Somewhither

Unwithering Realm #1

by John C. Wright

SOMEWHITHER is the first part of A TALE OF THE UNWITHERING REALM, a new science fantasy series from the science fiction author John C. Wright. It is an adventure, it is a romance, and it is a coming of age story of a young man who is not a man, in a world that is only one among many. It is a tale of a greater and darker evil with longer reach than anything he could imagine, of despair without bounds, of pain beyond measure, and of the faith required to surmount all three. It is a story of inexorable destiny written in the stars and the stubborn courage that is required to defy it.

Ilya Muromets is a big, ugly, motherless boy who does not look like anyone else in his Oregon town. His father is often absent on Church
missionary work that strangely seems to involve silver bullets, sacred lances, and black helicopters. Ilya works as a janitor for Professor Achitophel Dreadful of the Cryptozoological Museum of Scientific Curiosities, and he has a hopeless crush on the Professor’s daughter, Penelope, who seems to think his name is Marmoset.

One night, when Professor Dreadful escapes from the asylum in which he is presently residing, he sends a warning to Ilya that not only is the professor’s Many Worlds theory correct, but those many worlds are dominated by an unthinkably powerful enemy determined to destroy anyone who opens the Moebius Ring between the worlds. And, as it happens, prior to his involuntary absence, the Professor left his transdimensional equipment in the basement of the Museum plugged-in and running….

So it is that Ilya, as he has long dreamed in secret, is called upon to save the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter. With his squirrel gun, his grandfather’s sword, and his father’s crucifix, Ilya races to save the girl, and, incidentally, the world.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Ebooks, Vampires

590 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2015

About the author

John C. Wright (John Charles Justin Wright, born 1961) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy novels. A Nebula award finalist (for the fantasy novel Orphans of Chaos), he was called "this fledgling century's most important new SF talent" by Publishers Weekly (after publication of his debut novel, The Golden Age).

Reviews

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really impossible for me to be objective about this book. Objectively, I know it is not perfect: in some parts it drags a bit, and really did we need quite so many grisly descriptions of gore and violence? Nobody talks the way these people talk, and tonally it's all over the map.

BUT. Okay, if you have ever read any John C Wright, you know what his books are like. They are crazy and big with ideas and bombast and action and beautiful maidens and larger-than-the-universe spaceships and doughty heroes and over-the-top melodrama, and they are just awesome. Well this is the John C Wrightiest of all John C Wright books, and if the idea of an Undying Boyscout Hero teaming up with a Biblical prophet, a monkey assassin girl, a dark elf-taught version of the Shadow, and that torso guy from the Bugs Bunny cartoons against vampires, werewolves, sea monsters, and above all the endless masters of the undying Tower of Babel, bent on subjugating all possible worlds of the multiverse, appeals to you, then you will love this book. There are Knights Templar, there are sea-witches, interdimensional portals, anti-gravity magic, enchanted swords, probably time travel, and lots of and lots and lots of fighting. It is so epically awesome I should probably stop babbling and just let you go ahead and read it, because you know you want to.

If all of the above does not appeal to you, then you should give this book a pass. I can absolutely guarantee it is not for everybody. But if you love pulp adventure, classic fantasy, sci fi, Biblical epics, historical adventure, Samurai flicks, Monster movies, and Apocalypses, and you want to see all those elements tossed into a blender and served up in a tall frosty mug of awesome, then this book is for you.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utterly mad. This what happens when a serious! science fiction writer decides that writing pulp fiction would be super fun, and proceeds to make this statement true in the most outrageous way possible.

