Title: The Soul of the World (Legends of Amun Ra #2)
Author: Joshua Silverman
Genre: Fantasy. Science Fiction.
Publication Date: November 1st 2013
Publisher: Enchanted Forest Press
Format: E-Book
Pages: 384
Rating: 4.5/5
But when the Book of Breathings is discovered, the path to immortality is revealed. Leoros and Kem race to capture the Soul of the World unaware of the challenges awaiting them. This time, the gods themselves will intervene.
In a tale where boys become men and girls become women, where treachery and deception are around every corner, and where primeval mysticism finds its way back from the grave, victory is reserved for neither the good nor the evil, but the powerful.
The Soul of the World continues with the
story of Leoros , Atlantia and the many other characters we grew to love in The
Emerald Tablet, if you wish to see my review of that you can find it here. In
summary, the first book was incredibly fast-paced and mixed fantasy and science
fiction with mythology, archaeology and romance and the second book does not
disappoint.
This sequel takes place two years after the
first one so it was nice to see each character develop with age and experience,
though Leoros and Atlantia remain as my two favourite characters in the series.
As well as the return characters, we also get to meet a bunch of new and
interesting characters- I have to admit, I’m becoming quite fond of Kevin. This
being said, one of my absolute favourite things about this book is that we get
to see both sides of the story- it’s not just the ‘heroes’ that we get to see
into the minds of, we get to see the ‘villains’ too. In my opinion, this makes
the story even better as we get to see all the dimensions to each main
character rather than just seeing them from another’s point of view. I have to
say though, Shirin is just completely insane- which, of course, makes her even
more enjoyable to read, but really, she’s crazy.
I think this series is one of the most
detailed series I’ve read. I’m being completely honest when I say that I don’t
think anything is left out and if a particular detail is, then it’ll probably
pop up somewhere a little bit later on. There is so much to take in- all the
different stories for each character, and the world itself but also the
development of the plot and characters, but I don’t think it’s too much or that
it’s boring. Instead, I find the little details really interesting. There is
even this incredible detail in each scene, I feel like all of this would be
translated really well into a film, it just has that cinematic feel about it.
Continuing on with the detail, there are all these references within the
writing- references to the first book but then also references to other
mythology and pop culture. I think sometimes authors spend too much time
retelling past books or just don’t reference them enough, but I think this was
a nice average. More than that, the references to pop culture add a bit of
humour to the book which otherwise is quite serious.
The one thing I will say is that this book
deals with incredibly heavy subjects. There’s a lot of violence, mentions of
suicide etc. I don’t believe it’s a book that you can read in one sitting,
despite how incredibly interesting it is- there are moments where you
definitely need to put it down for a moment and do something else. Finally, I’d
definitely say that there are moments in this book that are definitely for
mature audiences- maybe others won’t think so, but I think some of the
descriptions of violence are incredibly graphic. While that personally doesn’t
bother me, I wouldn’t suggest this book for any children.
Other than that, I think The Soul of the
World was an amazing sequel and I honestly cannot wait to see what happens in
the next book! Thanks to Joshua Silverman for supplying us with a copy again.
