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A review by fantasmariana
The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins
3.0
The Last Days of Magic by Mark Tompkins seemed like the kind of book that had all of the elements that I really enjoy reading. As a huge fan of Irish folklore, I was very excited to get into it.
The story is mainly set in the 1300s, however there are a couple of leaps to the present day that at first, I thought would be very relevant to the plot but sadly ended up feeling odd and unnecessary.
In this book, we follow a vast amount of characters. Arguably, the main character might be Aisling, one of the human reincarnations of the triple goddess Morrigna. She's the one that's supposed to unite Celts and Sidhes (faeries and magical beings), and to guarantee a peaceful coexistence among these races. However, when something happens that jeopardizes this alliance, some of the Sidhes take advantage of the willingness of the Vatican and England to invade Ireland to start a war.
The author has an incredible knowledge of history and folklore. However, this doesn't translate well to the story. He's so interested in explaining historical events or rites, that sometimes the story becomes very slowpaced and even boring. The huge amount of characters can be somewhat confusing, and some of them just seem to be there to fit an immediate necessity but then vanish (like Ty and some of the witches) and end up not having a real repercussion in the story.
For example, the whole storyline about the witches had so much potential and -in my opinion- ended up very badly.
I think that the main problem I had with this book is that it was full of great ideas, but there were so many of them that they were eclipsed by each other. Character development wasn't particularly good either, since there were so many of them.
Connecting the Irish myths with the Christian tradition was something that the author really nailed (even when I had a little trouble following up everything) and as I said before, the research and historical knowledge of Tompkins is amazing.
Hopefully for his following books the author will learn that less is more.
Note: I received an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Viking Books and Edelweiss.
The story is mainly set in the 1300s, however there are a couple of leaps to the present day that at first, I thought would be very relevant to the plot but sadly ended up feeling odd and unnecessary.
In this book, we follow a vast amount of characters. Arguably, the main character might be Aisling, one of the human reincarnations of the triple goddess Morrigna. She's the one that's supposed to unite Celts and Sidhes (faeries and magical beings), and to guarantee a peaceful coexistence among these races. However, when something happens that jeopardizes this alliance, some of the Sidhes take advantage of the willingness of the Vatican and England to invade Ireland to start a war.
The author has an incredible knowledge of history and folklore. However, this doesn't translate well to the story. He's so interested in explaining historical events or rites, that sometimes the story becomes very slowpaced and even boring. The huge amount of characters can be somewhat confusing, and some of them just seem to be there to fit an immediate necessity but then vanish (like Ty and some of the witches) and end up not having a real repercussion in the story.
For example, the whole storyline about the witches had so much potential and -in my opinion- ended up very badly.
I think that the main problem I had with this book is that it was full of great ideas, but there were so many of them that they were eclipsed by each other. Character development wasn't particularly good either, since there were so many of them.
Connecting the Irish myths with the Christian tradition was something that the author really nailed (even when I had a little trouble following up everything) and as I said before, the research and historical knowledge of Tompkins is amazing.
Hopefully for his following books the author will learn that less is more.
Note: I received an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Viking Books and Edelweiss.