"Lost Gods" by Micah Yongo is a debut that plunges readers into a richly built world inspired by African mythology and lore. Yongo presents a tapestry of intrigue, betrayal, and spiritual questing through the eyes of a young assassin caught in the web of ancient deities and political machinations. The novel's strength lies in its imaginative setting and the depth of its cultural references, offering a fresh perspective in the fantasy genre. However, some readers may find the pacing uneven and the multitude of characters and factions challenging to track. Despite these hurdles, "Lost Gods" is a promising start, showcasing Yongo's potential to craft compelling, culturally nuanced narratives.

I am beginning to think that I am just not interested in reading epic fantasies.

<em>Lost Gods</em> by Micah Yongo takes the traditional epic fantasy themes and attaches them to African legends and mythology.

Neythan is a teenager who is being trained as an assassin with the elite but mysterious brotherhood of assassins known as the Shedaím. Nethayn assumed this brotherhood would stick by him for the rest of his life but when one of his closest friends is murdered and he is framed for the killing, Neythan tries to prove his innocence by going after his accuser while avoiding the rest of the brotherhood who are now looking for him. What Neythan discovers is that there is much more to the Shedaím brotherhood than he imagined.

I started off really interested in this book. The uniqueness of the African sensibility that Yongo brings to a fairly standard fantasy story was really intriguing and engaging. And then he got into the world-building aspect and slowed everything down so that everything could be explained. This seems a pretty common trait in epic fantasies. Some people really seem to like it, others, such as myself, don't.

The story seems to take a back seat to the sense of awe ... look where we are ... look at all this that's different from what we know. Just as we start to get a progression of character and story, we get pulled away from it in order to be presented with something new, never quite letting us establish real interest or real involvement with what's being presented.

I just wrote "being presented" and it strikes me that this is another factor that is common in a lot of high or epic fantasy. We're often presented with a story, rather than being pulled into one. I was drawn in here right at the start, but I was slowly pushed to the side as the book went on.

Hopefully the next volume will give us a little more chance to get involved, now that the setting is established, because I really did like the potential and the start here.

Looking for a good book? Lost Gods by Micah Yongo is an epic fantasy that follows a 'non-traditional' path, taking its roots from African legend rather than European, but gets a little bogged down in the world-building.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a refreshing new concept that i absolutly loved . I fell in love with the characters and the plot kept me thoroughly engaged. I woulf highly recomend this book.

Pros: epic worldbuilding, tense plot that more drags than carries you through the book, not afraid to get gritty or dark

Cons: having the sole female assassin betray the main character by killing his best friend almost feels a little trope-y and almost took me out of the book

I loved all the little fiddly details, I loved the wide expanse of different cultures that were drawn from to build this fantasy, overall a good read!

his book is an African high fantasy novel that follows the story of an assassin who has been betrayed by those he grew up with.
This book sounded like it had a lot of potential but sadly it fell short for me and I DNFed it at page 102 for a variety of reasons. Firstly this book is extremely slow paced to the point that I felt bored when reading. The writing in this was also quite dry and full of info dumps. This story has multiple POVs which normally I love but I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters and wasn’t invested in any of their stories.
On top of this at the beginning of the book we are introduced to a deaf character only to have them die as a way of furthering the development of one of the other characters which I was not okay with.
Overall, while this book had potential personally I couldn’t get into.

I had some trouble with this book, not least because the eARC I received was glitchy and missing a fair number of pages throughout. That aside, the book did feel as though it needed a stronger editorial hand, with numerous problems at both the sentence and the plot level that diminished my enjoyment of the narrative. I think the concept is spectacular, but the execution left much to be desired. That said, I will be tracking down a physical copy at some point in the future to determine if significant changes were made before final publication.

I will give credit where credit is due. Sometime's Yongo's prose was quite beautiful to read and especially his descriptions of scenery were lush and gave me a sense of place.

However, that alone does not a balanced story make.
I had a lot of trouble with plot and characters. First of all, there are so many point of views in the book, that it results in very thinly developed characters. Also some characters that would have sorely needed pov's never got any.

