Gods and Warriors

Gods and Warriors

By Michelle Paver

3 out of 5 Covers

Gods and Warriors is the first book in a new series by the author of the very good Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. While that series was set in the Stone Age, this one moves forward to Bronze Age Greece.  The author’s meticulous research shines through, but everything from the title on down has a certain generic quality.

Part of this stems from the familiarity of several elements.  There is a prophecy that drives the initial action, a boy who can communicate with an animal, and a girl that he initially doesn’t get along with.  These exact same elements appear in The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.  They even both start en medias res with the protagonist being hunted, though in this case it is by a band of warriors called the Crows instead of a demon bear.

The protagonist is Hylas, a goatherd who doesn’t know why he is being hunted.  While the reason is eventual explained, there is a feeling that there is a deeper meaning that is still obscured.  Hylas has been separated from his younger sister and is desperate to get back to her, though his journey takes him further away to the Island of the Goddess.  He is helped there by a dolphin which he names Spirit and there he meets Pirra, the daughter of a priestess who ran away from an arranged marriage. 

The story is plagues by coincidence.  Hylas just happens to come across the macguffin, he just happens to come across Spirit and Pirra, there just happens to be someone else hunted by the Crows on the island.  Couple that with the fact that none of the characters are particularly pleasant, so wrapped up as they are in their own personal problems that they can barely recognize that working together would be better for survival, and you end up with a lot of artificial drama and generic problems.

The strength of the story lies in the author’s secondary purpose, which is to bring the culture and history of the Bronze Age to life.  Paver effortlessly weaves in facts about the lifestyle and religion of the people of the Greek Islands.  Some of the best moments are when she touches on these aspects.

I greatly enjoyed The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, even though it featured some of the same flaws as this book.  I expected more from Gods and Warriors. The story just needed some more thought put into it.