Table of Contents
Preamble
I discovered The Children of Gods and Fighting Men through Elliott Brooks who posted a positive video review of the book recently. I was intrigued by the combination of fantasy, Irish mythology and history. As I have mentioned my review of The Wild Huntress, fantasy novels that make use of mythologies from our world are of interest to me.
In my continued quest to use the Toronto Public Library system more, I read this as a hardcover borrowed copy from the library. My hold for it arrived this past weekend, and since Piranesi was a very short book, this will be the second book I read and review this week.
Let’s get into it.
The Book
This is a historical fantasy book through and through. More specifically the book takes place in 10th century Ireland from the year 981 to the year 999. Many of the characters are based on real people from that period of Irish history, and so are a lot of the events. Now of course, this is still a fiction book so not everything is exactly as it was in the real world as the author mentions at the very end of the book – however there is plenty to like here if you are a fan of historical fantasy.
Characters
Let’s start with characters. There are quite a number of characters in the book. The book starts with a multi-page list of character names and a short description of who they are. I was worried that this book would get confusing quick with the number of characters but thankfully the actual narrative is written in a way where there wasn’t any confusion as to who a character was.
The story is told from the point-of-view of our two main characters – Gormflaith and Fódla. This is where the Irish mythological aspect comes in – Gormflaith is secretly a Fomorian who in this book are a long lived race who can do fire magic. Fódla on the other hand is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann who has the gift of healing. These two represent the two antagonistic mythological factions in this book – more specifically the Tuatha Dé Danann are sworn to kill any Fomorian they find.
Of the two main characters, I found Gormflaith to be the most interesting. She is smart, cunning, selfish and will do anything she can get away with to advance her cause and protect herself and her son. She lies, manipulates and murders. By no means is Gormflaith a good person and that in fact makes for a very fun character to read. Her POV was by far more enjoyable for me to read.
Fódla to me represents one of the book’s main themes which is the nature of humans and conflict. The Tuatha Dé Danann have mostly isolated and hidden themselves from humans and forbidden themselves from interfering directly in human affairs as they find that doing so causes more harm than good. This includes using their magical abilities to help humans. In the case of Fódla, there is conflict between her nature as a healer and the laws of her people. I found this particular inner conflict and its consequences throughout the narrative intriguing.
Narrative and World building
The narrative in The Children of Gods and Fighting Men is one made up of political intrigue. Kings, queens, marriages, alliances, wars, betrayals. It reminded me of Game of Thrones. Its very rare that I read fantasy with this level of political intrigue and it was a very fun time to see how various characters and factions maneuvered to make events happen to their advantage.
There is some fantasy world building but the book mostly relies on the historical backdrop of 10th century Ireland to set the scene. The magical elements of this book are very light. The two main characters do perform magic but their magic systems are not explained at all. I didn’t mind this. It is nice to read a fantasy every once in a while where the magical elements are based on vibes rather than well-defined systems.
For the most part I was not familiar with the Irish historical characters and events mentioned in the book and it was quite enlightening to learn about all of these characters and events. That said, I got the feeling that the author did her research and the world, its characters, their motivations and conflicts felt real and indicated a deep love for Irish history and mythology.
Conclusions
This book continues the trend of me reading books that are well written and eminently very readable. I cannot think of any major criticism. On the other hand, I don’t think anything about it made me really fall in love with it. I liked the use of Irish history and mythology in this book but I wasn’t enamored by it.
If you are a fan of historical fantasy that is heavier on the history and mythology than it is on the fantasy, then I think book is something you should try. Especially if you are a fan of Irish history and mythology. I won’t be continuing with the series but I don’t regret reading this particular book.
P.S – The only Irish mythology bit I knew was the mention of Cú Chulainn by one of the characters. I know about that particular Irish legend through the excellent Miracle Of Sound song called The Tale Of Cú Chulainn.
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