***Spoilers abound***

Science fantasy pulp fiction: a recipe by John C Wright
Ingredients
1. One Space Princess, or Sea-witch, or other poster-girl-type heroine
2. One John-Carter-type hero. More specifically, someone born in a world where no-one was forbidden to touch the Tree of Life, so they can't die, even when completely dismembered and scattered from Dan to Beersheba.
3. Several sidekicks to improve the flavour of 1) and 2), such as an invisible woad fighter, a levitating Moses-type guy and little ninja-girl
3. At least one Evil Wizard. Preferably more. It helps if they are a bit loony and consult the stars.
4. Werewolves, vampires, dufflepuds, variations on Dumbo the Elephant, hoplites, Egyptian mummies etc in large and frightening amounts
5. Parallel universes split off from the main timeline by moral decisions that didn't happen e.g. what happens if the Babel got built, after all?
6. One massive Dark Tower
7. Knights Templars, to keep all the doors to other universes shut.
8. Oh, and one mad scientist to kick it all off

Method
1) Make something go wrong. Like a mad Professor opening a door to a universe without permission.
2) Repeat step one, except make something even worse happen. Like the hero getting sucked into the hole and leaving Miss Sea-witch behind.
3) Repeat step 2. Put hero in a sadistic torture-cell, where he can't die but feels a lot of Pain.
4) Something good happens. Like an escape.
5) Forget step 4). Repeat steps 1-3.
6) End. On a cliff-hanger.

John C Wright generally manages to get across a picture Christian behaviour, although that's a bit marred by his bodice-busting descriptions of scantily-clad Miss Sea-Witch, and the language. I don't know if Mr Wright will ever Reform, him being a Catholic and all, but he might get an extra star from me if he did.

As for the book's faults, I could point out that it's a bit much when every time the hero could possibly get stabbed or burned or chopped up or disemboweled or dropped from great heights, splashing blood and organs everywhere, he does. Gratuitous violence, you might say. Since he experiences more pain than any mortal would (generally, he screams a lot, hurls insults, puts himself back together, and kills everyone in the room), we begin to feel quite drained after reading the tenth battle. However, this is all tongue-in-cheek, so Mr Wright gets off that hook. Just. (For instance, when a two-pupiled red-headed witch waving a magic whip riding on a chariot drawn by werewolves comes through an other-dimension doorway, Mr Hero just drops a great heavy heap of ancient artifacts on top of her, killing her instantly. Battle over, so let's get back to the dozens of other werewolves. And we let them gather round Hero tearing him to bits, since he can't die, then get his friend to shove another load of ancient artifacts on shelves on top of the writhing mass. Brilliant.). Other shortcomings generally fall into the same category of 'could be better, but it is meant to be over-the-top.'

Overall, the book reminded me most of A Princess of Mars. Except that it's as if Marvel Comics got to film Lord of the Rings.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit to be a total fanboy when it comes to author John C. Wright. Read and enjoyed all his books including short story collections along with being an admirer of his blog. So when a new book of his comes out I buy it on the first day.

His newest book is Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm. The opening paragraph from his publisher says:

> SOMEWHITHER is the first part of A TALE OF THE UNWITHERING REALM, a new science fantasy series from science fiction master John C. Wright. It is an adventure, it is a romance, and it is a coming of age story of a young man who is not a man, in a world that is only one among many. It is a tale of a greater and darker evil with longer reach than anything he could imagine, of despair without bounds, of pain beyond measure, and of the faith required to surmount all three. It is a story of inexorable destiny written in the stars and the stubborn courage that is required to defy it.

This takes some fantasy tropes and expands them. The young man who doesn’t really fit in and whose family seems different from the surrounding. A father who disappears one trips for an expanded period of time who job is really not known. So from the start you know the main character Ilya Muromets is going to find out who he really is and go on some epic adventure. What follows though could only come from the mind of John C. Wright and of course there is a Space Princess involved.

Trying to pin a genre on this novel is rather difficult. His science fiction has a pagan mythos and his fantasy has scientific aspects. So there is often a blend of these genre informed by mythic elements. Finely blended so that it seems natural. Especially true here where there are many worlds and travel between them, but also a full range of mythical creatures.

There was so much I like about this story. There is a certain playfulness in his characters such as lya Muromets here or Montrose and del Azarchel in the Count to the Eschaton Sequence. Perhaps my only criticism of this book is that these two characters are reminiscent of each other with the bravado and inventive cursing. At first another aspect of this book was putting me off regarding an extended sequence involving escape. Later I realized how necessary this sequence of this book was to the plot involving a Calvinistic world that is a deterministic nightmare. Again I am amazed by how inventive he is with plot ideas. There are several here where a competent author could take just one of them to make a good book.

