okay, I use this neat website, called Goodreads.com, to catalog my books online, and I’ve started posting the reviews I’m putting on my website on there as well (kind of a backup). Anyways, it had some code you could put in your blog to post the review there…we’ll see how that worked here:
A Dark and Hungry God Arises by Stephen R. Donaldson
rating: 4 of 5 stars
First off, if you haven’t read The Real Story and Forbidden Knowledge, don’t even pick this book up. You’ll spend too much time trying to figure out what’s already transpired.
Where this book picks up, the sexually abused and psychologically debilitated Morn Hyland is captive, trying to keep herself and her (also captive) son from being sold/traded to the alien Amnion for genetic experimentation by Nick Succorso, her rescuer and eventual kidnapper. On the other end of the Galaxy, Warden Dios is working his machinations to bring down his boss, Holt Fasner, and part of this involves sending Morn’s initial kidnapper and rapist, Angus Thermopyle.
Have no idea what that is about? Read the first two books in the series. The series itself is dark, violent, graphically descriptive, and thoroughly nihilistic. Ironically Morn, the “heroine” of sorts throughout the series, continues to strive for some level of honor and morality amidst the depravity and betrayal resounding around her.
As far as writing, movement, style, etc., Donaldson has done an incredible job, not only with this book, but with the entire series. It is a “page turner” in the classic sense, always moving, with the conflicts continuing to evolve, twist, and even fold back upon themselves. But it seems to be written from a very dark perspective of human nature.
The only reason I hesitate to recommend it is because of the very intense, graphic and (ultimately) nihilistic nature of the book (and series). This specific portion of the series has finally stepped away from the sexually depraved nature of the first two, but the dark and twisted morality and motivations still remain.
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