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The Fire Bearers #3
God of Fire
Ogya has won complete control of the People of the Savanna through the authority of his avatar, King Laughing Dog. He blazes through the forest consuming everything with his flames; but still his hunger grows ever fiercer.
Elder Cloud leads her group of exiles across the empty lands to the ancient, storm-lashed city of Bogana. Cloud hopes to find help in stopping Ogya, but the dim childhood memories she carries of the dangerous city provide little comfort. The exiles are unaware they are being followed by one of the King’s loyal Fire Hunters, carrying his own ghosts of the past.
Fledgling forest god Clay and his mate Doto seek to prevent all-out war between Kwaee, Ogya, and what remains of his tribe. Clay—now trapped with his feet in two very different worlds—must learn to embrace his divinity to reconcile the estranged goddesses of earth, water and forest in a desperate attempt to stop the seemingly unstoppable Ogya.
God of Fire is the third, and final, book in the Fire Bearers series which started with God of Clay and Forest Gods.
Cover and interior art by Zhivago.
Elder Cloud leads her group of exiles across the empty lands to the ancient, storm-lashed city of Bogana. Cloud hopes to find help in stopping Ogya, but the dim childhood memories she carries of the dangerous city provide little comfort. The exiles are unaware they are being followed by one of the King’s loyal Fire Hunters, carrying his own ghosts of the past.
Fledgling forest god Clay and his mate Doto seek to prevent all-out war between Kwaee, Ogya, and what remains of his tribe. Clay—now trapped with his feet in two very different worlds—must learn to embrace his divinity to reconcile the estranged goddesses of earth, water and forest in a desperate attempt to stop the seemingly unstoppable Ogya.
God of Fire is the third, and final, book in the Fire Bearers series which started with God of Clay and Forest Gods.
Cover and interior art by Zhivago.
- GenresFantasy
569 pages, Paperback
Published April 23, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 13, 2022
This book was everything I had hoped it would be--as fully immersive and enjoyable as the previous two and a wonderful, fitting end to the trilogy. I appreciated the additional world-building we saw, both with the histories of the gods in this world and a peek at how other humans live. This is a series I'm sure I will end up re-reading many times and recommending to others.
Also, I appreciated the ending where
Also, I appreciated the ending where
March 10, 2022
What a great conclusion to the series! Going into it I was very interested to see how Clay and Doto's story would go, but I didn't expect to be so engrossed in the story of the people of the savanna too. The stakes were higher than ever, but there were still plenty of moments of beauty and levity to ponder and admire. I personally loved the sections with Adanko. He played a pretty minor role in the second book, but I was hoping he would come back for this one, and I was not disappointed.
This book was great, and a fitting conclusion to everything that has been set up since the first book. I'm looking forward to reading more from Ryan Campbell!
This book was great, and a fitting conclusion to everything that has been set up since the first book. I'm looking forward to reading more from Ryan Campbell!
February 15, 2023
I'll have you know, I finished this book series last night, and I only cried for 20 minutes.
As I said in my overly dramatic review of The Forest Gods, the gay subtext in these books hits hard. God of Fire takes that to another level, and even had the time to introduce new themes and messages to make things all the more impactful. But unlike The Forest Gods, this is the last book in the series. Things actually get wrapped up this time, and there's closure to be had. That helps somewhat with the emotional anxiety these books seem intent on ravaging me with.
Doto and Clay are such a shockingly relatable couple at this point in their journey, that it makes what they go through in this book all the more crushing. There's a maturity to how their relationship is depicted that I think only people in committed relationships will truly resonate with. That, for me, was the star attraction of this book. The graduation from a young, tumultuous love to grown-up, tumultuous commitment here is stellar. I cannot stress that enough. Their relationship really has evolved brilliantly over the course of the trilogy.