As a lover of SF and Fantasy, along with being both a geek and a Catholic, there are not many books that bring satisfaction on the geeky Catholic level. There are tons of geeky references in the book and I think I caught on to most of them, but doubt I caught them all. This was part of the playfulness of the book. Still it was a pleasure regarding all the Catholic aspects. Ilya Muromets as a hero is a Catholic and one that prays and calls to saints whenever he is in danger. He has to appeal to saints a lot. Even better it is an appeal to an appropriate patron saint regarding the situation. So I enjoyed how this was weaved into the story and was a natural part of it and really added to the character.

There is so much to discuss about this book, but too hard to move into spoiler territory in any discussion. So I will leave it at that. I enjoyed this book immensely and like every start in a new series eagerly await the next book.

Still I feel kind of like I had shoplifted this book since the Kindle price was only $4.99. Just doesn’t seem right considering how much enjoyment I got.

[Marina Fontaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Occasionally while reading a book, there comes a point where I pause, smile and tell myself, “This one will be special.” Sometimes it’s a particularly riveting action scene, or it’s a clever turn of phrase, or a personally relevant reference. Somewhither is full of all three, and they might work for different readers. For me, it’s found near the start of the book, when Ilya, the protagonist who is not yet the hero, explains why he had made the decision to-literally-rush headlong into danger.

“It was because of the guy I wanted not to be.”

Who says that? Especially now, when self-esteem appears inversely related to achievement, when everyone is special and everyone is a hero? This protagonist does, and the contrarian that I am, I immediately suspected he would, in fact become one of the more memorable heroes by the time the story is done. And I was not wrong.

Somewhither presents a world that is both recognizable and surreal, taking comfortable sci-fi and fantasy elements and using them as only Mr. Wright can. A young man on a quest? Check. A beautiful love interest? Of course. A Big Bad of world-shattering proportions? You bet. A team of quirky sidekicks? Oh yes, big time. The novel takes all of these pieces and lifts them into the stratosphere. There scope is bigger, the questions weightier, and the over-reaching vision is like nothing you might expect to come out from the sum of its parts.

The tone of the novel, to match both the age and the attitude of the first-person narrator, is surprisingly light for a work of this ambition. It sidetracks in riffing on the tropes of modern storytelling (no, the hero assures us during one of the many tense moments, this is not a “found footage” story, and he will not keel over in Chapter 2, leaving us only with his blood stained diary!) It laments the influence that Star Trek might have on anyone traveling between the worlds. And, just to make sure everyone remembers that the story, fantastic though it might be, is actually rooted in reality, we get an off-hand mention of Planned Parenthood. In hands of a lesser writer, it could have easily been a mess, but we’re talking about the writer who gave us The Golden Age trilogy, so have a little faith.

Speaking of faith… Prayers in general, and Catholic references in particular do play an important role. If, like me, you’re not a Christian, you may even need to Google a few items. (IS there actually a patron saint of throat ailments? Apparently, yes.) I will tell no more, for fear of spoilers, except to say that the inclusion of faith is both necessary to the story and organic to the character.

The pacing is near perfect, alternating between breathtaking, at times extremely violent, action and the slower sections that allow the reader to absorb the wealth of information about the world. Although Amazon estimates the novel at over 500 pages, it comes to the end almost too quickly and provides just enough closure to make us impatient for the sequel, which, rumor has it, is in the works. I, for one, can’t wait.

[Vroom · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was pulled into this book because I'm a sucker for anything linguistics-fiction related and the writing seemed very Heinlein-esque. Unfortunately, the book didn't pay off the promise. I liked the "voice", and the flavor of the narrative, but the story and characters fell flat for me. The worst bits involved long, long sections of writing that added nothing, didn't engage, and should have been edited out.

