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kitschbitsch's review against another edition
5.0
This is definitely in the Erikson school of excellent fantasy writing in that it contains a cast of protagonists who are all, in their differing ways, flawed and sometimes with unclear motives. Lots of different story strands to start with, but all converge at the end to join forces to defeat the power-hungry necromancer who has stolen the Book of Souls.
mike_no1's review against another edition
5.0
Starts slow but builds up to a high magic climatic battle worthy of its scope.
Can be a bit hard to follow since its starts "in the know" about places and organisations and the story follows several characters viewpoints throughout. As i wrote earlier things come together rather brilliantly in a magical mexican standoff.
Can be a bit hard to follow since its starts "in the know" about places and organisations and the story follows several characters viewpoints throughout. As i wrote earlier things come together rather brilliantly in a magical mexican standoff.
balefire's review against another edition
4.0
4.5*
This book started slow but built in pace and intensity towards the massive explosion that was the ending. The amount of magic that was unleashed and used in this book was utterly staggering. I really enjoyed reading each of the characters pov which Is strange for me as I usually hate at least one character. The story was really interesting and came together really well in the end. I recommend this book highly.
This book started slow but built in pace and intensity towards the massive explosion that was the ending. The amount of magic that was unleashed and used in this book was utterly staggering. I really enjoyed reading each of the characters pov which Is strange for me as I usually hate at least one character. The story was really interesting and came together really well in the end. I recommend this book highly.
ryter89's review against another edition
5.0
This was pretty damn good. I really enjoyed everything about this. It's a great quest story filled with swords, sorcery, history, comedy, and other classic fantasy elements. I'm really interested in the gods and I hope to learn more about them and their followers in the rest o the series. Mottel reminded me of a more ridiculous Merlin from the Disney Sword in the Stone. He's a great character. I loved all the characters. I can't wait to read the next book!
veronica87's review against another edition
3.0
Well, this started out well enough...an interesting world and four POV characters to guide us through it...but by the midway point it just seemed to be all show and no real substance. There's a Prince, a Priestess, a Guardian with Jedi-like powers (™ Star Wars), and a demi-goddess (?) who are all more or less on converging paths to defeat a crazy coot mage with his very own Precious (™ Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien). The problem is there is no real character development going on in 700 pages worth of story so what we're left with is a really long road trip tale that just moves from one fight scene to the next. Good news for fight scene aficionados but a bit lacking if you want more from your fantasy story than just action. It wasn't bad but some decent character development would have made this into something...more.
millymollymo's review against another edition
4.0
Most Fantasy tales follow a pre-determined arc. A group of characters are given a quest and have to run off to save the world and generally said group gets spilt up along the way only to meet back up again in the final chapters.
Marc Turner switches this about, the confident writing was strong enough to keep me turning pages when I realised the 'usual' path I thought I would be following with Luker and the other party members had been abandoned. That's not to say the author threw out all the tropes, much of what Fantasy demands is still present as the various factions work to their own goals.
This book found its way onto my shelves as a 'freebie' but I wouldn't have regretted paying for it. When the Heavens Fall is well worth reading, especially if you want to step away from the usual expectations.
I look forward to purchasing the sequel.
Marc Turner switches this about, the confident writing was strong enough to keep me turning pages when I realised the 'usual' path I thought I would be following with Luker and the other party members had been abandoned. That's not to say the author threw out all the tropes, much of what Fantasy demands is still present as the various factions work to their own goals.
This book found its way onto my shelves as a 'freebie' but I wouldn't have regretted paying for it. When the Heavens Fall is well worth reading, especially if you want to step away from the usual expectations.
I look forward to purchasing the sequel.
ctgt's review against another edition
4.0
I picked this up after seeing a comparison to the Malazan series and while that comparison is a bit of a stretch I did enjoy the book. While there are plenty of gods, The Spider goddess, Shroud-ruler of the underworld, The Antlered God-Lord of the Hunt and loads of magic, mages and sorcerers there is not much of a military angle. So don’t go in expecting the second coming of Malazan but if you like gods and magic I think you will enjoy the book.
Seems one of the mages from the Black Tower has found the long fabled Book of the Dead and intends to unlock its mysteries and challenge Shroud for the underworld. No one thinks this is in their best interests. Humans from the kingdoms of Galatia and Sartor reluctantly band together while the Spider goddess and her high priestess, Romany, weave a literal web of deceit and misdirection. The mysterious Parolla also works her way to the mage for her own personal vendetta.
While there are no real large scale military battles fought there are plenty of smaller skirmishes so you have plenty of action, gods, magic, intrigue, double crossing and necromancy. Sound like your cuppa’?
I enjoyed it
8/10
Seems one of the mages from the Black Tower has found the long fabled Book of the Dead and intends to unlock its mysteries and challenge Shroud for the underworld. No one thinks this is in their best interests. Humans from the kingdoms of Galatia and Sartor reluctantly band together while the Spider goddess and her high priestess, Romany, weave a literal web of deceit and misdirection. The mysterious Parolla also works her way to the mage for her own personal vendetta.
While there are no real large scale military battles fought there are plenty of smaller skirmishes so you have plenty of action, gods, magic, intrigue, double crossing and necromancy. Sound like your cuppa’?
