Godblind

If i were to describe this in one word, it would be: ‘Brutal'. Honestly, this has to be one of the most viscerally violent grimdark books I have read. It takes the grimdark to its extreme. This is not a criticism - the violence in here does largely serve a purpose for the narrative - but this is an extremely violent book. Within the first few pages we have ritual sacrifice, attempted rape and regicide...

Despite this extreme violence, I thoroughly enjoyed this. There is a sense of the epic here which harks to the best of fantasy. The world building is well done, especially on the mythology side. The gods are visceral, real and brutal. The insanity that they are unleashing is an integral part of the plot line.

I will say that this book falls into the trap that many fantasy works fall into, with a very black and white take on good and evil, at least in this first book. The red gods, which inspire much of the violence, are most definitely evil. It becomes a challenge to understand the motivation of some of the more evil characters - there is a lot of betrayal in this story and it is a challenge at least from this first book to understand why.

Overall this was a promising start to a trilogy and I look forward to seeing where it goes. This is brutal, violent and nasty. I love it!