A lot of the time the characters are doing simple day to day activities and laying low in villages which completely killed the urgency of the story. They take up side quests which do nothing to either develop their own characters or further the story along and end up feeling like unnecessary padding. Doubly unnecessary as the book is quite short.

The author also keeps building up tension which never gets resolved. It just builds, builds, builds and never really gets a conclusion and diffusion it would have required to give the reader a satisfying journey through the story.
The end with the antagonist, quite frankly, ends up feeling like it was pulled from a hat, because there was little to no foreshadowing, no development and by the end it left me going: "Oh...That's it?"

The worldbuilding also felt a bit shallow. There's a lot of names and random lore dropped throughout the book, but I never had a sense of developed culture or rich history. It felt like the author could have taken a page from the Iceberg theory of Hemingway, because as it is the worldbuilding was incredibly surface level.

Hello. Sorry for the delay. Our Editor in Chief was caught up in his day job. Unfortunately we don't make money at Grimdark Magazine yet. Anyhow, the review has just been posted on our website here: http://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/review-lost-gods-by-micah-yongo/ . Our reviews have been averaging more than 600 views. Thanks again. Mike.

Lost Gods is the debut novel by Micah Yongo. It features a Brotherhood of assassins caught in an ancient and escalating battle between the Sovereignty and the Fellowship of Truths. It is an action packed epic fantasy filled with simple but beautiful imagery and language, diverse characters, African-tinged medievalism, mystery, intrigue, and wisdom that far exceeds the expectations of a debut novel. It is also unabashedly the first in a series, so don’t expect anything even remotely resembling closure at its end, where it seems the story is just beginning. But with its many threaded plots and wide cast of motivated characters, Lost Gods should be right up the alley for lovers of Game of Thrones and Malazan.

The story follows several characters who barely even meet up by the novel’s end. Nevertheless, their individual threads are interesting and revealing, though shrouded in a mystery they don’t understand. Perhaps foremost among the cast is Neythan, a young assassin of the Brotherhood, presumably in his late teens, who is aided on his quest for truth by a mentor, Caleb. Like all members of the brotherhood, Neythan has knife-fighting, stealth, and acrobatic skills. Neythan and his fellow assassin, Arianna, are accused of killing their brother assassin, Yannick, and are hunted by the Brotherhood. Two more of their brethren, twin brothers Josef and Daneel are charged with assassinating a local governor, Hassan, though they do not know why. Hassan’s wife, Yasmin, becomes an important thread in the story as she tries to protect their child and figure out, like the reader will, what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, the young Sharif Sidon, king of the entire region, is about to be wed to the mysterious daughter of an ally he’s never met, which will end the regency of his powerful mother, the Sharifa Clarisse. As if this weren’t enough, the Sharifa’s steward, Elias, is more than he seems and is definitely up to something. In addition to this main cast are various fantastical elements — Watchers, Elders, hidden ancient magic, and the promise of Beasts – that add a supernatural element to the story. It’s enough to challenge even the most focused of readers to keep it all together, but much is revealed toward the end to tie these disparate stories together and prepare the reader for volumes to come.

Not only will lovers of plot complexity enjoy Lost Gods, but Yongo imbues the story with delightful sensory and figurative language that sets this novel head and shoulders above more run-of-the-mill storytelling. When Neythan enters a vortex beneath a waterfall, Yongo writes, “[I]t took a moment for him to realize the ground had become a metallic and silky plane, undulating slowly like a half frozen sea. The ripples seemed to move across both it and the sky as one, as though they were somehow joined, their pulses spreading from some hidden point on the horizon.” Not only is it a captivating image typical of Yongo’s highly engaging writing, but it also captures the ‘sense of wonder’ that is integral to speculative fiction. Throughout Lost Gods the sights, sounds, smells, and tactile images are created with style and depth. And Yongo harbors no fear of figurative turn the tongue; he describes a minstrel: “a small bird-boned man with narrow wrists and nimble fingers that danced over the strings like a scrambling crab…” Yongo’s dialogue is equally well wrought, entertaining, witty, and displays a knowledge of fighting and weaponry, here describing a friendly argument between Neythan and Arianna about which assassin is more skilled.

