This book bothers me. The idea of framing the story like a game with godly beings over-looking the game world so to speak while clever and interesting, makes me wonder if it really adds anything to the story except to make it feel trivial and unimportant.
Of course it raises a lot of questions and intriguing ideas. Especially when I put myself in the place of the beings watching the game and the author as the one who has set the whole thing up for my entertainment. It makes me realize that the news media does in real life what Zivran; the game maker; does in the book. Daily, the news media serves up information of happenings around the world and we all consume it as entertainment so long as it does not directly affect us. To us they are mere stories, to be gawked at and repeated. Our world then, seems simply like a game, a very unfair one too.
There are many leaps of logic and flaws in the story line. The end is a big let down after the huge set-up. To a large extent I felt like the story was being told by a kid hopped up on sugar. Too many plot lines, too little time.
Creating a fictional, fantastical world is hard and it requires immense patience to give each character a chance to tell their story. If not patiently developed, the tale feels incomplete and the reader does not get a chance to really get into the skin of the story and the characters.
This is what I felt was missing here. The story constantly jumps from one scene to another and there is a sense of incompleteness that I felt too often and also at the end of the book. I know this is a trilogy and the story continues but the story that started in book one has not moved.
A lot has happened yet the story is at a stand still. There are a bunch of new creatures, the gods are fleshed out slightly but the central plot has not advanced at all.
Despite making me think about the ideas of control, freedom, virtue and vice, this book has left me feeling cheated and a bit annoyed. While I am not particularly upset about this as it also gives me a chance to examine my reasons for feeling this way, it makes me cringe every time I think about the story.
I usually read in order to go on adventures or have mind bending experiences which are impossible in the real world. But the constant reminders given in the book that the world I am immersing myself in is a game and the frequent impingement on my consciousness of the existence of the omniscient and omnipotent hand of the author in his world, is another aspect of this book that I found cringe inducing.
It may not have been so problematic if it would have ended differently. But I guess the author has a reason for ending the book this way. Here is hoping that the next and last book in the trilogy does not disappoint.
Bookish Experiences 