A developed portrayal of an original Fantasy religion.
358447
What I remember most about this novel on first thought is that from the first pages a well developed and consistent religion dominates the novel.  The gods, their names, their histories, their interactions with the world,  and the impact of their actually existing is found in the flagstones the  novel is built on, and the characters are able to walk around on these  metaphorical flagstones with great confidence.
After religion, I found  the comedy of the novel, often based in light cynicism, to help lead me  down through the pages toward the more important parts of the novel.  Then,  the heroic style drama comes to the fore, with the main character and the  main supporting character getting into a lot of fairly serious trouble.  The problems facing them mount and mount, I was afraid the story would  literally cop-out at the end, but surprisingly, it doesn't and provides for  a satisfactory conclusion (something sorely missed in many  stories).
Although there is another novel based on the viewpoint  character, The Hunter's Haunt, it has nothing to do with The Reaver Road,  which is a self-contained novel.
3112457
Definitely a Christian fantasy book, a little more obvious than Lord of the Rings or the Narnia books but not a bad story.
3546043
After a slow start, I found myself enjoying this story more and more  the second half is certainly better than the first. Much better pacing  and one particular sequence moves very well indeed. I will say no more about this, because the sequence in question is one of the surprises of the second half of the story.  I think the spiritual themes could have been handled more subtly  sometimes the style was too overtly pedagogical I found myself wondering if the author was trying to convert her readers to a New Age religion of some sort.  If so I remain unconverted, but I would nevertheless agree with the underlying argument that there are more mysteries in this world than traditional religions acknowledge.  This book will thus be of particular interest to those who enjoy exploring less conventional spiritualities. Well written, although the author would benefit from employing some tricks of the trade (e.g. being more selective with detail).
3581813
A GREAT DEAL OF IMAGINATION HAD TO BE USED TO WRITE THIS BOOK, BUT IT WAS A GOOD READ. NOT EXACTLY SCRIPTURAL .
961318
Poul Anderson's fantasy has the stark, fatalistic tone of Norse mythology.  Its monsters are terrifying and seemingly undefeatable.  Even the forces of good are selfish, greedy, and driven by revenge.  There is much darkness.

This is the story of two men who look the same, but are not of the same blood.  Skafloc is human, stolen from the house of his father, Orm the Strong, and raised as the foster son of Imric the elf.  Valgard is a changeling, drawn forth by elf magic from a captive troll mother and left in Skafloc's place to be raised by an unsuspecting Orm.  Although the two look alike, their temperaments are distinct.  Skafloc is loyal, courageous, and friend to many elves and others invisible to the eyes of men.  He is capable of love.  Valgard is foul, treacherous, and leaves his mark on everyone within reach.  The two take opposite sides in the war between elves and trolls.  It is inevitable that they will meet.

Even without a good story, this book would be worth reading to explore the world imagined by the author.  Magical creatures inhabit the same geography as mortals, but can only be seen under special circumstances.  Not only do Norse gods walk the earth, but they are joined by gods, demons, and a full cast of mythical celebrities from all traditions.  Many tread cautiously at the mention of "The White Christ" who will answer prayers, grant mercy, and save his followers from the vengeance of other gods.  This plays havoc with pacts, oaths, and other agreements.  The politics of Faery lend a unique texture to a world where mortals spend as much time negotiating with as worshipping their gods.

I recommend this book to fans of thoughtfully written fantasy.  Particularly those who have grown weary of happy, tidy endings.
333484
I found the cover of the book to be very captivating and imaginative.  This book was mostly written as an allegory for preteens to illustrative cosmic powers and the spiritual forces of evil. Marty Machowski, a family life pastor at Covenant Fellowship church in Pennsylvania has presented us with a book which could be read one chapter a night as a family.  He definitely has caught the imagination in a young person.  Each chapter is about 7 pages long, not too scary, but with enough suspense, many reports say the children in the household were caught reading the book on their own, it was exciting enough the dragons swarming when evil was present.  It probably sounds rather contrived but it is real enough that it leads into a very strong asking for forgiveness in the present day Nicks life and a fear of rebellion.
The book ends with 12 small chapters of the ANTIDOTE, a prescription for uprooting the seed of the dragon and evil when it is threatening to invade your life.  I wished there had been more words written to the preteen.  It was heavy on scripture and clearly written to the parent.  By the time the child had finished the story, he wanted to uproot evil, but the approach kind of felt heavy to me.  Questions followed each days lesson, mostly on the work and sin or pride in your life.  Pride seems like an adult idea, envy or some other more common words describing the dragons seed of evil might have been better.  This part of the book definitely needs a non-judgmental grounded parent to explain the process of our awful sin of rebellion against God.
This book is definitely worth buying for your library collection and being part of your older childrens collection, it is rather one of a kind.
576447
Very original and interesting. It is an imaginative recreation of how the life and times of Jesus may have looked through Jewish eyes.
4837630
Creatively written. Fascinating view of a very different world, with it's own religions, prophecies, customs, etc.
2225875
Nice mix of history, comparative mythology, comparative religion AND action. This is more of a cerebral film, with wonderful acting and amazing scenery. I saw it when it was first released and re-watched it recently, it stands the test of time as a great example of how all cultures let their superstitions misguide their decisions. If you are narrow-minded or very religious, you will not like this movie.
4629790
This is an evolutionary fantasy, combining the theories of evolution and genetic modification, with some characters you may or may not like.
it has an element of suspense, and that carries it, along with local  Hawaiian cultural elements that are fairly plausible.
The scenery comes alive if you are familiar with the settings. i am not sure if it does for someone who isnt. A fun speculation with an improbable outcome.
922450
Interesting to see the paths the two main characters take, each coming from opposite ends of the religious spectrum, moving closer as the story progresses.
3650032
City of the Gods is an epic fantasy about the loss of faith and what that can do to a man's spirit.  It starts out as a take on the Pygmalion legend-what would happen if a statue came to life, and a man fell in love with her/it.  It starts out as an epic tale of  gods and pantheons in conflict.  It starts out as a quest for identity-Aavi-not her real name-does not remember very much-she can walk and talk, but that's about it.  She doesn't even remember food and how to eat.  As you can tell, a lot of different things are going on here, and it's not all on the surface.

