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!

You Cannot Choose What You Remember

Paul Kearney “The Wolf in the Attic” (Solaris, 2016)

For a novel set in the 1920s, there certainly is a lot of topical material here.  Perhaps that is the tragedy.

Anna is a young Greek refugee living in Oxford, ENG with her father.  Her Mother and brother are gone now, and she spends her time with her doll, often thinking of how things were so much better then.

I suppose the detail that drew my interest was the appearance of Tolkien and Lewis as characters. I’ve spent time in Oxford & there’s that certain appeal when literature intersects with real life.

I have no complaints about Kearney’s skill as a wordsmith.  This is a beautifully written book.  

Unfortunately I had a couple of problems with it.  First, I had a hard time wanting to spend so much time with Anna.  It’s told from her POV, & I just had a hard time with that.  Second, there’s a lack of action.  I really needed something else going on in the plot.

I don’t think that it’s so much problems with the book, as my problem and my expectations.  Other readers could easily love this.