The Devoured Earth by Sean Williams
This is a difficult book to review by itself, since it's the final in Sean Williams' four Books of the Cataclysm. So I'll do a bit of a general review of the series first before talking about this book in particular.
Overall, I would have to say that the Books of the Cataclysm is one of the best fantasy series I have read in a long time. It has been ages since any book or series has had me so hooked that I would read 200+ pages every day just because I wanted to see what happens next.
The first book (The Crooked Letter) started with a very unexpected setting - late 20th/early 21st Century Europe - and did some really cool stuff with metaphysics, displayed a hell of a lot of research into religions from all around the world, and was generally pretty awesome. The story was quite dark, mainly due to the whole end of the world thing, and the characters were real. This goes for all the books in the series, not just the first. The characters weren't too detailed and they didn't get tedious. Enough was said about each character to satisfy the reader, and the story continued. With a temporary resolution at the end of the first book, a rearranged world is then created over the next thousand years, and with it a new set of characters.
Throughout the second and third books (The Blood Debt and The Hanging Mountains) a new story begins that ties in with the Cataclysm that began in the first book. Characters from Williams' previous trilogy (Books of the Change) are the new protagonists, bringing previously established relationships and personalities into the story. The beauty of Williams' writing is that there was no need to read the previous books (which is great, because I'm still waiting for Dymocks to ship the first two) in order to read this series. Enough is said about previous incidents and relationships to give the reader a solid idea of what's what without having to go back. In fact, it's just like any other book where the characters are developed enough that the author actually bothers to give them a past. Williams leaves the Books of the Change as anything but a necessity for this series, and I will personally be reading them because I love his writing and his characters, and I will be doing so as though I'm reading a prequel rather than the original series.
The Devoured Earth was a brilliant conclusion to the Books of the Cataclysm. Not only did it tie up a hell of a lot of loose ends left in The Crooked Letter (which is awesome considering that this one is set one thousand years after that), but it still kept me guessing what would happen next. While the ending was one that I suspected from about two thirds of the way through the book, the fact that I couldn't see how it was going to be pulled off until the very last minute is a pretty good indicator of a great storyteller.
The writing through is consistently excellent, excluding a couple of errors with place names and character names. It is reasonably fast paced, it appeals to the 21st Century audience with its use of language and relatable characters. It's also a step away from traditional fantasy and its associated English/Irish/etc influences. What has been created instead is an completely new world with its own landscapes (deserts, forests, mountains, etc, etc), new social structures and realistic dialogue. Williams completely disregards the highly formal language not only in narration, but also in the dialogue, making all aspects of the book easy to read and more relatable to the reader. My favourite quote in this book was when Seth said "Ellis, what the fuck have you done to us?" This isn't necessarily because of the swearing, though my inner twelve year old had a bit of a chuckle over it, but rather because it's appropriate to the characters and the situation.
In addition to well written characters, there are also some pretty awesome ones that pop up in this book and throughout the rest of the series. The Holy Immortals, whose timeline takes them backwards through time (so our future is their past), Pukje the imp/dragon, and the ultimate evil monster, Yod. Each of these (and a hell of a lot of others not mentioned here) have their own historical/philosophical/spiritual significance, and add to the overall impact of the book.
Everything is wrapped up neatly in this final book, and the only reason I was disappointed when I finished it was the fact that it was over. It is one of those ones that left me wanting to know what happens next, even when I knew that it was all over. Give these ones a go if you like sci-fi/fantasy. It's brilliant stuff.