[Arianna begins:] “I’m better than you with the sword.”

[Neythan:] “Debatable.”

“Crossbow.”

“Perhaps”

“Longbow.”

“Definitely not. When we began maybe, but we were children. The tale has changed a fair way since then.”

“I ride faster than you.”

“You’re smaller than me.”

“So you’ll take the aid it [size] grants your longbow but not the speed it grants my horse?”

Neythan smiled, shrugged concedingly. He looked back to the bonfire. “I’m still the better cook.”

All of the main characters, and some of the minor ones, carry on equally fun and characteristic banter throughout the novel, which provides effective character differentiation as well as varied entertainment. No, it’s not perfect: There are occasional and thankfully rare moments of lumbering syntax, obvious alliteration, and an info-dump here and there, but overall the language works wonderfully throughout the novel.

Yongo also expertly uses dialogue to carry the thematic content of the novel, presenting thought-provoking questions without slowing the narrative. For example, Neythan believes in the power of the Gods, but Caleb holds a more existentialist worldview, insisting, “There is no order. No great law to it all, no perfect, pleasing way from which things have fallen. There are only men and women, with their greed and their pain and their pleasures . . .” Similarly, Caleb reflects on feeling that most of us here at Grimdark Magazine consider to be part of what we call grimdark: “There is no right. No law. Man is without reason, save for whatever reason serves his belly and that fog, and the desires that lie beneath it.” Nevertheless, the idea of what’s morally right becomes central to another assassin, Daneel, as he finds he must try to account with his intuition versus his duty. Finally, Caleb espouses a view that is common to much great grimdark, especially the six novels of Abercrombie’s First Law ‘trilogy’, when he says, “Vengeance, Neythan. Only vengeance. That is all the world is.” It’s a remarkable sequence of disparate worldviews, laid plain by simple and deep dialogue. Yongo’s characters likewise discuss loyalty, truth, family, and other emotionally important issues with seriousness and candour while avoiding sappy sentimentalism, making for an enjoyable, meaningful read.

Yes, Lost Gods appears to be the beginning of an epic fantasy, but this should not deter fans of grimdark. There are definitely some important characteristics of grimdark at play here, especially the morally grey quagmire the assassins find themselves in and the no-good-choice decisions they are forced to make, as well as the complicated conflicts that several other characters, especially Yasmin and Sidon, must confront. It all makes for a fun, engaging, intelligent, and complex read, even if it is only the beginning. Highly recommended.

Lost Gods was published in the US by Angry Robot on 3 July 2018.

Lost Gods is a fantasy built in epic proportions, about a world where a new kingdom has banished all religion, and pockets of magic still remain. Said to be inspired by African and Middle-Eastern cultures, there is a lot of familiarity with respect to the societies and cultures lovingly described in it, but you wouldn’t recognize any of the places mentioned except for Sumeria. In the Sovereign, power is centralized in a sharif, who has control over a league of assassins called the Shedaim. This story takes us on a politically fueled, adventure laden, magic filled journey through various characters including the protagonist Neythan, who is one of the newest assassins from the Brotherhood; another the wife of a city’s Steward (or something like that); the young ascendant sharif who is barely 15, and is trying to worm out from underneath his mother’s political influence.

Due to the multiple character POV, the story is multi-faceted and for the most part (like the first half of the book) I had no clue where the story was going for the other characters; only Neythan’s arc was straightforward as in the blurb – he was searching for his classmate Arianne who killed his best friend and framed him. While chasing her, he meets Caleb, an exile from the Brotherhood and who agrees to help him search in exchange for help with his own revenge. But for the sharif, it wasn’t clear what his POV was for until like two-thirds of the book. I must say, any satisfaction that came from things finally making sense in the last quarter of the book was marred by the confusion I was wading through for the major part of the book.

