The Deathless (Deathless Series, book 1)
By Peter Newman
Blurb:
From one of fantasy’s biggest recent breakthrough authors comes an exciting, brand new series.
The demons…
In the endless forests of the Wild, humanity scratches a living by the side of the great Godroads, paths of crystal that provide safe passage and hold back the infernal tide. Creatures lurk within the trees, watching, and plucking those who stray too far from safety.
The Deathless…
In crystal castles held aloft on magical currents, seven timeless royal families reign, protecting humanity from the spread of the Wild and its demons. Born and reborn into flawless bodies, the Deathless are as immortal as the precious stones from which they take their names. For generations a fragile balance has held.
And the damned…
House Sapphire, one of the ancient Deathless families, is riven by suspicion and madness. Whole villages are disappearing as the hunting expeditions holding the Wild at bay begin to fail.
Then, when assassins strike, House Sapphire shatters.
Nothing lasts forever.
The Deathless is the first novel in an astonishing new series from Gemmell award-winning author Peter Newman.
This book was probably the hardest book I’ve ever tried to review. Some moments were good and I wanted to rate it 3 or 4 stars and then others were really bad which made me want to rate it 1. When I finished the book, I made the realisation that I wouldn’t want to reread it in the future, so that made me settle with 2.5 stars. It wasn’t the worst book but some scenes I really didn’t enjoy. I’ll now explain what I did and didn’t like about this book.
When I first started reading the book, I was instantly in love with the writing style. I liked how it flowed, it was descriptive but not unnecessary descriptive. The book dove straight into the story so this made it nice and fast paced. I couldn’t fault the way it was written, except for the occasional dialogue was lacking the same niceties.
Something I didn’t like about the book was the chapter sizes. They were so long. I think each chapter basically would show each main characters perspective at least once in it. I think the perspectives should have been separate chapters, they were big enough as they were.
The main characters were Vasin one of the deathless, Pari another deathless, Chandni an honoured mother and Chandni’s baby Satyendra. I enjoyed Chandi’s storyline the most, I liked her character the best. The worst perspective which really changed my appreciation for the book was Satyendra’s. He was a tiny baby that couldn’t even talk yet. It was just not something I wanted in the book, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the author didn’t include what the baby was thinking. Knowing the baby's thoughts is what made it weird. I don’t know, I just didn’t like it and it put me off the book everytime it happened.
The main plot was that Vasin was trying to kill off Rochant’s (another deathless) vessels so he couldn’t come back from the dead, so he could make his mother a deathless again. Chandni’s baby, Satyendra was one of the vessels that was trying to survive. Pari was trying to help Chandni. So the book shows us all of these different aspects of the story. Which I quite liked but sometimes it could be a bit confusing. Satyendra’s storyline was very confusing, he kind of split into two babies, one being chased by demons and the other sticking with Chandni.
Speaking of confusion, the families in this series confused me. There are 5 family houses which takes to 50% of the book to get the full list. Some houses have more power than others. The Sapphire family tree was really confusing and I’m pretty sure each family was interbred.
Something that did annoy me about the writing style was the way animals were addressed. All of the animals had kin on the end of their name for no reason as I could see. Such as dogkin, slugkin etc. Just not necessary. It wasn’t till near the end of the book that I realised the dogs were half human but it wasn’t explained well enough before. Does that mean all animals are half human and that's why they have kin on the end? It was annoying to me.
*SPOILERS*
There was some good twists in the book. One I like was when Fiya, a person who lived in the trees of the wild who helped Chandni then unexpectedly betrayed her and her companions and tried to trap them in a hole. This was made further interesting when Chandni killed Fiya.
A twist I didn’t like was Devdan’s attempt to strangle the baby, it’s a bit brutal to be honest to read about. I know he couldn’t spill blood but to strangle a baby is a bit off putting to read. The baby survived but not the point really.
Another twist I did like was when Pari was about to face Vasin in a fight, but she was so tired she pretty much asked for a time out to catch her breath. However, I did expect the fight to happen later but it didn’t. Vasin just easily gave in and Pari managed to persuade his mother with a new plan to defeat Rochant. Like it was cool seeing Pari turn on him because she found out Vasin’s mother also had an affair with him but it was done in such an anti-climatic way. It was clearly just purely a set up for the next book.
Overall, I think I could have rated this book 3 stars because of the writing style and the overall plot but due to the baby perspective and the terrible ending, I have to settle with 2.5 stars. The next book is rated higher than the first on goodreads, so maybe I’ll enjoy that one better, I will let you’s know.
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