Review: Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan

Title: Age of Myth
Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Series: The Legends of the First Empire #1
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Publisher: Del Rey
Publication Date: June 28, 2016
Edition: 413 pages, Kindle Edition
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Powell's | Thriftbooks

 

 

 

 

 

Synopsis:

   Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans and those they thought were gods changes forever.
   Now only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer; Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom; and Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people. The Age of Myth is over. The time of rebellion has begun.

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I went into this book with no expectations since I haven't heard a whole lot of people talking about it. It's clearly a popular series but also the people who do talk about it keep things very vague.

It took me a while into the book to care about some of the characters, and even at the end of the book I fail to see their importance in the larger picture of things. I've already started the second book before writing this review, and so far their role isn't clear yet.
I do like most of the characters, and the antagonist(s) of this book are a too much on the nose. There are two main races in this book, Rhune (humans) and Fhrey (Elves). The elves are so long lived that the humans seem to think they are immortal and never die and are thought to be gods. I like the premise of this, it makes sense that a race of beings who live for what seems like forever would put themselves on that kind of level.

Raithe, him as a character at this point I don't really care about. I have no idea how old he's supposed to be. At first I thought he was a child, but then offhand description of him said he had a full beard and I got confused. If I had to guess he's in maybe his early 20s at most. The main reason I thought he was a child or young teen is his behavior. I think  he's supposed to be some kind of reluctant hero, but he comes across as very selfish. Which I kind of get to a degree, but he also doesn't seem to be able to accept what other people want and takes everything as a personal offense. I hope he grows up at some point.

Persephone, eh. She's just an alright character. I think she's around her early 30s, and for a recent widow who's also semi-recently lost her only remaining child, she doesn't really seem all that heart broken. She seems sad but not "My whole family is gone" sad. Just generally a little bummed out, sad. That feels like a miss for me, I get that in the grand scheme of the book there's a lot going on but I feel like some of the story beats would've had more of an impact if she was clearly still devastated by her recent loss. 

Suri might be the most interesting character. She got more interesting with the reveals near the end of the book and I am looking forward to where her character goes. Limited details since I think everything could be a spoiler.

Arion, a Fhrey who can use magic (not all Fhrey can) she has this arrogance and a touch of naivete about her and her sect of Fhrey that I found to be a little flat. I don't know her character in general was a little too one dimensional in this first book for me. She's only kind of an antagonist, there's another member of her sect who thinks that the Fhrey who can use magic are actually god-like and he has personal motivations regarding that, I found him to be a touch too "mustache twirling". He does succeed in manipulating the Prince to his way of thinking, but it doesn't work out the way he hoped it would. I can't for the life of me remember the Prince's name. But he seems like an idiot who I can't see winning because of clever scheming but because of dumb luck.

I've already started the second book, but I needed to get this finished before I read too far into that book and get some details mixed up. This is a very interesting series so far, and I do look forward to reading the rest of the series and then reading the other books set in this world. One of the people who I follow who's most vocal about this series said that reading them in order for when events take place in history is best, so that's what I'm doing.