Blood of the Gods by David Mealing – Review

Published: August 21, 2018

Publisher: Orbit

Series: The Ascension Cycle #2

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 736 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

The battle is over, but war lies ahead in the second book of the epic fantasy trilogy that pits humans against gods in a contest for the fate of the world.

The battle for the city is over, but the aftermath of a revolution is never simple…

Sarine begins to experience visions, ones which make her dragon familiar sicker every day. Erris pushes toward conquest and the need to expand her territory and restore her power. And, exiled from his tribe, Arak’Jur apprentices himself to a deadly master.

Faced with the threat of a return to the days of darkness, the heroes begin to understand the depth of the sacrifices required from them. To protect their world, they’ll have to stand and fight once more.

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How I wish authors would include a brief summary of their previous books, especially when they write a 600+ page book and it’s been a year since I’ve read it. Do you know how much I forget in that amount of time? SO MUCH. As a result, it took probably a hundred pages before I really felt like I was reacquainted with the characters and plot arc. Despite my extensive period of catch up time, this ended up being a really awesome book.

The plot is quite complex and large scale. Think on the lines of “determining the fate of the whole world” big. Essentially, those who ascend to become champions will hold the fate of the world in their hands. If the Lady wins, the world will be full of life, but if the Regnant wins it will be a toxic wasteland and humanity will be set back millennia. In a way it reminds of the first Mistborn trilogy going in reverse (you read from books 3 to 1) because the world here has the potential to go from something more advanced to the collapse of society.

The characters are all quite interesting and each undergoes their own individual journey before they finally converge towards the end. Sarine struggles to find a cure for Zi, who grows weaker by the day. Erris is, well, trying to conquer the world to expand her powers. Arak’Jur keeps running around the continent with his lady and trying not to get slaughtered. All in a days work, right? The eastern peoples and their role in this fiasco are introduced and they’re quite fascinating as well.

Truth be told, there is so much going on in this book that I can’t really decide what to say about it. It’s definitely a good book, though being the second in the series you should definitely read Soul of the World first. Both books are very long and thus somewhat of a time commitment but I thought they were fascinating from the beginning. I think this would appeal to any fantasy reader looking for a new epic scale fantasy to check out with lots of characters, magic, and world saving!