Our hero, a freeman called D'Molay, notices Aavi's entry into the world, and gets involved in helping her.  Getting involved is always dangerous-in this case it leads to D'Molay being sucked into  several quests and a war between the gods Set and Ares.

But, let's talk about the setting.  The premise behind this novel is that all the ancient pagan gods of Earth had to leave our world behind and go somewhere else to live.  They are still immortal, and retain their godly powers, but they can no longer interfere with or control our world.  They live in an alternate world of undetermined size-it doesn't actually seem very big .  Our protagonists travel back and forth across it just a few days of travel.  There is a central metropolis on an island in the middle of a circular lake.  The shores of the lake are divided into wedge-shaped realms (for lack of a better term) in which the gods of different pantheons hold sway.  There is a Greek realm, an Egyptian realm, an Asiatic realm, an American realm, a Celtic realm and so forth.  Theoretically every different realm should be represented, but of course the authors do not have room in their novel to represent that kind of diversity-they stick to just a few gods and goddesses that are fairly well known to the educated reader.  The only real surprise was Mazu the Asian water goddess-I had never heard of her before.  In this bizarre afterlife, there are plenty of humans.  Most of them are servants/slaves of the deities they worshipped in life.  They can live a long time, but they are not immortal.  There is no clue as to what happens to the souls of mortals that die in this realm.  Our hero, D'Molay, is a free man.  He earns his living by doing errands for different deities, but he is not beholden to any of them.  There aren't many free men in the Realm of the Gods, and that makes  him valuable as an agent to  different deities at different times.

In the course of the novel, Aavi is lost, enslaved, tortured, rescued, and finally her secret is revealed.  D'Molay plays a big part in all these events, and he falls in love with her.  He loves her so much that he would literally die for her.  This is a pretty good adventure story.  D'Molay is no Conanesque hero, but he's respectable for a mortal man as far as heroes go.  But that's not really what the novel is all about.  I'm not going to tell you, dear Reader, what is really going on.  If you want to find out, you'll need to buy the novel and read it.

The City of the Gods exemplifies the finest kind of amateur writing, illustrating, and publishing.  Most of the fantasies published by the big publishing companies aren't half as well done as this tale of amnesia in "heaven".  In addition to a strong story, the reader also gets a phantasmagoria of classical art photoshopped into new and amazing panoramas that illustrate the story.

We live in an age when any moderately talented person can create and produce his or her own book/art/motion picture.  I've done it myself, so it can't be that hard.  Often this material is far more original and creative than the formula-driven pap that the big corporate publishers offer  us.  Even the best work of amateurs is fortunate to find a few dozen, hundred, or thousand readers/viewers/fans.  The only publicity that City of the Gods will get is what the creators can produce for themselves on the internet-and perhaps a few reviews like this one.  That's a shame.  It deserves an audience of millions.  It's that good.

--Ken St. Andre
3440721
Amelia Wilson's illustrated history of the Devil is a wonderful intoduction to the myth of the Archfiend as he appears throughout history and across religions and cultures.  The book examines the origins of the concept and idea of "the Devil" in ancient Sumerian/Babylonian myth and its influence on ancient Judaism and Zoroastrianism.  Wilson shows that in the Hebrew Bible,  contrary to popular belief, Satan appears only as a servant of God, and not as an all powerful individual entity of pure evil. In fact, Satan serves a relatively minor role in ancient Judaism.  It is only with the advent of Christianity that Satan takes on such a prominent role in worldly and spiritual affairs, tempting mankind to sin and thus seducing inumerable souls into the firey pit of Hell.  It shows briefly how the idea and image of the Devil himself changes over time, from early Christian traditions to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and finally to modern times, where the image of the Devil has largely lost its diabolic element and has been reduced to an advertising ploy and horror film cliche.  Wilson also quickly examines the history of Satanism and its impact on history, perceived and real, and the Devil's role in the witchcraze of the 16th and 17th centuries.  Overall, a nice and generously illustrated, but ultimately short book that draws essentially on secondary sources.  For a much more in depth investigation into the history and mythology of Satan, I recommend Jeffery B. Russell's "The Prince of Darkness", a fantastic book that fleshes out many of the concepts only lightly touched upon here.
1753844
An interesting history of a mysterious religious group. Definitely looking forward to reading the next one.
2134624
It's not exactly original, but this series does present enough of a twist to make the premise somewhat compelling. While I was skeptical of a story about humans fighting monsters in the modern world, I found the story itself a lot less generic than the overall theme.