The world-building of the book is detailed at times, going into simple courtesies and etiquette during conversations, food customs, and all that did add to the vibrancy of the Sovereign and the surrounding kingdom, but it also made for a very slow moving plot. The pace was glacial, and coupled with the fact that it wasn’t clear what it was working up to, besides the character development, I will say it took me way more time to finish this than I would have had. The writing style is lush and the characterization peppered with slight sarcastic humor when it came to Neythan, and Caleb, and cheek when it came to Arianne, and had the mischievous temperament of Daneel developing into a conscience and the obedient Yosef turning into blind evil. The ending was resolved for one thing, but a lot of things were only built up for perhaps the next book so I wasn’t entirely satisfied as I had more questions by the time the climax rolled around.

Overall, it is a wonderfully constructed fantasy, but I wish it did more of the adventure than the world building, and provided more excitement and entertainment to be an enjoyable read.

I really wanted to like Lost Gods, but unfortunately, this one just didn't really work for me.

It has a lot of potential and a really interesting concept. It's a high fantasy centred around a secret Brotherhood of assassins, features piles of political intrigue and is set in a Middle Eastern/African-inspired world. I'm not really sure why it failed to click. I think partly it was that the author has perhaps leant too far towards exposition and explanation? There were quite a lot of scenes that didn't seem necessary -- lots of journeying, lots of seemingly irrelevant things going on -- that I felt could have been cut to streamline the story. There might have been too many characters, I'm not entirely sure. I do know that while there are a couple that stood out to me, largely the characters felt rather two-dimensional and shallow. I'm not sure if having fewer characters would have allowed Yongo to go into more depth on the ones he did keep.

I still think this series (it's not listed on Goodreads but I'm pretty sure it's a series) has potential, and I think fans of high-fantasy might get more out of it. I sort of get the same feeling I did when people were talking about the first Song of Ice and Fire novel. I think there are so many characters, so many POV shifts, it's hard to really get to know anyone, which makes it hard to feel any kind of investment in the political intrigue going on. I think if you were to continue with the series, and the characters got more page-time, then maybe it would become more compelling as you went along.

Unfortunately, I found myself skimming through parts of Lost Gods. It just didn't hold my attention and it was a chore to go back to. I'm probably not going to pick up the next book in the series, but if it sounds like something that would interest you, then I recommend you give it a try because I can see the appeal.

I have many conflicting thoughts about Lost Gods. A large reason for that is because I was almost constantly wavering between losing interest and wondering if I should stop reading this book and then finding myself once again pulled back into the story and wanting to know what's going to happen next.

Lost Gods has a fascinating premise and an extremely enticing setting--a fantasy inspired by African legends and set in an African-inspired world. I am always looking for new fantasy like this, so I really hoped this would be another winner in that department. But as I mentioned, I'm conflicted. It took me quite a while to get into this book. The first couple chapters were interesting enough, but then things just started to feel over-saturated with information and my mind kept wandering because I wasn't yet invested enough in the characters or plot to understand or even care. On the positive side, Yongo created an extremely intricate and detailed fantasy kingdom that has plenty of intrigue, both political and otherwise. On he negative side, however, was that there was almost too much at times and it was extremely difficult to keep up with all the names and places, and I struggled with knowing what was important to the plot and what was just added to give more depth to the world. The first one-third to one-half of this book is really just slow. If you have the time and patience, then hold on because it does eventually start to pick up, but it is a lot to ask people to stick around and wait for something to happen.

Despite the difficulty with becoming invested with the plot, the premise and details of the plot itself are actually incredibly interesting. Yongo is clearly a clever writer that knows how to include twists that keep the readers guessing while also subtly building up elements that will play into later events in the book.

The characters, much like the rest of the book, also took some time to grow on me. It's not that they aren't interesting, it's just that there's nothing about them that initially engages me and makes me want to invest my time. However, as with the plot itself, once you get further into the story things start to sort of fall into place and the characters and their personalities really start to come through. Neythan is our main protagonist and he's your typical guy that is training to be part of a certain organization, experiences something completely unexpected, and then struggles to learn to deal with new truths and realizations that are presented to him. He grows in a lot of ways throughout this book, which gave him a lot of depth and made him a compelling character to follow--for the most the part, at least. I enjoyed being a part of the Neythan's journey in this book, even if he was a bit stubborn at times (what protagonist isn't, really?)

