The Gods Awaken

Tales of the Timuras #3

by Allan Cole

Enter lands of mystery, magic, and danger in the triumphant epic fantasy inspired by The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám!The realm is tormented by catastrophe. Lord Safar Timura, the great wizard, is trapped in the doomed world of Hadin, condemned to suffer and die, over and over again. It is up to his wizard son, Prince Palimak, to stop the disaster slowly poisoning land and sea.Though he is half human and half demon, even Palimak may not possess the awesome powers needed to free Safar and discover the great lost tomb, guarded by a fierce she-beast who holds secrets to halt the terror.There are many enemies, barbarian kings, monsters of the underworld--and, lording over all, the Demon Moon, looming in silent, bloody challenge. With the help of Leiria, warrior goddess, Palimak must destroy the doomspell and confront the sinister Demon Moon. Only then will the gods be awakened and the world be saved . . .

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Fiction

404 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 1999

About the author

Allan Cole was an American author and television writer, who wrote or co-wrote nearly thirty books.The son of a CIA operative, Cole was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. He collaborated with Chris Bunch on the Sten science fiction series, as well the Far Kingdoms Series, and the historical novels, A Reckoning For Kings and Daughter Of Liberty.

He co-authored a non-fiction book A Cop's Life with his uncle, Thomas Grubb; and a fantasy novel Lords Of Terror with Russian author Nick Perumov.His solo books include the fantasy novels that make up the Timura Trilogy and the thrillers, Dying Good and Drowned Hopes.

He sold more than a hundred television episodes, including ones for Quincy, M.E., The Rockford Files, The Incredible Hulk, Dinosaucers, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Magnum, P.I., Werewolf, and Walker, Texas Ranger.

He was also a Los Angeles newspaper editor and investigative reporter for 14 years.

Cole was married to Chris Bunch's sister, Kathryn. He died of cancer in Boca Raton, Florida, aged 75, on March 29, 2019.

Reviews

[lowercase · Rating 1 out of 5]

... okay. i briefly reviewed the first book in this series, wherein i think i noted that, at around the midpoint, this nicely positioned fantasy (with most of the usual tropes but at least what appeared to be a glimmer of originality) seemed as if it was handed off to an incompetent editor. i'm still not sure what happened. i'm not even going to bother to review the second book, which simply solidified my suspicion, but this installment? made me wonder if the entire publishing firm had been hijacked by russian bots. i hate to be so picayune, but, in one particularly surprising edit, someone had apparently cut the letter i away from "naive" to replace it with with an i that included the diaeresis. in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FONT. totally different size, even. never mind about the kerning. but if it was only limited to such prosaic (prosaïc?) things! alas, no. the verbïage gets worse and more worse. half-dragon half-human ladies, while literally putting out fires, are described for the umpteenth time as sexay, sexay beasts for whom men take a break from attempting to survive the end of the world to ogle lasciviously; every hero is AMAZING AND HANDSOME AND OH SO VERY GOOD AND YET SO VERY UNSURE BUT STILL SO VERY STRONG; the ladies are ALL SO PASSIONATE AND EACH IS BEAUTIFULLY BEAUTIFUL AND YET ALL SO DEEPLY IN LOVE WITH THE SAME HERO (surPRISE!) that i hated myself for wrestling it to its end. more than two days passed with just five pages to go and i had to force myself to read it because THE SHAME. but i had already wasted my time on the other two books (and made the mistake of ordering the second as well as the third based on the first half of book one) and i had to SLOG THROUGH IT. it's got me ALL CAPSY. for the sake of the author, i truly, truly hope that he was let down by overzealous, under-qualified editors, although perhaps i am being naïve.

[Gino Kutcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rushed. That is the best one word description I can give. There were some interesting ideas, but too much felt like the author was not exactly sure how to resolve a situation so something just happened and the situation ended. That said, for some reason the very last line did cause me to literally laugh out loud.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty bad. The Bjorn Lynne trilogy albums based on these books are the reason I became a composer, so I was CERTAIN I'd love these books too, but they're not great! The mysteries set in the first books, I'll avoid spoilers, are answered here and they're very boring answers. The villain is extremely lame, and continues the trend of having worse and worse villains than Iraj, who was a good baseline for a good villain.

This book also is real bad about women. Every woman you meet is infatuated with the main character, they're all unbelievably beautiful, and even the villainous women, despite their magic powers, ultimately try to defeat the hero just by the power of being sexy. Another review brings this up but there's a scene where a circus woman with a dragon head is trying to put out a fire, and everyone stops and takes a moment to admire how sexy her body is as she's fighting for her life against literal fire. Just terrible.

Also these stupid circus folk never go away. Probably the biggest problem with this entire series is that Allan Cole believes that we will just love these circus characters, and they're... they're fine. But they feel like moments in time, like if Polyphemus just kept hanging out with Odysseus in his Odyssey home, constantly just saying the same lines about Nobody over and over again.

[L.J. DeLeon · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When the Gods Awaken” the third and final chapter of the “The Timura Trilogy.” As with the first two books can also be read as a stand-alone.

The world is dying while kings and warlord battle for supermacy. Grand Wizard, Lord Safar Timura is trapped in the doomed world of Hadin yet it isn’t Hadin. He is condemned to suffer and die, over and over again.

At the same time Safar is suffering this torture, his half-demon half-human son, Prince Palimak, believes he is dead and builds a great army out of the refugees of Kyrania, now living on Syrapis. Palimak investigates Asper’s tomb and kills a truly evil creatures. When he looks in the tomb after surviving the battle, he discovers Safar has replaced Asper’s mummy.

There are many enemies, barbarian kings, monsters of the underworld—and, lording over all, the Demon Moon, which looms in silent, bloody challenge. Safar travels to Hadin with Palimak, Leiria, his a warrior lover, friends and allies, and a surprising ally, Iraj. They must destroy the doomspell and confront the sinister Demon Moon. Only then will the gods be awakened and the world saved.

While the trilogy has ended, I can only hope that there is one more book in the series. Oh, have you guessed yet that I will and am reading anything and everything that author Allan Cole writes. Having read his book “Lucky in Cyprus...” I was well prepared for this adventure. If you haven’t read Cole before, do so. You’ll be in for a real treat.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing style, which was a little clunky throughout the trilogy, seemed worse in this one, and the pacing was a little weird. I wonder if this book just got less editing than the others, there were a bunch of typos and whole section where italics didn't end where they should have. Anyway, it was a little odd how much time was dedicated to incidental battles, then the reconciliation of various characters and the ending that the whole series was building up to were just breezed through like it was no big deal.

[Adrienne Kern McClintock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not everybody dies. Most people live happily ever after. Somewhat expected ending, though yes, a few people die. I suppose I might have gotten more out of the series had I read the story it was based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat...