans (Rhunes), Elves (Fhrey) and Dwarfs (Dhereg), but doesnt stray far from the norm. At the start the Fhrey are set up as being God like while the humans are seen as primitives living in wooden huts and belonging to small clans until an incident starts something that is going to lead to war. You can see how it is going to play out, but it does give a decent look at it from both sides as it introduces Fhrey and Rhune characters and how they come to know more about each other.

The books does a good job of setting it all up and introduces us to a bunch of great characters. This is certainly lite-fantasy, it's not Game of Thrones gritty. There is some humour and it's fast paced with some unexpected turns. It is slow burning the bigger picture at the moment with a lot of this book being about internal clan characters and dealing with a monster bear that plagues the locals. It does jump to Fhrey society and shows a little about how they live and their own internal issues which will probably be more prevalent as the series progresses.

I enjoyed this quite a bit and while it doesnt break far from fantasy tropes it's well written and fun to read.

4/5

[Lucien21]

Golden Son - Pierce Brown

Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope. Until Darrow discovered that it was all a lie, and that the Red were nothing more than unwitting slaves to an elitist ruling class, the Golds, who had been living on Mars in luxury for generations.

In RED RISING, Darrow infiltrated Gold society, to fight in secret for a better future for his people. Now fully embedded amongst the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his dangerous work to bring them down from within. It's a journey that will take him further than he's ever been before - but is Darrow truly willing to pay the price that rebellion demands?

Hic sunt leones.

Middle book in the Red Rising trilogy. Having survived, he becomes a Peerless Scarred and adopted by one of the biggest GOld families. Now a star at the Space Academy he is on the verge of getting control a a fleet when things go dramatically wrong. On the verge of being cast out he has to survice politic, betrayals and a lot of fighting to survive the new threats and protect his true identity from his friends and his enemies.

I liked this book a lot. It expands more on the gold society and how the families control the power. It has a lot of cool action with space battles and other dramatic scenes.

5/5