Godslayer is the sequel to Carey's Banewreaker, or really it's more of a continuation of one long story. I felt about this second one much the same as the first one: I love the idea of it, but didn't find the execution quite as compelling as I hoped. Also, sometimes authors' styles just don't click with you, and that's probably part of it for me (your taste may vary).
I think another part of it is that there are so many characters (the Dramatis Personae helped immensely!), and I didn't feel like many of them were really fleshed out much. I maybe feel like I got to know Tanaros, the human general made immortal through his service to the Shaper/god Satoris.
As I said about the first one, the issue for me is that this is more The Silmarillion than The Lord of the Rings. We do get a "Frodo and Sam" stand-in, but even they felt a bit bland. It's all so Epic High Fantasy that it was hard for me to care much, cool as I think it is to complicate the traditional dichotomies of epic fantasy.
But I kept reading, and I'm glad I did! I found the last third or so pretty engaging. I wanted to see what happened, and well, I won't spoil it. But I will hint that the tragic mode of the first book continues. I maybe would have liked more attention to the ways that this epic war harms all the regular people of the land (humans, elves, orcs, dwarfs, halflings, etc.), but maybe that's just my antiwar sentiment here on Earth interfering.
But really one question this book makes me ask is, as Edwin Starr asked many years ago: war, what is it good for? In most epic fantasy that question doesn't even come up. Whether the answer is "absolutely nothing" at the end of the Shapers' War, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.
But it does make me think about all the various real-life wars past, present, and future. Even the "good" ones. Is it all worth it in the end? What if we found other, nonviolent ways to settle our conflicts and differences that didn't disproportionately harm the most vulnerable among us who had nothing to do with the conflict in the first place?
I have no idea if Carey intended anything like that. But it is a fun exercise to turn Tolkien on his head--or at least tilt him on his side.
See also my Goodreads review.
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