The focus on religion was too much. I enjoyed Frankowski's Cross Time Engineer, so religion and women-as-brainless-objects are things I can tolerate if the story is fun.

The "hero" was busy spouting off facts to the exclusion of involving the reader. He didn't really have any credible growth arc, the way Heinlein heroes do. For someone who grew up in a quasi-military household, he didn't sell the concept of the boyscout who obeys orders but has tons of self initiative. That point is key to this kind of story. Didn't work for me.

Oh, and no good linguistics fun.

"The Martian" was a much, much better book that approached the same hyper competence genre. Reading them both so closely together probably made this one look worse in comparison. In the end, I just didn't find anything to like.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The opening book of the Unwithering Realm. Illya is talking with his father, who just returned from a secret mission. He learns more than he expected.

About other worlds, the Disaster Cuneiform that his employer was trying to unravel, the importance of using swords rather than guns on occasion. It ends with his father sending him off to try to stop something happening at the museum where he works. He finds, there, the employer's daughter, Penny Dreadful, and an opening gate to another world.

The story unfolds from there. It involves the nightmarish Dark Tower, astrological predictions in detail, a horrible captivity, sword-fights, a friend and fellow Boy Scout of Illya, a number of people who come from worlds Illya did not expect, his own hidden history, the ability to walk on air, or escape astrological prediction, or hide from sight, a language that everyone can understand, the speakers of which can understand everyone, and more.

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pulp fiction of the most outrageous kind. As in, it's outrageous even for Wright... which is saying something. I have been waiting to read this book for three years, ever since Wright revealed on his blog that he was planning a story about heroic Templars battling Harvard Symbologists and including a prayer-powered mecha defended by ninja nuns and set in a multi-dimensional world and featuring a timeline where the Tower of Babel never fell.

Sadly the mecha does not appear in this first installment of the story, though I'm assuming it's the Colossal Zoetic Panoply mentioned occasionally. But otherwise, the story is as mad as you're imagining from the previous description. I would definitely file this one under Guilty Pleasures.

Interestingly, this is also the most overtly Christian of Wright's books yet (an outspoken atheist, he was converted ten years ago or so to Catholicism). This bears fruit in the book's best scenes, the ones early on in which our hero is imprisoned in the Tower of Babel, and slowly discovers a healing and inspiriting power in prayer. The advent of Wright's best female character yet, the ninja girl Abanshaddi, was another promising signal. By the cliffhanger at the end, though, the numinous effect of the hero's prayers had worn off significantly, coming off more like magical incantations (the fact that many of the prayers were directed to saints and I'm a Protestant may have something to do with this).

Still, this was loads of fun. So few stories are these days. I, too, want to write books which are fun to read, and though I'll never be as outrageous as this, there's an element in Wright's storytelling that I would love to master.

[Michael Haupt · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much as The Golden Compass attempts to be a parody of Narnia, Somewhither is a parody of the former. - So there's this kid of seventeen, who all of a sudden discovers he's got a purpose that involves moving over to another dimension ridden by beasts that seem to have sprung from Lovecraftian universes and slashing his way through a massive structure called the Dark Tower, ruled by magic, which is trying to invade Earth (well, our dimension, anyway) to the end of saving his beloved, who turns out to be someone entirely different than he was expecting. This is a whirlwind tour of witty and ironic allusions, written from the juvenile point of view of a young man who's really learning what his job is about as he is struggling to do it. Wonderful. Of course, there's a cliffhanger at the end, and there will be more books in the series. I'm certainly going to read them.

[Cst · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really didn’t like it.