The author does a very good job with developing the story, the characters, and leading the reader through detailed action scenes while his strength is undoubtedly describing fights. The story sequence also seems fairly natural as the protagonist successfully navigates a series of problems.

I do have one issue with the book, though. The book presents a monster that is a sort of god character. I always dislike that. There has to be a way to kill the characters. I don't know why fantasy books have a tendency to create god characters. It's just never a good idea. Even more annoying in this particular case is the fact that the protagonist is given godlike powers in order to fight the godlike bad guy. Can you say, laaaaaammmeeee?

The reason I still give the book 5 stars is that it all seemed natural within the storyline and when the book was done, the author took away the main character's powers in a way that was equally natural. It was still annoying, but not a deal breaker.
1195698
Modern readers forget the spiritual interests of novelists like Chesterton and C.S.Lewis when they stray from openly religious works. This little book is one of these. It starts as a kind of thriller in the vein of Conrad's The Secret Sharer and ends like a journey to Narnia. A lot of fun for a reader interested in Judeo-Christian mythology.
1375260
Wytchfire, by poet and author Michael Meyerhofer, is the first book in his Dragonkin Trilogy. In it he has built a fantasy world akin to the Forgotten Realms and DragonLance books of TSR, Inc. of the United Kingdom, and reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons. Fantasy fans will recognize his Sylvosi with tapered ears living in their beautiful forest as elves, his short muscular Dwar as dwarfs, his tall and muscular gray-skinned Ogres aswellogres, and his Shelai (sorcerers born to the Sylvosi) as mages. But all similarity ends there. Meyerhofer departs from the usual depiction of these fantasy races and characters in a number of ways.

His Shelai, unlike most fantasy mages, are not respected but feared as dangerous mutant deviants and are outcasts from the people and land of their birth.

In another twist, Meyerhofer gives his Ogres personality and intellect. One particular Ogre is Fadarah, a half-Ogre and half Sylv-Shelai, who is both the head bad guy of a group of outcast Shelai and of a mercenary army, and is also a character of some depth and complication with whom we sympathize. He clearly holds honorable values as he stops the rape of a woman by one of his mercenary leaders. We enter the story with Fadarah who is feared and hated by all because he is an Ogre and a Shelai, and so he has created a family, or people, by rescuing other outcast Shelai. Reminiscent of the diaspora Jews prior to the creation of the State of Israel who often suffered pogroms, Fadarah is a kind of Theodor Herzl who wants to create a promised land for his people to return to. Like many who have suffered racism, Fadarah is self-hating of the very uniqueness that is also his strength. His hurt and anger fuel his struggle, but threatens to destroy the very thing he seeks to create.

Dragons, which like the dinosaurs of earths past have become extinct, are accepted as once having been real because their skeletons are often found. A fanatical religious group that profits from the sale of dragon relics and the visits of pilgrims, and that can be prone to zealous violence, worships them as gods.

The human Rowan Locke, is an orphan who grew up amid squalor and violence (including the regular raping of women and children by roving gangs of men) that became a mercenary soldier who dreamed of joining the honorable Isle Knights. When he finally does succeed in joining their initiates, he finds himself washed out after four hard years of training. Still believing in the honor code of the Knights he struggles to overcome his shame while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. He happens upon a merchant who hires him to be his guard and their travel leads Rowan into the plot of the story where he meets two dangerous Shelai, the enigmatic Elrashlin and the exotically beautiful Silwren, and a magical sword called Knightswrath. Despite Rowans first hand experience of the more vile realities of life, his desperate drive to belong to something higher and more noble creates a naivety that blinds him to the truth and may even get him killed.

Even the Dwar Jalist, a relatively minor character, escapes the common contrivances for dwarves as he is compassionate and homosexual as well as strong and warrior like.

Fantasy lovers will find plenty to love about Wytchfire, and those new to the genre will love the depth of Meyerhofers characters and the complexity of the world he has built, where nothing is as it first seems. Like real life, the bad guys can be good, the good guys can be bad, and even the honorablelike the brave and capable female warrior Knight Aekomust sometimes make compromises. In Wytchfire, Meyerhofer explores themes of racism, male violence, poverty, sexism, classicism, sexual abuse, and religion. But he does so unobtrusivelyas just another reality in the world he has built that is so like our ownwhile engaging readers with interesting characters and page-turning plot.