I enjoyed it
8/10
vinayvasan's review
3.0
3.5 stars actually
This is a fantastically ambitious book only matched by how difficult it is to access the book. Immense in scale while focusing on a single conflict, When The Heavens Fall can truly be compared to Malazan: Book of the Fallen.
Like Malazan (I might keep saying that through this review), it pretty much starts in media res. You land right smack in the middle of an unrest, and features 4 apparently disparate storylines that converge (duh) but its never quite as simple. It takes almost more than half of the book before the first storyline converges and then diverges almost immediately. This is a story featuring jealous insecure wheeling-dealing gods, psychotic power hungry capricious necromancers, young inexperienced possibly possessed king, a guardian warrior, a spider goddess' pawn a on a quest along with an assortment of other interested parties making a play for a great object of power that could topple gods. As I said, single conflict but immense in scope
The pacing of the book is rather measured. Its not the usual breathless stuff and what Marc Turner does really well is show us all characters in a single chapter. That takes care of the narrative speed and heft as you just spend enough time with the character to keep you hooked in.
But be warned its not an easy read. Its challenging and complex and possibly unwieldy until it all starts coming together. The world building is a bit patchy, well developed in a few regards, minimal in others.
That being said, its difficult to believe its actually a debut novel. The confidence to tackle such an ambitious plot sets the bar very high indeed for book 2. On we go to it next
This is a fantastically ambitious book only matched by how difficult it is to access the book. Immense in scale while focusing on a single conflict, When The Heavens Fall can truly be compared to Malazan: Book of the Fallen.
Like Malazan (I might keep saying that through this review), it pretty much starts in media res. You land right smack in the middle of an unrest, and features 4 apparently disparate storylines that converge (duh) but its never quite as simple. It takes almost more than half of the book before the first storyline converges and then diverges almost immediately. This is a story featuring jealous insecure wheeling-dealing gods, psychotic power hungry capricious necromancers, young inexperienced possibly possessed king, a guardian warrior, a spider goddess' pawn a on a quest along with an assortment of other interested parties making a play for a great object of power that could topple gods. As I said, single conflict but immense in scope
The pacing of the book is rather measured. Its not the usual breathless stuff and what Marc Turner does really well is show us all characters in a single chapter. That takes care of the narrative speed and heft as you just spend enough time with the character to keep you hooked in.
But be warned its not an easy read. Its challenging and complex and possibly unwieldy until it all starts coming together. The world building is a bit patchy, well developed in a few regards, minimal in others.
That being said, its difficult to believe its actually a debut novel. The confidence to tackle such an ambitious plot sets the bar very high indeed for book 2. On we go to it next
tomlloyd's review
3.0
An impressive and polished début that reads like a love-letter to Steven Erikson.
There's a lot to admire about this book, it deftly handles the multi-character threads converging on the same place, the writing is assured and the energy it brings enough to sustain the pace of the book. There were areas that didn't quite work for me, hence only liking the book rather than loving it. The whole thing reads like an extended final third of an Erikson novel, the convergence of unbelievably powerful beings and titanic battles between them. There's little in the way of build up to that however, just journeying to the final battle really, leaving me with the sensation that I'd missed the prequel short novel where Mayot stole the book etc. Most of the deaths are nameless beings or non-superpowered guards/attendants, which lessens the impact of it all - i appreciate that to get through all this action and sorcery you need to be exceptional but having been presented with a selection of wizards and warriors on magical steroids I found it hard to connect with any of them.
Parolla and Romany were the ones I liked best, Luker was mostly too much of a generic warrior dude (despite his magic standing up to astonishing assault and somehow matching everything that hit it without much idea of how the Will magic differed to other types) and Ebon suffere the same problem in his young leader figure archetype.
In some ways there was just too much power and varied unnatural abilities going on here, it all being a drawn-out final scene with the first part of the book lost, but it did manage to sustain that right to the end and I'm glad I stuck with it.
There's a lot to admire about this book, it deftly handles the multi-character threads converging on the same place, the writing is assured and the energy it brings enough to sustain the pace of the book. There were areas that didn't quite work for me, hence only liking the book rather than loving it. The whole thing reads like an extended final third of an Erikson novel, the convergence of unbelievably powerful beings and titanic battles between them. There's little in the way of build up to that however, just journeying to the final battle really, leaving me with the sensation that I'd missed the prequel short novel where Mayot stole the book etc. Most of the deaths are nameless beings or non-superpowered guards/attendants, which lessens the impact of it all - i appreciate that to get through all this action and sorcery you need to be exceptional but having been presented with a selection of wizards and warriors on magical steroids I found it hard to connect with any of them.
Parolla and Romany were the ones I liked best, Luker was mostly too much of a generic warrior dude (despite his magic standing up to astonishing assault and somehow matching everything that hit it without much idea of how the Will magic differed to other types) and Ebon suffere the same problem in his young leader figure archetype.
In some ways there was just too much power and varied unnatural abilities going on here, it all being a drawn-out final scene with the first part of the book lost, but it did manage to sustain that right to the end and I'm glad I stuck with it.
michaelrfletcher's review
5.0
Truly epic magical battles.
Highly recommended for anyone into epic fantasy with a dark edge.
Highly recommended for anyone into epic fantasy with a dark edge.
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