There are so many problems, but the main is the distressingly thin plot. Not only is there not much happening (albeit in excruciating detail), but the premise is shockingly simple, much too simple to carry the book. So for the majority of the time spent reading I was bored. But that boredom had passages of loathing in it, just to make it more awful.
There is the style, written in a mixture of blade porn – where every move is named (probably correctly) by its Japanese name – and a way that made me think the author is paid for his word count.
Then there are huge infodumps, reiterating concepts that are neither new nor unknown at that point, because repetition is key for this book. The enemy is BAD and in case you missed the first forty repetitions don’t fret, there will be forty others just around the corner. The world is filled with other worlds and people all with names that nobody can pronounce, look all similar and are completely superfluous.
Part of this infodumps are some of the most juvenile passages I have ever seen printed in an actual book, with no other reason than to gross out the reader and reiterate: these are BAD people! To call this juvenile is an insult to juveniles everywhere, but it is the only fitting word.
Finally, there’s the politics that creep in. I don’t mind about the religion (although in the last part it is poured on a bit thick), but there are several passages that show the authors politics slightly too clearly. I wouldn’t mind if the book was better, but here it is the final crowning achievement for an utterly unenjoyable read.

[Kelley Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hard to classify book, so let's call it Smartguy SciFi Pulp. It is going to get my 2015 Hugo Best Novel nominee (last years if I had a vote would have been "The Martian").

As a quick summary. its a first person narrative from an unkillable teenager sets off to save his supposed princess (who's actually a siren) and the world from a bunch of omniscient beings. Unlike much of Mr. Wright's stuff, it is not book to make you think about life; its simply an enjoyable ride with crazy battle scenes in nearly every chapter.

To be honest it would make an awesome summer blockbuster that would make a Hollywood company tons of money... but there is praying by the main character involved so we can be pretty sure this will never happen.

My one problem is that I really wish this was available as a real book as I HATE reading in bed with a tablet. It is also much easier to loan real books out and expect people to actually read them and give them back.

Bottom line this book deserves a much wider audience than it will receive as an eBook.

[WendyL · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's grosser than gross? This story

As a child, my brother and I used to play a game we called, "what's grosser than gross?". We would try to outdo each other in coming up with disgusting images. This book is an interminable game of "what's grosser than gross." Perhaps it would appeal to a 13 year-old boy; I really do not see who else could enjoy it. On the one hand, it is refreshing to see a protagonist who is a devout, home-schooled Catholic boy. I liked that a lot. His smart-alecky mouth, however, started wearing on my nerves. But it was the non-stop, over-the-top battles and gore that were the most wearisome. I will not be reading the sequel.
I gave it three stars rather than one because it has some interesting ideas, moral value and humor which might appeal to the hypothetical 13-year-old male reader.

[Julie Davis]

The Kindle sample felt like Heinlein in a way ... not in the writing style but in the romantic, coming of age elements. With a touch of Lovecraft hovering in the background perhaps?

I was delighted to see I could borrow it free as part of Amazon Prime. And so off I go, into the wild blue Somewhither.

UPDATE
Now that I'm about 25% into the book Wright's imagination really makes me think of Edgar Rice Burrough's Martian books. I mean that in a good way.

UPDATE 2
There is something about Wright's style that makes his novels difficult for me to read. I love his short stories and novellas, but the longer books are problematic.

[Greg O'Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Promising, but the further I read the further it felt like I was reading "The Number of the Beast" but Heinlein. By that I mean an author pulls in his favorite characters and then just walks them through unbelievable plot stories. I don't know....lots of interesting things going on, sorta broken by the narrative and stupidness of the characters. Leaning towards a 2 star, but I'll give it a barely 3.

I just can't quite recommend it.

[Sean McKay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book. A while speculative romp that was a great hybrid of sci-fi / fantasy / religion. Imagine a setting w/ parallel universes, but the divergent cause for each universe was the intervention of God. Some universes have God intervening at certain points, others don't... and from that you get many manifestations of reality, which have snuck into our world as myths. Can't wait for the rest of the books in the series.

[Shannon]

I just cannot go on with this. I really do not like not finishing a book, however this book is not for me. I am apparently not a fan of "pulp fiction". What is difficult here are the repeated action scenes that go on interminably, loaded with incomprehensible fight scenes, bloody and disgusting torture, and unrealistic outcomes. The writer did not make me care enough about Ilya to want to read another unrealistic minute of his journey :/

[Chris Vuocolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up because I was hearing about the Dragon Awards and wanted to see what won that. Guess I'm not that audience. It's first person narrative through the eyes of a teenage boy, which I found pretty tedious. The monsters and the hell around them were pretty imaginative, but not enough to carry the book for me.