My favorite character however, is probably a man named Caleb that Neythan runs into in the first portion of his story. The two end up journeying together for quite a while, and while they journey we get to enjoy Caleb's many sarcastic remarks and his overall incredible personality. Caleb really saved a lot of this story for me because of how much he brought everything together and sort of connected a lot of lines, plus he added so much enjoyment and wisdom to every scene he was in.

There are many more characters featured in this story, and there are also many POV and location switches throughout--perhaps too many. I couldn't ever really keep track of how many different perspectives we visited, nor was there much regularity to which POV was going to be which chapter, so this actually started to irritate me a bit throughout the story.

Yongo has a detailed, well-written style of writing that, although often filled with a lot of detail and descriptions, is also compelling and able to draw the reader in. The only drawback to his writing style is that it is a bit inconsistent and I felt I wavered too much between enjoying and not enjoying.

Although there were many things that irritated me and drew me out of the story, I have to be hoenst and say there was also just as much pulling me in and driving me to finish the book. Because of this, I'm torn on how to rate it. I'm giving it somewhere between three-four stars because at the end of the day, I did choose to keep reading this book and I did appreciate the intricate plot that Yongo developed. I would recommend this to fantasy fans that have plenty of patience and are willing to really take some time to become invested in this book.

Ultimately, this book is not for me. I had high hopes in the beginning — I blew through the first few chapters, breathless to follow Neythan and discover the secrets that Arianna held, but...then the first of many changes of POV began. I honestly had problems keeping track of who each new character was, and following the obviously layered and complex plot.

I began to lose interest and had to force myself to keep reading. Yongo shows great promise — his worldbuilding was detailed, Neythan was an excellent character, and the story here obviously is shaping up to be something bigger. Unfortunately, I decided that I needed to focus my time on other books at the present, so I gave up around 25%, after going back and re-reading the beginning multiple times due to putting the book down and not feeling terribly motivated to pick it back up. By the time I was ready to give it another try, I felt that I had forgottten too much, so I began again.

I very much wanted to like this book, and I am sure that there is an audience for it. Unfortunately, I am not a part of that demographic. I still give this three stars for the strengths that I mentioned above. Had Yongo elected to stay within Neythan’s POV, I have no doubt that I would have finished this book. I intend to revisit it in physical form, so that I will be able to more easily look back and recall the things that I previously read.

What a ride...If you have been searching for a novel that will give you an adrenaline rush as you read it and cause the minutes to drag slowly in between each read, this is the one for you! Characters live and breath; their world is vivid and their tale is exciting. Micah Yongo has written a Fantasy favorite; we hope he will be creating stories for years to come.

Lost Gods

Thanks Netgalley and Angry Robot for this copy of Lost Gods by Micah Yongo in exchange for my honest opinion. Releasing July 3, 2018

'For the dreamers' isn't that a wonderful dedication. Just that, 3 simple words and it made me happy. It made me wonder.

Just as I read the first page, I was instanty taken to Neythan's place. The first few words grabbed me and placed me in that same forested area. I can even imagine the insect bites! Next few pages and I learned that he is not a lonesome character, he belongs to group. He has a family, the brotherhood. Just the first chapter and it's action packed already. But as the story progressed the POV changes, that's where it got hard for me. Every chapter has a change of PoV, the setting changes, the characters changes, the place changes and the focus is taken away from Neythan. I understand that it gives the story more scope and maybe better world build-up but it took away from me the interest build-up. It disoriented me to be honest. Dont get me wrong though, the writing is good and gripping but the changes in setting in every chapter made me loose focus. Whenever it's getting interesting the chapter will end then oooopps wait change setting/POV. But if you love that kind of thing then good, it's just not for me. So letting go of that topic, I'll move on to Neythan's character development, I like how his character developed, he started out nervous and lets just say he turned skilled and mature. And I enjoyed Arianna's character she's head strong and capable. There are a lot of dark characters and a lot of good ones aswell (like I said there are so many different settings so a lot of characters too, Game of Thrones kind of many. And oooh I'm not comparing this to GoT all I'm saying is if GoT has lots of characters, this one has a lot aswell, just to be clear). Ohhh I hope the physical book gets a map.. It'll be awesome if it has a map, in my opinion atleast.
So to wrap it up this story has good potential and character build up, nice world building, good plot twist and conflict. But the constant change in setting is the one that didn't work for me. So i rated it 3/5.

