Random Ramblings: Reviews and Whatnot : Land of Gods by Justin Sloan: Book Review **Possible Spoilers**

I need to start off by saying that I am addicted to fantasy books. I had EVERY Conan book that came out up to 1984. That was the year that my father took me to see The Neverending Story, a movie that people either seem to really love or really hate. From then on I would say about 80% of the books I read are in the fantasy genre.

After reading Half Bloods Rising, I hit up Amazon looking for similar books. Interesting enough, I found that book after looking for more books like Forgotten Realms. Needless to say this book was recommended and it had really good reviews. I was adding more books to my list when I came in contact with Justin Himself. Again the timing was strange because I listen to a Podcast called the "Story Grid Podcast", mostly because I want to write a book of my own. The host mentioned a podcast called "Creative Writing Career", and too my surprise Justin is one of the hosts. I felt this was a sign that I was meant to read his books so here we are. So enough about the backstory on how I came upon this book and met another author that really interacts with their readers.

This book starts off with a battle and right off the bat you feel like you are in the middle of it! For an intro that is chaotic and fast paced it is easy to follow along and you know exactly what is going on. Justin does a good job of describing all of the details in the scene without bogging us down as readers to the point that we lose interest. I will mention Game of Thrones, as I did in previous blogs because those books bore me over 50% of the time. I know the masses love them and they are critically acclaimed, but those books have a ton of filler.

I love that this book just gives you what you need to set up a picture in your mind as you read along. At no point while reading this book was I looking at my watch or thinking about putting it down. In fact I was just focused on completing the story and while actually getting sad as I saw the 90% complete indicator on my reader. I had to keep telling myself that this is a trilogy and I still have two more books to read to complete the whole story.

As far as character development, Justin does a good job throwing some twists and turns that changed the way that you already feel about these characters.

This is where some spoilers are hard to avoid so be warned!

Okay, let's start with Narcel. I hated this little twerp when the book started. I thought he was a spoiled little mamma's boy. We even see a younger kid with more courage than him running off into battle against grown men. I even sent Justin a tweet mentioning this!

Then we get Kaire. I am still on the fence with this broad. She seems to want to have her cake and eat it too. And not only that, she wants TWO SLICES OF CAKE! There were times when reading the book that I was actually yelling at obscenities at her. As the book progresses, we get a little more of her perspective, but she still annoyed the hell out of me.

Which leads me to Lokum. When we first are introduced to him, he comes off as a little jerk, then we see him help Kaire in some bad situations we think he may not be that bad after all. Well he is! Justin does a great job of making me hate this douche bag. I kept wishing death on this bastard the whole time, but then we wouldn't have much of a climax now would we?

All of the other supporting characters are done really well. We even get an unexpected twist involving Lokum's creepy daddy that earns the WTF moment of the whole book. I read that part twice just to make sure I read it right. And it was even creepier!

The only thing that seemed to bother me with the characters was WHERE THE HELL IS SINODA?! We are introduced to him in the beginning and then we never hear from him throughout the rest of the book. I think this will definitely play out in the upcoming books since this is a trilogy after all.

Without giving too much away, this book does a great job of bringing Narcel from that mamma's boy to a bad ass warrior that can more than handle his own. I really enjoyed the whole segment dealing with his training. Justin did a great job setting all of this up without being cliche. I was having preconceived notions of Gladiator or Planet Hulk, but instead it avoided the typical "Warrior must face of in a pit or area and fight to the death" that is in a lot of fantasy books and movies. This was refreshing and honestly I would have taken away points on my score if it actually went that way!

We have a love triangle that plays out throughout the book, but it does it in a slightly different way. Kaire seems to be conflicted with her true love of Narcel and her love for Lokum who helped her out of so many dangerous situations. We get the notion that she wants Narcel as a lover and Lokum as a protector. The book has a climatic ending with the cliffhanger of course since it is the first in the series, but it should definitely be apparent to Kaire who to be with and stop playing with both of their hearts.

It is hard to go into to much more detail without spoiling more of the story, and I don't want to do that since it will ruin the book for everyone. I highly recommend this book, and I can't wait to start book two! If you are a fantasy book nerd like myself, you will not be disappointment. And if you never read a fantasy book, this is a great start into the genre. It hits on all the key elements without bogging the reader down with needles information. That is something that I believe drives away potential new readers to the genre as a whole. Pick up book one, and if you dig it dive in to the other books, and if you don't, well at least you read a good book that is not a chore to get through.

On to the rating! This was the toughest book for me to give a score too. I was conflicted since I really enjoyed the book all around, but I felt that the first half of the book I really didn't like most of the characters. As the book progressed I started liking them more, and at the end I was really behind them.

At first I though there was an issue with the character development or maybe I was too harsh on them in general. Then I went back over the book as a whole and realized that Justin actually accomplished what I think he set out to do. Start us off with the characters at their weakest and grow with them as they change throughout the book. I realized that I felt different about each of them as the book progressed, and was caught up in the ending to see what would happen.

So with that all said how does this book score on the beard scale? Well Land of Gods delivered the goods and is the third perfect 5 book in my short blogging career, and Justin Sloan gets the Golden Beard Award! it looks like the pressure is on now Justin, we need to see if the second book can win the award, or see if it falls short. Stay tuned nest time folks for the review for "Retribution Calls"!