[Paul Bard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is ridiculously awesome, and it ends riiight in the middle of the action, therefore earning Mr Wright the eternal enmity of his fans.

No, seriously, it's crazy awesome. The science fictional premise is, "What is everything about reality were totally epic?"

Go. Read. Now.

[Officialz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another larger-than-life JCW series.

Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for the next book!

[Joanne G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An abundance of ideas that, unfortunately, ended in a cliffhanger.

[S. Pierzchala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhither is densely packed with action, imagination and fun characters. The narrator, Ilya Muromets, is a homeschooled teen living in Tillamook, Oregon, who discovers his family, himself, his boss, his boss' daughter, his best friend...etc. are not what they seem. As someone who visits the city of Tillamook a couple of times year, I felt a personal and warm connection to the narrator from the first pages, and I particularly loved the ominous and intriguing build-up as Ilya, fired up by a teenage sense of bravado, is eager to investigate the source of danger threatening his community and specifically his crush, Penny.

Falling through a home-made portal, Ilya soon finds himself sucked across a formless void between dimensions and becomes imprisoned in a vast Dark Tower as large as several cities. Here, he is subjected to a series of unimaginable, diabolical tortures and learns that, like Prometheus, he cannot be killed. But he can suffer pain. After he learns to control and exploit his powers of regeneration, he is then rescued by a resistance network plotting to thwart an invasion of Earth by an ancient and indescribable evil.

There are some religious elements that sometimes seem a little forced and inconsistent. The underlying philosophical theme of predestination vs free will is successfully woven into the plot. This story had tons of John C. Wright's signature ingredients: Insanely inventive imagination, incredibly skilled world building and the ability to effortlessly evoke hellish horror side by side with glimpses of heavenly beauty. The sparkling points of humor were a welcome counterpoint to the pervading sense of dread and obscene evil that Ilya and his allies must endure while battling their way through the Dark Tower to rescue Penny.

This is an incredibly long novel, and there are several patches of exposition that I found a bit overwhelming, but I was so invested in the world and the characters that these didn't bother me. However, be warned that it does end on a humdinger of a cliffhanger, so be prepared to move on to the second book!

[Precompute · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts with our humble and industrious hero, Ilya and his certainty that something is being kept from him. He is head-over-heels for his Boss' daughter, Penelope, and he's whirled into an otherworldly adventure that helps him discover his true abilities and the nature of the reality in which he resides.

Ilya isn't your everyday superhero, but he's not a bumbling fool or a jobbing YA protagonist. He's been miyagi'd into his abilities and he can fight and has a lot of courage. Even when the surroundings resemble a weird, evil mix of Dali and Hieronymus Bosch, he's got a sharp wit and faith in God.

In typical JCW fashion, you've got a very intricate world full of details and a gripping plot. The characters are never dull and the writing is exceptional. JCW puts his beliefs front and center and I personally don't find them offensive but some might. Even if you find it offensive, he's an exceptional writer. Sometimes you're reading the book and there's side-plots and tangents and off-hand declarations that other SF writers would consider enough for a trilogy. Did JCW grow up eating hardcovers and paperbacks by the kilo? It's crazy. His writing has a lot of detail. I have no clue how someone can write like that.

This book is funny. Air exited my nose forcefully at least twice a chapter. Ilya is witty and full of pop-culture references that hit well and are easy to understand. If you squint and tilt your head you'll see that the book is about what would happen if Deadpool entered hell to rescue his sweetheart.

I really like Ilya. The guy is clearly a gentle giant. He's got mad leet kung-fu skillz and he's brave and honorable. He's a hero on his first rodeo and he can't shut up.

I don't want to spoil anything so I'll stay mum on the details. This book is awesome and it has some great characters and a lot of enjoyable worldbuilding and overall, a cohesive message and no plotholes that I could find.

Haven't read the sequel yet, looking forward to reading it.

