Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Gods Don't Die. They're Immortal.

Michael J Sullivan “Age of Myth” (Del Rey, 2016)


Sometimes you don’t want challenging.  Sometimes you want pasta or a hamburger or mac & cheese. You want the enjoyment of the familiar, done well.

Michael J Sullivan isn’t looking to reinvent genre here.  He’s looking to go straight down the middle of the road, & tell a damn good story.  It’s steak & potatoes, fantasy style.

This is the start of a new series, set thousands (?) of years before the beginning of his earlier work.  As the start of a fantasy series, there is a whole lot more set up than follow through in this volume, but there is easily enough to enjoy volume one.

A Stone Age human kills an elf-analogue & the whole thing seems to start a war between the two races.  At the end of this volume the war hasn’t really started yet, but it’s inevitable.  

This is a fantastic summer read!  Sullivan does a great job with tropes & characters.  There’s a sense that this is familiar, but it’s so well done that you enjoy the familiarity.  AND THAT”S OK.  There are lots of interesting characters, great action scenes, intriguing world building.

I for one appreciate how this is a step back from the grimdark stories that seemed to have a strangle hold on the genre a few years ago.  There are consequences and bad things happen, but there’s no torture porn here.

I’m ready for the next volume please!

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