Amateur Amalgam

I love to read, any and all books (except self-help) are on the table for me. I used to read non-stop but I’ve only recently gotten back into the habit of it. Of course I still go long stretches of time without reading, but I do make an effort to at least try and pick up a book at least once a week.

I picked up this particular series because it was recommended in the reviews of the Throne of Glass series. I wanted to get in on the hype of those books – cause everyone was obsessed with and raving about how good they are – but I was so disappointed, nay, disgusted, with that book I couldn’t even finish it.

These books are everything that series was trying to be and more in my opinion. I found all of them – excluding the companion book (which I plan on getting) – on Everand (aka Scribd) and I loved every second of reading those books. It was so hard to put them down as I was reading them, they were just that good.

If you don’t wanna read my thoughts about each book and spoil it for yourself here are my ratings of each. They get progressively better as you read through them, and it really does work best if you think of it like one book that had to be split into 6 to fit all the pages. I think my favourite would have to be the third one though.

The books follow the adventures of our main character Eugenides (aka Gen) and is set in an ancient Greco-Roman world.

This is by no means an exhaustive review of these books, as I read for fun and very rarely annotate on the first read of anything. This is more my immediate thoughts an feelings on reading the books the first time. I will say that since I plan on re-reading, I’ll probably come back at some point and do like, a proper review with character and plot analysis and the whole shebang, but not now.

I am absolutely going to be buying this series and re-reading it. The only thing left for me to decide is which covers I want.

Spoilers Ahead!

This is the first book in the series, and kicks off our adventure. This was actually so good. I absolutely love Gen, in all his annoying glory. At no point in time did I guess what he was gonna do or how it would turn out. The first part of the book is a lot of walking and storytelling, which is actually a really great way to info dump and world build without feeling like you’re reading a textbook. All the characters were really interesting, and they all grew on me. The ending!!! Crazy, I literally never would have guessed that sequence of events, but I know better now. You can never pull one over on my boy Eugenides.

I was gobsmacked by the events in this one. when she cut off his hand I was actually shook. The beginning of the book we pickup right where the last one left off, and then we get to see the immediate result of Gen getting the stone for Eddis. The fear of Atollia was so real for this whole thing. The POV’s moved between Attolia and Gen and (to a lesser extent) Eddis, so we got to see a bit of what everyone was thinking. When my man confessed his love for Atollia I was blindsided – truly. In hindsight (and having read the next few) it makes sense. Regardless, at this point the books start becoming less adventure and more political and its all about the plots. Yo, keeping up with these people is something else. It helps that we switch between POV’s and get to see what is happening from Atollia’s side as well and Gen’s. This one I feel was mostly setup for the next books, cause it only gets more complicated from here.

I was right. The plots in this one were craazy! Everyone underestimates my boy continuously, but after the first 2 books everyone should really know better than to doubt, or worse, underestimate my boy Gen. This one, unlike the others, was told from the point of view of one of the Queens Guard – Costis. We get to see the way people who don’t know Gen experience him, and these people are fooled so thoroughly it’s a wonder they can even have their own plots in this at all. I will say that at this point, despite the author’s claims to the contrary, it’s mega supper obvious that this is supposed to be Greece/Rome/Byzantium and the Mede are supposed to be Persia/Arabia/India. Like it’s not a racist depiction or anything (aside from the fact that, once again, the Greeks/Romans are the main characters/good guys and the Persians/Arabs are the bad guys), I think it’s done really well and it doesn’t explicitly put down any one culture or elevate another to greatness or anything, but I can see how even just the comparison can put some people off. I saw parallels to a bunch of real life events, people, and stories so I think the fact that the author is denying the similarities is what’s not helping. Anyway. This story was crazy start to finish. My man Costis really thought he was getting stuck with some dummy (despite the events of the last 2 books and all evidence to the contrary). My man Gen really has everyone playing into his hands 24/7 thinking its their idea. I love it.

Sophos! This one doesn’t have as much in it about Gen explicitly, because its all about Sophos telling us what he’s been up to. After Gen becomes King, Sounis decends into chaos/civil war, because now Attolia and Eddis have entered into an alliance and they can’t continue their war against them. Another love match is revealed here that I had no news of (as a requited match anyway) but I wasn’t mad about this one. We already knew that Sophos has it bad for Eddis, but I didn’t think she liked him back – but thats probably cause the narrators never focused on it, like with Gen and Attolia. We get to see the effect of what Gen is doing in the last two books play out in Sounis, and how the counter plots to get rid of him are going. I really thought that Sophos would choose to live a peaceful life as a slave, but that doesn’t work for his character, and he made the right choice. Just like with Gen, being a king was somewhat thrust upon them, and they both took to it so well. The Barons of Sounis are even worse than the ones in Attolia and it’s a wonder Sophos was able to get across the Peninsula alive. I’m actually so glad that he had the Magus and his Dad supporting him.

We’ve made it to the Mede and Costis is back! This story is told from Kamet’s point of view, and we can see that his impression of Gen from book 2/3 is the only one that he knows, and the one he bases all his decisions on. As we know, this is the false ‘silly king’ narrative that Gen uses with people to test them. Kemet was not ready. This was more action that the others, because they were running for their lives across the Mede empire. I was so stressed the whole time, cause while Costis is making plans to keep Kemet safe, Kemet is making plans to ditch Costis. Everyone was working again each other and I was stressed! Then the Mede gods/ancient heroes showed up! At first I thought they were other Attolians sent by Gen, but when Costis said “You saw him too?” I knew. I didn’t read the relationship between them as romantic, at least not in this book, but I see that it could be. Very enemies-to-lovers vibes. But then again, this series isn’t about (romantic) love, its about court politics and preventing/surviving a terrible war.

It’s the end! This one takes place at the same time as the last one; at least the first half. We get back to Gen and his court and we get to see how the ceremony to make him Anuux is getting on. This one is told from the perspective of a new character, Pheris. He is the grandson of the Baron who tried to get rid of Gen in the third book. My man uses a similar tactic as Gen to stay out of people’s sight, due to being born dissabled. Gen, of course, figures him out and keeps him close. They can both see the gods, and this goes a long way in helping them out during the story. By now, the court of Attolia is aware of Gen’s brilliance (and Eddis has always known) so they tread more carefully (but they are still stupid). The main through-line of the series (the fact that the sacred mountain will blow and take Eddis with it – like Pompeii!) is finally brought to the forefront of the plans both Gen and Eddis have been working on, with no-one the wiser. The second half of the story is about the actual fight with the Medes. I won’t lie, I was panicked. The death of Gen’s Dad was actually so painful – my saving grace is that is was offscreen and the only thing we see of it is Gen’s grief on the battlefield. The end was also very satisfying. I’m glad that it worked out for them. Now it’s not just the Mede that know not to cross Gen, its also the Greater Powers – who ended up betraying Gen – who turned around and proved that he doesn’t need them actually. The Pent guy, I was hoping would be killed but allas, he was just sent home. The Brael’s betrayal definitely hurt allot. Also the fact that Relius and Teleus are together was both a surprise and not, definitely something I feel like I should have seen it coming, just with the glances they were giving each other and the fact that they were together 24/7 when not with the queen. The payoff on all the planting that Megan did for this series was sooo good.