There are books you like instantly and there are books that grow on you. Lost Gods is more of the latter for me. It sounded intriguing enough that I requested a review copy via NetGalley. And I liked it, it's not that I didn't. It was exciting and mystifying enough that I kept reading, though it wasn't gripping enough that I couldn't put it down. Yet after finishing it, the pervading feeling isn't one of satisfaction--it's one of confusion and mystification, if that's the right word. I feel lost.

Maybe it's the way Yongo writes. Backstories sometimes appear out of nowhere, triggered by a single random thought; the paragraphs, and even sentences, are long and dense; it's very rooted in African legends. I have not read enough African writings, so there is no ready shorthand that I am used to, not like when I read a "standard" Euro-centric fantasy and I already know what things are--or figure out what things are not--because it's what they've always been. This is good--I like it because it is new, it is fresh, it is exciting, and it's truly fantastic--but it is also not so good--because I don't always understand. Meanings flitter away from my grasp.

Still, it entertains. The mystery draws me in. I re-read parts of the beginning to find a better way to write this review, and I find myself finding gems and going - ah, I missed that the first time, that's what it means! So evidently there are layers to be uncovered here. I guess it is the journey of discovery that makes it hard for me to get this book as much as I would have liked.

I want to know but despite a revelation of sorts at the end, there is still much that seems shrouded in mystery. It's not a full revelation either--the major arc is mostly resolved, but the "bad guys" (so to speak) are still at large and there are warnings of devastation to come and vague hints to what Neythan is supposed to become so there's obviously going to be a book two.

Overall, I'd say Lost Gods might probably appeal more to readers who like more classic/literary/older fantasy styles, and not current YA readers who want quick, flashy and exciting. Though there is a lot of death, assassinating and betrayals.

A brotherhood of assassins? Inspired by African Legends? Supernatural conspiracy?

Consider me sold.

Lost Gods is a book with a fantastic premise, written by an exciting new author, and published by a pretty awesome publisher (Angry Robot).

Our “main” point-of-view character is Neythan, and we follow him as he makes his first kill for the brotherhood and receives his first real assignment. On the way to complete this assignment, Neythan’s best friend is murdered by another assassin and Neythan is framed for the murder. From here, he decides to hunt down his betrayer, while being hunted down by the Brotherhood himself.

Outside of the confines of the Brotherhood, Neythan’s world begins to grow. He begins to reconsider ‘truths’ that he’d taken for granted, and meet people that he wouldn’t otherwise have met. More importantly, he begins to question the doctrine of the Brotherhood. He might be an ultra-competent assassin, but he has this sense of vulnerability that makes you want to root for him.

There’s a good mix of plot and character-work here. The action never overshadows or outpaces the growth of the characters, but there is always enough story there to keep things interesting. Likewise, whenever there’s a lull in the action, the characters are interesting enough to carry the story.

I did notice, however, that Yongo has a bit of a tendency to start his chapters with a bit of an info-dump about the world and its history. Quite a few authors do this—including the likes of Robin Hobb—but I did feel that this exposition could perhaps have been woven into the story a little better. Rather than adding flavour and context, it sometimes seemed to throw off the pacing, and made it far too easy for me to put the book down between chapters.

But hey! If you’re a sucker for worldbuilding, then I bet you’ll love it.

