Laith
I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this last chunk of the Lords of Darkness, this would have been much better with the previous two books fresh in mind. Delusion's Master rounds out the trio of demon lords, introducing Chuz, the eponymous Delusion's Master. But you'd be forgiven for missing that because this story is more of a woven addendum to Night's Master, with the story revolving around Azhrarn.
I really dig the Flat Earth, as a modern reimagining of 1000 and one nights, I couldn't ask for anything better. This book keeps to that concept, adopting the interwoven fables but juicing it up with some more direct biblical references. The Tower of Babel is the most prominent reference, but the entire work is painted in the colors of Genesis. This confirms a trend that I was noticing as I read Death's Master, but as the subject gets closer and closer to divinity, it's the biblical folklore that is getting most of the focus allegorically and stylistically. If that's your cup of tea, I think you'll really enjoy this book, it's a meditation on a number of things but divinity and mortality are center stage and they've always been a core conceit of the series.
Personally, it was a little too biblical and a little too depressing for my taste. There's a tongue in cheek slant to the set-up of boring gods and entertaining demons, but it doesn't change the fact that you've made your boring gods the center of the story. If there was a point or some kind of moral or catharsis I could overlook it, but the story was more than a little bleak, even for a series of tragedies. On that note, there's some pretty unsavory stuff in here to boot, in particular the rape and torture of the village idiot. It's couched in the thematic structure of the story and a commentary of the dark nature of man but still, yikes.
The prose is just as beautiful as it was in the first two books, I just didn't love the theme, the subject or the vibe for this one. YMMV.
I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this last chunk of the Lords of Darkness, this would have been much better with the previous two books fresh in mind. Delusion's Master rounds out the trio of demon lords, introducing Chuz, the eponymous Delusion's Master. But you'd be forgiven for missing that because this story is more of a woven addendum to Night's Master, with the story revolving around Azhrarn.
I really dig the Flat Earth, as a modern reimagining of 1000 and one nights, I couldn't ask for anything better. This book keeps to that concept, adopting the interwoven fables but juicing it up with some more direct biblical references. The Tower of Babel is the most prominent reference, but the entire work is painted in the colors of Genesis. This confirms a trend that I was noticing as I read Death's Master, but as the subject gets closer and closer to divinity, it's the biblical folklore that is getting most of the focus allegorically and stylistically. If that's your cup of tea, I think you'll really enjoy this book, it's a meditation on a number of things but divinity and mortality are center stage and they've always been a core conceit of the series.
Personally, it was a little too biblical and a little too depressing for my taste. There's a tongue in cheek slant to the set-up of boring gods and entertaining demons, but it doesn't change the fact that you've made your boring gods the center of the story. If there was a point or some kind of moral or catharsis I could overlook it, but the story was more than a little bleak, even for a series of tragedies. On that note, there's some pretty unsavory stuff in here to boot, in particular the rape and torture of the village idiot. It's couched in the thematic structure of the story and a commentary of the dark nature of man but still, yikes.
The prose is just as beautiful as it was in the first two books, I just didn't love the theme, the subject or the vibe for this one. YMMV.