The use of subplots to commentate on religious and societal faults and fallacies is also a highlight. Cloud's journey to Bogana, and Mirage's struggle with his past actions may seem unnecessarilly long to some, but I found them very effective at portraying the stakes of the disorder amongst the gods, and in representing the extreme danger that absolute certainty in one's faith and prejudices can bring. Plus you can't really have a story with heavy gay subtext without also including how downright unstable and threatening much of human society is.
I'd also like to point out how hard Zhivago went on the art for this book. The cover, first of all, is absolutely gorgeous. The best in the series, in my opinion. But there are a few images in the book itself that I desperately want prints for. The image of Clay and Doto just chilling in their sanctuary was especially beautiful. The one of Doto and Clay in the swamp gave me oh so many feelings.
But what really got me about this book was the fragility of everything bright and beautiful in it. And more importantly, how that relates to the real world. Let's face it, a lot of the things that allow Doto and Clay's relationship to survive, and a lot of the things that allow the people of the Savannah to survive, come down to the absolute wire. There are so many points at which everything good could have fallen completely apart in this story. That makes it all the more heartwrenching. In the real world, high stakes situations don't work out like this. The Dotos and Clays of our world burn. The people of the Savannah in our world are sacrificed. So, this book sort of makes real life feel incredibly tragic to me. It's unrealistic. Idealistic. And that may be a criticism for many. But I think it's what makes stories like this important and effective. They highlight things in the real world that crush good stories and happy endings. This book says "look how good our story could be if we just accepted our uncertainties, valued hope more than faith, and committed to empathy instead of violence". To me, that's what makes this story so emotionally tumultuous. It speaks to a deep yearning for a stable and accepting world where love is allowed to flourish and happy endings aren't so often extinguished.
Clearly, it's been a wild and emotional ride for me. I've never had a book rock me to the core like these books have. I didn't expect this level of quality when I started reading, but here I am utterly blown away.
As I said in my review of The Forest Gods, the author deserves a feather.
As I said in my overly dramatic review of The Forest Gods, the gay subtext in these books hits hard. God of Fire takes that to another level, and even had the time to introduce new themes and messages to make things all the more impactful. But unlike The Forest Gods, this is the last book in the series. Things actually get wrapped up this time, and there's closure to be had. That helps somewhat with the emotional anxiety these books seem intent on ravaging me with.
Doto and Clay are such a shockingly relatable couple at this point in their journey, that it makes what they go through in this book all the more crushing. There's a maturity to how their relationship is depicted that I think only people in committed relationships will truly resonate with. That, for me, was the star attraction of this book. The graduation from a young, tumultuous love to grown-up, tumultuous commitment here is stellar. I cannot stress that enough. Their relationship really has evolved brilliantly over the course of the trilogy.
The use of subplots to commentate on religious and societal faults and fallacies is also a highlight. Cloud's journey to Bogana, and Mirage's struggle with his past actions may seem unnecessarilly long to some, but I found them very effective at portraying the stakes of the disorder amongst the gods, and in representing the extreme danger that absolute certainty in one's faith and prejudices can bring. Plus you can't really have a story with heavy gay subtext without also including how downright unstable and threatening much of human society is.
I'd also like to point out how hard Zhivago went on the art for this book. The cover, first of all, is absolutely gorgeous. The best in the series, in my opinion. But there are a few images in the book itself that I desperately want prints for. The image of Clay and Doto just chilling in their sanctuary was especially beautiful. The one of Doto and Clay in the swamp gave me oh so many feelings.
