Book Review: God of War

I don't think Matthew Stover ever wanted a fan like me. I may not be his biggest, but I am his loudest. I talk about his books all the time, and to people who would regularly have no interest in either Star Wars or fantasy fiction. Shatterpoint and Revenge of the Sith have, to this day, encouraged me to write two novels with 250,000 words between them. I have, literally, every single book he's ever written sitting on my shelf (Have I read all of them? No, but they're there nonetheless...with the exception of Blade of Tyshalle, which is on mah Kindle). I wrote this emotional review on Amazon that actually got his attention, and after that, man, it's been crazy.

So, after reading both Traitor and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor within the space of a week, I knew I was buying his next book, God of War, the first day it came out. And I did...again, on my Kindle. Money gets to him faster that way.

I was really excited because, honestly, Stover is just as badass as his characters are. The man knows everything. Why? Because he hates to lose or be inaccurate. He likes to fight, and he likes to use fightin' words. Therefore, he is well-schooled in all that is asskickery, and academic. So hearing he'd be writing a book that pertains to Greek mythology, I knew I'd be getting something here. And I was partially right, but mostly wrong. What we get here isn't a bad book, per se, but it really isn't something that I'd normally read. There's just...no Stover in this book. Aside from the action, it's hard to pick out exactly what he wrote, seeing how he picked up a coauthor for this entry.

And, it does pain me to say this but, Full Disclosure: I couldn't finish the book. Again, not because it was bad, but it just wasn't my thing. And without Stover's "voice" coming through here, it wasn't my thing x2.

The story opens well enough, and I can tell that this is the part that Stover wrote. I know this because it hooked my attention like the Blades of Chaos would a minotaur. Afterward, we get introduced to the Gods (i.e. - the Sky Assholes), and the main conflict afoot, which would be that Aries, the God of War, has been a bit of a douche lately, and due to a clerical fuck-up, not even Zeus can stop him. Athena, the celestial brown nose that she is, decides to solve this problem by not only instigating a power play between the Gods to get Aries killed, but also to send Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta, to put a hitch in Aries' plans...whatever they are.

Admittedly, the action scenes are balls-out crazy. Kratos is a badass of such caliber that my Kindle couldn't display his feats in their entirety, lest the screen explode under the full pressure of their awesomeness. I'm betting that this book is everything that the new Clash of the Titans wishes it was (and it takes several jabs at our friendly neighborhood Perseus in the process). Kratos fights hydras, Gorgons, the undead, minotaurs, ogre-type guys, the gods themselves. You name it, Kratos tries to fuck it over.

And, yes, Kratos always gets the ladies. He's like a Greek Lando.

The problem with this book became inherent to me when: 1) I discovered that I cared exactly nil about Kratos, which was an odd feeling; Stover always manages to make me care about his characters, no matter how insignificant. I honestly didn't care if Kratos lived or died. 2) The writing style would shift around, but eventually the style that became the most prevalent was most certainly not Stover's, for the most part. 3) There wasn't any real plot. 4) Start back at one.

Other problems with the book would be that it read like a literal novelization of a video game. What I mean is, it seems as though whoever was writing played the video game and wrote down what Kratos did. It's not as shallow as I make it out to be, because these writers make a very readable book out of this, but you could almost hear the little "Zelda Jingle" whenever Kratos obtained a new power, or when he managed to complete a puzzle.

See, and this is where I'm torn. If you read this book for yourself, you'll see that it's by no means badly written. It's what would qualify as a good book! But this isn't something that I'd recommend to anyone who has liked Stover's past works. Kratos, to be blunt, is a dick. He spends most of the book flashing back to a terrible time in his past when he lost his family, and then the rest of the book killing innocents along with the monsters. In fact, in one scene, he literally destroys a crowd of fleeing Athenians for walking too slow in front of him.

How can I possibly sympathize with that? Even remotely? My conclusion: I'm not supposed to. This book is meant for fans of the game, and was likely never put out there to draw new crowds. It's all action, pure and simple. And while I can appreciate its existence because of this, like I said, it's just not my thing.

My guess is that Stover did have a hand in this, but with Sony and Mister Vardeman handing some of the workload, his voice probably got lost in the shuffle. And that's okay! He's still my favorite author, and I don't regret buying this book. But it does make me yearn for a true Stover outing, and I'm hoping that I will get just that with Test of Metal and His Father's Fist.

Pick this up if you're a fan of the game, but everyone else should probably sit tight.