[Robert Defrank · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a longtime lover of portal fiction, I had to give this one a shot. The concept alone recommended it. I was swiftly absorbed into the narrative. One part epic science fantasy and one part pulp, it is a story after C.S. Lewis’ own heart. An earnest heroic young man finds himself drawn into a world where the Tower of Babel never fell, and instead is spreading its evil across the multiverse.

The Tower itself is a world of its own, with every corner crammed with horrors from the darkest corners of the imagination, as well as a few unlikely allies.

The Tower is described in detail – too much detail at times. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Sauron and his Dark Tower have a certain mystique as distant figures of mystery. Wright dispenses with this by starting the story in the Tower with a breakout from the same. The Tower still awes with its sheer scale and might, but the squalid misery of the place also seeps in. I confess I had to start skimming toward the end, my thoughts consisting of: Oh dear God please just get out of there! I can safely say the Tower is nowhere I want to be, and I’d never want to go back.

I’ll be rereading later, and I eagerly await the concluding books coming out.

[Vanteacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into a fantasy of biblical proportions.

The author's obsession with words and their translation is a millstone about the neck.

Luckily, like a millstone it gets ground down by the imagination and later on I started to appreciate the deviation into linguistics and translation. But nonetheless it is a bit of a language tangent from time to time.

The world building is amazing and the sheer scope of the story circumnavigates the galaxy even though most of the book stays in an enclosed space.

It's a very visceral, bloody read with excruciating tortures regaled in much detail. Makes the average horror story pale by comparison. It also makes Stephen King look like an amateur in the field of anguish and sadism..

If they ever make a movie of this it would be both a blockbuster and the most expensive, violent and offensive movie in a long time.

The main character is a bit of a child at times but he is quite young so the author has some license to do so. It makes the thought of immortality both a burden and punishment like none other.

It's not an easy read, but halfway through I was hooked and couldn't stop reading.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was all over the place. The story is one long action scene, punctuated by infodumps and completely inappropriate dialogue. The author's attitudes about women would have offended the guys who made Zardoz. Occasional interruptions to lecture the reader on the sins of modern civilization add variety. The power of prayer in the book would be embarrassing to a D&D cleric. There are naga, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, and every strange breed of half-human from an old map you can think of. There is blood, and guts, and burns and more blood.
And yet. His description of the tower of Babel was fantastic. His idea for invading alternate worlds was inspired. Some of the dialogue is really funny. His off-the wall Catholic alternate histories (where Cain ate the fruit of the tree of life, or Abraham was defeated in battle, and so forth) are incredible in their bizareness. The exploration of free will and augury was fascinating.
In short, a John C. Wright novel, and one of the better ones.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome and Utterly Strange

I'm not entirely sure what I just read, but it was amazing. Wright's grasp of the traditional Western canon of literature and culture, and his ability to draw the threads and insights connecting various pieces of it is nothing short of incredible. He modernizes ancient myth and religion in a good way, not the "turning up your nose" approach that's more common and trendy. This, reminded me of what Alan Moore did with the League of Extraordinary Gentleman, but in a constructive, not deconstructive fashion. "Superversive," not "subversive." Oh, and I think there are some long overdue "take thats" at His Dark Materials, that fraud masquerading as good fantasy.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the most basic level, this is a romance about a boy being willing to face hell to save the girl he crushes. Then there are the other levels—inter dimensional connections with other worlds and possible worlds through technology, fantasy world-building, gruesome horror movie fights, discovering the power of God and faith in the teeth of the evillest kind of evil. Click below for full review!

https://thatladywhoreadsalot.wordpres...

[Betsy Dion · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros: lots of creative science fiction creatures and worlds, author clearly knows a lot about languages and weapons, some interesting ideas

Cons: icky way of talking about women, lots of gory violence, slow plot, unlikable main character

[Groot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently written, erudite, great fun and funny, this is another great one from John C. Wright the magnificent.

[Molly Moody · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had moments but they got bogged down in endless, incomprehensible description.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy hero grows up.