Spencer Colt carries the barcode of the god Apollo,
making him one of the most powerful Gladiators in the world. But such power
comes with a price – in particular a destiny to face off against Helios, the
tyrant of the east coast.
In this future America, the country has been split by
devastating war. A war so destructive that the gods themselves acted to end the
conflict. Now wars are fought between gladiators – beings enhanced by the gods
and demigods – but not everyone plays by the rules and Helios is plotting to
expand his empire by any means necessary
While leaves Spencer with a hard destiny to live up to, complete with a father with high expectations but no time for him and woefully inadequate training and a complicate love triangle between himself, Hannah who he’s always loved, Michelle who he’s often fought and Angie who everyone thinks he should be with due to prophecy.
And then there’s Kode – empowered by the mask of Tartarus
and caught in numerous, horrendous acts – is he an enemy or an ally?
The further we go, the more the plots and secrets are
unveiled – and the greater the stakes become.
For a long time in this book, I’m flailing without really
knowing what’s going on. There isn’t enough world building or character background
for me to truly grasp what is happening and why. Even after the 70% mark, when
there’s a huge amount of information dumped in there, I’m still guessing and
extrapolating more than anything. I’m not sure how the barcodes (which appear
to be tattoos and they appear to be born with) give them powers or how much
power or what power they give. I’m not sure if there’s a difference based on
which god you’re imbued with or whether 2 people imbued with the same god have
the same powers. I’m not sure of the power difference between gods and demigods
since we see 2 demigods who are more feared and powerful than most gods.
I’m not sure about the writer. Not sure of the relevance of
the position of the tattoos. I don’t know why Spencer’s tattoos were bound not
sure why the arena and gladiator system exists – I have a vague idea, but I’m
not sure. I think it was an alternative to war – but then we go and have a war
anyway. Not sure where liminal beings come in at all or where they fit, not
sure what dropping into Hades even means – and I’m not especially sure as to
the technology and their acronyms that are thrown around a lot to my growing
confusion.
And it’s the same with the character interactions. We
start the book with a huge rift between Spencer and his dad – but I never quite
got why that’s there. Or the relation between Spencer and Michelle and Hannah.
We also have Spencer being the moodiest, arsiest angst monster we’ve ever seen –
and again I’m not sure why this is. Without a good reason why for the surly
teenager act, I was left with Spencer feeling pretty unlikeable to say the
least.
There are also a huge number of characters that, despite
the large amount of character interaction for the beginning of the book, I had
real trouble keeping track of – which was especially hard when one was
imperilled. The only characters that felt significant to me were Spencer,
Michelle and Kode – so when, for example, Kode’s brother showed up or Spencer’s
grandfather, I had to stop to double check who this person actually was. The
problem is, menace and even death to some of these people were supposed to be a
source of tension in the plot (or at least a source of angst for Spencer) and I
didn’t know enough about them to care about their fate.
The book continues in a series of character interactions,
lots of conversations, going places, seeing people, occasionally fighting,
often training, without me knowing any idea of why or what the major plot
actually was. There’s lots of rumblings about Helios but not much else, and
Kode keeps killing people without it being either explained or there being any
kind of follow up. I came very close to putting the book down in sheer
frustration of ever finding out what is happening or why, without ever being
given a coherent plot.
And then we hit about 65% of the book and the plot rushes
forwards. And rushes is the word. Suddenly we have super weapons and major
training and huge amounts of information about the world and what’s happening.
We have action, adventure, romance, a plot and some truly epic fight scenes.
Spencer comes into his own and starts kicking arse in a major way. It becomes
exciting, with a massive amount of information and a lot more exploration of
this excellent world. It went from being a book that was perilously close to my
putting it down and never picking it up again, to a book I wanted to keep
reading even when it got ridiculously late at night. It was epic in all the
best ways, it was edgy, it was exciting, there were several life and death
struggles, shiny fight scenes and revelations of deep dark conspiracies that have
been kept hidden away. There was a big bad boss who was very bad indeed and
epicly dangerous and difficult to fight – truly setting him up as a major villain
for the whole series.
And the ending was incredible, moving, shocking and
completely unexpected. I couldn’t believe it, I read to the end of the book
sure that something would happen to change it, some miracle would come in to
reset what just happened. It must be one of the most original endings to the
first book in a series I’d ever seen; completely unexpected.
Sadly, as I’ve said, there were still things I didn’t
understand (and Dennis? I really don’t understand Dennis) nor do I understand
Kode – there are too many unknowns for me even in the aftermath of all that
power, plot and excitement. But, after all of this I do hope that the next book
would fill in a lot more of the blanks and give us the knowledge we need to
truly bring this world together and explain the character’s actions more.
There were also a couple of abortive plots – like the
liminal beings killing the god powered and Kode revealing some vast corruption
about the gladiators which we never really got to see. There was the whole
humans rising up against gods and demigods which, again, just fizzled out
entirely. Even class analysis with Hannah was somewhat abortive
Most of the characters in this book are POC, it has a
vast amount of diversity and works it into the futuristic world as well. We
have a world that has drastically shifted from what we know, but the integrity
of these characters as POC is still very much there.
There is one semi-major gay characters, a bit part love
interest and a disembodied gay hologram. Both the hologram and the character
exist to serve – the hologram having no other purpose now (and being
conveniently unable to touch people or have any kind of relationship, but he
gets to be sassy). The character gives Spencer gifts, helps him constantly and
generally acts as a servant while slowly and painfully dying of a degenerative
disease. And when Spencer, possessed with the barcode of Apollo, finds out – he
freaks out completely. Let me repeat, the guy with APOLLO’S powers, as in
Apollo who, depending on what myths you read, had about 10 male lovers, had a
homophobic shitfit.
I did like Michelle as a female character, she was fun
and made her own decisions and was quite happy to give Spencer grief when she
felt he deserved it. While he was more powerful than her, she was always a
power in her own right and, due to longer training, more knowledgeable than
Spencer and a frequent teacher for him. But it did feel like the majority of
the female characters in the book were linked to Spencer as a potential love
interest, only Hayley and a villain stands out as an exception to me. I did
like Michelle, though and, like so much in this book, I wish I had the chance
to see more of her. Sadly I didn’t like Hannah – apparently she’s been the love
interest of Spencer for some time and she kept refusing him when he asked her
out. But the minute he seems more interested in Michelle suddenly Hannah is
jealous and angry? Huh… I’m supposed to see a love triangle here but Hannah was
never realised beyond this jealousy while Michelle was such a vibrant part of
the book – it seemed very one sided.
In all, this book has an amazingly fascinating world. It’s
complex and rich and has a lot of layers and levels that make is excellent to
read about. It has a depth that is very rare and a realness that makes it all
the richer. But I didn’t get to see enough of it in this book, it wasn’t
explained enough and left me frustrated.
Similarly, there are some very real characters with deep,
complex emotions and conflicting motivations dragging them in different
directions. They have to make hard choices and do a lot of growing as the world
is exposed to them. But not enough of this was shown and the characters were
dumped on us with little of the explanation of this.
The plot was exciting, fast paced and heart-racing. The
fight scenes were beautifully choreographed, the action was riveting and the
layers of the plot were revealed to bring us a truly epic conflict in the best
traditions of speculative fiction. But it took far too long to reach it and,
even then, not enough of it was explained.
In short, this book has the core of an excellent story,
but nothing is developed enough or explained enough and it takes far too long
to start. I wanted to love this book, but I can’t get past how truly bored I
was through most of it, or how frustrated I am by what I do not know.
A copy of this book was provided by the author to review.
