Reviews

The Godbreaker by Mike Brooks

thatssoleo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

hiking_reader's review

3.5

My journey into The God-King Chronicles  begin in November of 2022 with a small buddy read of The Black Coast. From that group I might have been the only one that has continued the series which I wrapped up in January of 2024. It's been a bit of a winding road as I continued to circle back around slowly got through the second and third books. I feel that The Godbreaker is a solid continuation of the series. I'll explain what I mean by that as the review continues.

The pacing of this book as well as the series overall is done well. There is plenty of ebb and flow throughout. I never felt like any of these books were really a slog to get through. The only thing that I've mentioned previously which is still an issue for myself when reading this story is the dialog. I do feel this is more of a me issue and it might actually help others immerse themselves into the story even more. For me it was just very distracting and kept me from really getting into that mode. I'm speaking of the use of phrases when a character is speaking of themselves and say things like "this man" or "your husband" or "this thane". This is probably my biggest hangup with the series.

The world building was the strongest aspect of this book and the series in general for me. This seemed like such a massive world even if we do get a bit more tunnel vision in the final installment here as we bring everything to a nice conclusion. We still have a good mix of magic and martial elements to the story. We have plenty of political and religious intrigue. All of these things check off some of my favorites when looking for a good fantasy read. I also didn't mind the slightly different take on dragons from the usual fantasy norm with this world.

The character development was solid as well. We have several good character arcs in The Godbreaker and bringing several full circle to that nice conclusion previously mentioned. There are some great characters in this tale, even if I couldn't find myself connecting deeply with any of them.

As you can see this looks like it would be right up my alley. But that one hang up was so big it just prevented me from settling into the story and feeling like I was there. It just constantly kept me on the surface where I felt at times I just didn't really care about the characters or the story. I don't want to discourage other readers from giving this series a try. I think if you fall into that camp where that type of dialog works for you, this might be a great epic journey for you to step into. I still don't regret reading any of these three books in the series. They still stack up as good in my mind, it's just not something I can see myself revisiting to perform a reread in the future.

paracyclops's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The concluding book of Mike Brooks' God-king chronicles, The God breaker is an entertaining epic fantasy that subverts a few of the genre's tropes. It's a sweeping, multi-perspective epic, but one in which some of the threads fail to connect at all at the conclusion, and in which the genre's usual offering of a dramatic, heroic, and violent solution to the problem of 'evil' is radically undercut. Brooks is also rigorous in his dedication to queer representation, and his questioning of gender norms, using his very plausible worldbuilding to explore those themes without needing to force them. All this doesn't make The God breaker a particularly 'deep' novel—these are its terms of reference, and as a story it's a straightforward multi-thread narrative, with its thematic materials all right there on the surface. Personally, although I like long books, I like them a bit denser and more unpredictable than this, but it's an absolutely exemplary bit of epic fantasy novel-making, and for readers of that genre who crave something more in line with contemporary mores than its monumental classics, this will be right on the money.

gay's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

kaine_'s review against another edition

adventurous hopeful medium-paced

3.25

shiningpalm's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

skauing's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious relaxing sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

cathepsut's review

adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

The final book of this trilogy. Also very good. And quite a few plot bunnies at the end to allow for more entertaining books in this world. All the loose ends are tied up nicely. Some shocking incidents. One particular shock was hard to come to terms with. It was not the ending I had envisioned, but that isn‘t a bad thing.

Those were my initial thoughts. I need to digest it all for a bit, as I listened to the last 40% of the book very quickly (for me). Very good trilogy. I will keep my eyes open for more of the author.

rhysciar's review against another edition

This broke my heart. This is definitely my fault, because right now, I'm in a reading slump. This should be a fast paced, action packed book, but every time I picked this up, I felt like I was doing chores. I just simply lost my connection with the characters, because at this point, I just don't care about them. (Also the fact that almost every MC was either gay/lesbian/trans just made me cringe so hard, because after three books, it felt forced.)

scorpiobookfairy's review

adventurous tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No

3.0

I did not enjoy the ending of the trilogy...

it felt like the author got to the end, realized they didn't kill anyone important and picked someone important and gave them the most pathetic death possible

The last few chapters were so boring, where was the real battles... what was the point of Jeya and Bulang...

I kept thinking their story would somehow influence the end, but it didn't... it was like it was just a side quest I shouldn't have even cared about.

Disappointed...