Neythan isn’t the only point-of-view character in the book, with a few of the side-characters getting some screen time to show what’s going on in the wider world. While it can often be frustrating to POV-jump in a book that has a clear main character, I think that Yongo manages to pull it off. We see just enough of these other characters to tease us, to make us want to learn more about them, and then we are artfully distracted by the lure of the next chapter.

As you’d expect from an epic fantasy book about assassins, there’s quite a bit of fighting and killing going on. The combat scenes are exciting and engaging, written in an almost clinical fashion that focuses more on the technique than the emotion. This makes perfect sense considering that Neythan has been trained from birth to be an assassin, and it really adds a sense of legitimacy and competence to the character.

It’s clear that this is the first book of a series, and as a result the story isn’t really self-contained. Instead, it’s an intriguing opening to what looks to be a very exciting epic fantasy series, written by a very talented author.

<i>Lost Gods</i> is the debut novel by UK author Micah Yongo, and introduces an African-inspired fantasy setting full of political intrigue, mystery, violence, and conspiracy. A young man, Naythan, trained in a brotherhood of assassins finds himself dropped in the middle of a war he didn’t even know existed, with sides he barely understands, hunted and dogged by people he thought were his friends. A little slow-moving at the start, but it pulls you in inexorably as Naythan is drawn in turn into world sweeping events of consequence. <i>Lost Gods</i> is a debut with a lot of potential.

The opening of <i>Lost Gods</i> really set up a great story. A group of young friends, training together in a secret brotherhood of assassins, about to graduate and be sent on their first assignments? That, my friends, is pretty freaking cool. Then we move on to some political intrigue, a young teen Sharif, and lots of mysterious goings on. Everything seemed off to a great start.

I’ve stated more than once, my feeling about setting out to write a series. I’ve always felt that one should try to write a solid, engaging, and complete story, and if it happens to segue into an idea for a sequel, and the book is popular, then be happy and keep writing. The danger, when starting with a series, is that you either set your scope so big (After all you have ideas to fill 2, 3, 10 books!) that you give over too much of your first book to exposition and world building and not enough to plot, or you end up moving slower than a reader might like, giving the impression of saving your best bits for the later books.

Which is to say, after the intro, the book slowed down a lot. A lot of pages were given over to travel, and exposition dumps. You really shouldn’t find yourself in a position where a dead character reveals their entire whole backstory to a character in a letter they get after they die. While I thoroughly enjoy just how much is going on in this story, the attempts to communicate mysterious supernatural goings on -and- court intrigue -and- the history and future of the Shedaím while also introducing multiple characters, many of whom turn out later to be involved in several layers of the goings on, just led to too much wasted time explaining.

Now before you go getting the idea that I didn’t like <i>Lost Gods</i>, let me assure you, I did. All of the faults I’ve seen I can absolutely chalk up to Debut Novel Syndrome. When you’ve got a great idea, and you want to make it a series, and you want to make sure all your great ideas get to us, it becomes very tempting to try and push it all in at once. I get it. The combination of patience on the exposition and keeping the scope and pacing optimal comes with time. I have every expectation that book two will be a lot better structurally. Like I said, Yongo definitely has potential, and I will be keeping an eye out for the next book to see how it gets realized.

There’s a lot to like about <i>Lost Gods</i>. Part of the reason the exposition felt draggy is just how much cool stuff is going on. The Shedaím brotherhood was super interesting, and I definitely wanted to learn more about them, and see them in action. The combat is written in a very sparse and to-the-point way that makes perfect sense for assassins who want to get a job done, without all of the dramatic flourishes that so much Fantasy leans on. You get the impression that even the sentence or two of description takes longer than the actual fight, which feels very accurate and right to me. Neythan is young, but the point of graduation into the ranks of the Brotherhood is after 11 years of basically constant training, and I appreciated how his youth was never really pushed as justification for failure in combat. In general life, sure. His naivete and inexperience with life in the wider world also made him relatable, and not just a killing machine.

