Book Review: The Godborn by Paul Kemp

I don't play Dungeon and Dragons games. In fact, I've never played D&D RPG. But I really enjoy reading novels based on D&D universe, because it has a fantastic, imaginative world packed with epic stories about heroes and villains with intriguing characters. And this is why today, I am going to write a review for this book (another thing I love about this series is these books have very beautiful cover arts).

The Godborn, is the second book in "The Sundering" series. The Sundering, is an event that took place in the D&D world, where past heroes and villains walked the world again. There are 6 planned books in The Sundering Series. Each of these books is a stand alone novel, featuring stories of individual heroes in different parts of the world. The first book, was R.A Salvatore's book, The Campanions, featuring the beloved Drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden and his friends, the book was mostly very light hearted and very warming at certain places.

However, this second book, The Godborn, is not the same as the first book. It is much darker and more complex, and I love it!

Synopsis:

Erevis Cale's son, Vasen Cale grows up in an abbey, and became the servant to the Lord of Light who raised him. Shielded by the dead god Mask, Vasen Cale was protected from the evil schemes of his father's enemies. However, Vasen is constantly haunted by dreams about his father. Deep down inside, Vasen knows his peaceful life at the abbey will eventually come to pass, and he will one day assume the role he has to play in the drama of the sundering, which was taking place across the world, lest the world as he knew will cease to exist. For Vasen, he knows failure is not an option...

What I think about this book:

As I have said already, I love this book. Mostly because all characters in this book are intriguing. They are not cardboard characters to fill the gaps in the story, no, all characters in this book are 3 dimensional characters, with lots of development through personal struggles. While the story is quite dark, but it is also accompanied with interesting perspectives embedded with much welcomed complexities.

But I do have to say, although I really like the story and characters in this book, but I did find the story started a bit slow. In fact, I only found the story becoming interesting after the first 100 pages (and this is a 300 page book), this means the first 100 page of this book was quite slow. Thankfully, the story unfolds with thunder and lightning in the last two thirds of the book, and it is a very, very good story.