Battle Scenes – DaneCobain.com

Title: Path of the Gods Volume I: The Theurgy Revolution

Author: James Val’Rose

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 379

Rating: 8/10

James Val’Rose – Path of the Gods Volume I: The Theurgy Revolution

Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and the way I ended up reading it is pretty interesting – James appeared on Come Dine With Me, a show that my girlfriend watches obsessively, and she suggested that I get in touch with him about an author interview. I did so, and I ended up speaking to him for an article which will appear on my blog, and he also offered to send me a copy of the book to review.

And what an interesting book it is, too – in my mind, it’s a bit like what would happen if Tolkien and Philip Pullman worked together, a sort of fantasy novel with a twist and a higher agenda than the simple hack and slash that it seems like everyone else is obsessed with. Not that there’s a dearth of battle scenes – Val’Rose writes plenty of them, and they’re pretty interesting too. The battles are three-dimensional, and the characters aren’t afraid to use the landscape as a weapon when they need to. You get the feeling that the battle scenes that are being described were witnessed first-hand, rather than made-up in the mind of the author.

I won’t go in to the plot too much, because it’s the first book in a trilogy and there’s a lot to introduce and to get through – it’s also hard to tell what might happen next, and the book ends at a fork in the road which, while not exactly a cliffhanger, does leave you wanting to find out what happens next.

A lot of that is probably to do with the three-dimensional characters, from Misto the goblin to Jerome and Peter, two young boys who grow up to become magi and start out on this epic adventure. There’s a little double-crossing here and there, and you can really see how the events of the novel take their toll on each of the characters. I’m looking forward to reading loads more about them in book two…