But what really got me about this book was the fragility of everything bright and beautiful in it. And more importantly, how that relates to the real world. Let's face it, a lot of the things that allow Doto and Clay's relationship to survive, and a lot of the things that allow the people of the Savannah to survive, come down to the absolute wire. There are so many points at which everything good could have fallen completely apart in this story. That makes it all the more heartwrenching. In the real world, high stakes situations don't work out like this. The Dotos and Clays of our world burn. The people of the Savannah in our world are sacrificed. So, this book sort of makes real life feel incredibly tragic to me. It's unrealistic. Idealistic. And that may be a criticism for many. But I think it's what makes stories like this important and effective. They highlight things in the real world that crush good stories and happy endings. This book says "look how good our story could be if we just accepted our uncertainties, valued hope more than faith, and committed to empathy instead of violence". To me, that's what makes this story so emotionally tumultuous. It speaks to a deep yearning for a stable and accepting world where love is allowed to flourish and happy endings aren't so often extinguished.
Clearly, it's been a wild and emotional ride for me. I've never had a book rock me to the core like these books have. I didn't expect this level of quality when I started reading, but here I am utterly blown away.
As I said in my review of The Forest Gods, the author deserves a feather.
September 25, 2022
What a fantastic conclusion to the series. I adore the setting and the characters, with so much to love about the story Ryan Campbell has crafted here. The ending was tense, even after you felt like everything was safe and resolved.
For anyone seeking something different from European-inspired fantasy, this is an absolute delight.
For anyone seeking something different from European-inspired fantasy, this is an absolute delight.
May 6, 2024
The final instalment of the Firebearers trilogy is a proper epic, bringing the fight against fire god Ogya to a climax while Clay, human turned demigod, tries to balance his new and old lives. At the same time as all this, some of his tribe travel to a far city by the sea to seek help, only to find even more wrathful gods and sinister goings-on. Campbell brings moments of humour to even the most terrible happenings, which makes me care far more about the characters than if everything was unrelentingly solemn.
January 15, 2024
The second book of the Forest Gods trilogy continues this brilliant saga of family, humanity, and brutal decisions. This story only gets more rewarding as it continues!
July 27, 2023
It took six years for the final volume of this trilogy to come out, and given the page count takes another two-hundred page jump upwards, I imagine it was in the category of 'the book that ate his life'.
The longer page count is put to good use as the plot continues to evolve and become more complicated now. We have three well-formed major plot lines: Clay and Doto continue their quest to figure out what has gone wrong with the world, and how to contain Ogya. Laughing Dog falls further under the sway of Ogya while convinced he's still in control and fights the forest that recently has become so especially deadly. And Cloud is dealing with having stepped into a leadership role she had refused so long as she guides the exiles of the People of the Savanna away from the forest and Ogya.
Clay and Doto remain isolated from the rest of the plot for much of this book, while the last two plot lines continue to resonate with each other, and Cloud's journey throws off more sub-plots and a new major viewpoint character. The major character growth is here too; Clay and Doto have worked through their major issues (though by no means all of them) by now, so the engine of character development is largely left to Cloud and Mirage, and much of the action is dominated by the journey of the exiles. And it is very well handled.
Needless to say, Campbell has stuck the landing, and even though the series began quite well, it finishes better than it started. It's much more complicated than the series began, which probably accounts for the time as well as the length.
The longer page count is put to good use as the plot continues to evolve and become more complicated now. We have three well-formed major plot lines: Clay and Doto continue their quest to figure out what has gone wrong with the world, and how to contain Ogya. Laughing Dog falls further under the sway of Ogya while convinced he's still in control and fights the forest that recently has become so especially deadly. And Cloud is dealing with having stepped into a leadership role she had refused so long as she guides the exiles of the People of the Savanna away from the forest and Ogya.
Clay and Doto remain isolated from the rest of the plot for much of this book, while the last two plot lines continue to resonate with each other, and Cloud's journey throws off more sub-plots and a new major viewpoint character. The major character growth is here too; Clay and Doto have worked through their major issues (though by no means all of them) by now, so the engine of character development is largely left to Cloud and Mirage, and much of the action is dominated by the journey of the exiles. And it is very well handled.
Needless to say, Campbell has stuck the landing, and even though the series began quite well, it finishes better than it started. It's much more complicated than the series began, which probably accounts for the time as well as the length.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews