My Rating: 2.5/5
Source: Scholastic Australia
Buy: Booktopia
Goodreads
In ancient Greece, sometime between the stories of Homer and the histories of Herodotus, something happened that changed the world. Two brothers, Niko and Paramon, one destined to serve a lord and the other to serve a merchant, are forced apart. One must stay; the other must follow his lord wherever he goes. Paramon is thrown back on his own resources, but will do everything he can to make his own way. And his destiny is to discover a secret that will change everything, a secret that men will not hesitate to kill for.
Since I started reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, High Fantasy is no longer a genre that I avoid.
I am going to split this book into thirds to review as this is how the book is written.
The first third basically just introduced the characters, the basic premise and the somewhat confusing landscape. I know there was a map at the beginning of the book, but most of the cities mentioned were not even on the map.
The second third was where my interest in the book started to decrease.
There wasn't any action apart from Paramon's innovative ideas in sword making.
There was also an excessive amount of inner dialogue which slowed the pacing of the book.
This book isn't very character focused. There are not very many characters at all. The protagonist Paramon did not develop much over the course of the book.
The third portion of the book is also the third location where the story picks up a bit. This was my favourite portion of the book.
Overall, I felt like this was predominately a historical book - a what if of the period between Herodotus and Homer's writings with a story weaved around it.
I didn't feel like these two aspects gelled well together as was necessary to make this book work. As a consequence, I found this book rather confusing.
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