Review – Gates of the Dead by James A Moore

I thought I made a mistake on this one. I’ve been interested in checking out James A Moore for a while now, but I didn’t realise it was the third in the series, and usually I prefer to go with a series from the start. Turned out to be less of a concern than I thought, as the author did a good job of not leaving new readers feel lost.

The story tells of Brogan McTyre, a man whose family was killed by the gods. Brogan is the not the type to take things lying down, and declares war on said gods. In most cases, this would be just be someone blowing smoke out of his ass, but Brogan goes as far as to kill one. Unsurprisingly, the other goods take umbrage, and decide to destroy the world. But Brogan isn’t satisfied with killing just one god, but can he survive long enough to complete an impossible task?

I liked this book. Didn’t love it, but definitely liked a lot about it. My favourite thing was the world the author created. The cycle of gods, demons and so forth was most impressive, and I will definitely read the first couple of books just to soak in more of the worldbuilding. Brogan and his crew are likeable, readily accepting their leader on his insane quest, but some of the the major characters could have some more pizzazz.

The pacing too suffers at times. One moment the story is rattling along at a breakneck pace, the next it’s trickling sluggishly. This is likely a symptom of the writing, which was terrific at times, but overly wordy and boring at others. On occasion I found myself wishing things would pick up, and after a while they would. Not a great way to read a book though.

However, if you can put up with these minor quibbles, you’ve got yourself a dark and gritty fantasy that will wow you at times, right up to the very satisfying and appropriate ending. Now that I’ve scratched my James A Moore itch, I feel confident I will enjoy his other works too.

A solid 3.5/5 stars