I was also very much a fan of fellow Shedaím, and compatriot, Arianna. Every bit the equal of the boys in her group, often their superior, she is as much a main character as Neythan, embroiled in all of the goings on just as much, and honestly, handling it better and with more aplomb than the protagonist despite being theoretically the same age. There was a little bit of love interest dancing about that felt out of place, though I could be misreading Yongo’s intentions there just from force of habit. I like to see a major female character holding her own without her femaleness being the subject of to-do. There’s no questioning of her abilities because she’s a woman, but nor is she portrayed as a stone-cold badass which basically gets used in SFF to question her abilities from the other direction via making her non-feminine.

Altogether this was a solid read. It suffers a little from some common debut mistakes, but by virtue of their being common, there’s no reason to hold them against Yongo, who otherwise crafted an excellent world with a lot of depth, populated by interesting people doing interesting things. Angry Robot has a reputation with me for finding really cool stuff, which is generally outside the mainstream, and spotlighting it. They were one of the first publishers where I actually noticed “I can pick a book just by the Angry Robot logo on the spine, and be pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the book” and they have not let me down with <i>Lost Gods</i>. Great setting, interesting and relatable characters, and a lot of potential to be realised in the next book. Definitely worth a read.

This was an intriguing start to a new fantasy series, but I don't know that I'll pick up the next book.

Neythan has just received his first mission as a newly-graduated assassin and is thrilled to be joining the Brotherhood after years of work. But after an unexpected murder, Neythan's world spins out of control and he is set on a path that he never thought he'd be on - one that might threaten the Brotherhood and everything he was raised to believe.

The surest sign that I love a fantasy series is that I can't shut up about it. I most recently experienced this with a Robin Hobb series - I've talked about it enough that my husband has vaguely followed the storyline over the months I've read the series, even though he's never read the books. Lost Gods was a book that I have hardly talked about and have hardly thought about since I put it down. While I enjoyed it, that's a sure sign to me that it didn't rock my world and now I'm beginning to understand why.

This book certainly had a lot of good things. The world building is incredible in this book and if I were to continue reading the series, it'd probably be to see more of the world. There are so many cities and lands and customs and governments and secret societies to keep track of, but it's a deeply built world that obvious has parts that we aren't shown in the book. The government feel vaguely ancient Egyptian to me, but it's obvious that it's meant to be its own government and not one that closely based on anything else. The author obviously put a ton of thought and care into building an interesting and well-developed world and I was very impressed.

The plot grabs you right away and that was something I appreciated about this book. A lot of books try to draw you in, but it feels so forced. This felt like a very natural place to begin our narrative and interesting things start happening immediately. The author structured his book well in that regard.

I also liked the progression of time in this book - the author jumped to important bits and didn't keep you sitting with characters all through their travels. At one point, a character mentions that they've been away from the Brotherhood for six months and I was really surprised at that. The plot felt like it had taken place in a short amount of time, but because our characters are often shown on the road for a short time before arriving at their destination, that estimation made a lot more sense. And it was cool to see how much our characters grew in that time.

Now, on the other hand, there were a few things that were kind of meh about this book. For instance, the characters weren't anything special. Now, in their world, they definitely were, but here was nothing to set them apart from other fantasy characters I've read. There was also no character I felt really connected to or invested in and I think a little more character development (besides just the main character, Neythan) would help me care more about their lives.

Also, the plot was obvious fairly high-stakes, but I couldn't bring myself to care about it. I think this was partly due to it being not all that different from a lot of other fantasy plots. Plus, the author shows you things from various perspectives and, while this is fun, you often know a lot more than the characters do. In some books, this would be maddening in the best kind of way, but in this book, it just made the stakes a lot lower and made me care less about the outcome.

Overall, this is an exciting new series and I think there are a lot of people out there who will enjoy it. But I'll probably stick to other fantasy for now.

I loved this book so much! All I say every time is how much I love the books I've read but what do you expect me to say when I did, in fact, LOVE them???
This one was fully enjoyable, amazing, great plot, story, characters, world-building, everything.

Unfortunately I DNF this book at 15%, it was a bit slow and base-line. It's very simple, and I couldn't get into it in the way I wanted :S