I loved reading this book, and wrote a review of the first book on Goodreads & Sci-Fi fan sites. I will review the series on Goodreads, Westeros.org and other sources after reading the third book.

A review of STORMING HEAVEN (Age of Bronze #2) by MILES CAMERON published by Hatchette Book Group (July 20, 2023)

A NetGalley ARC review: The publisher provided me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Fantasy

Recommended for those who enjoyed the first entry in the series “Against all Gods”

Final Rating: 1.5 stars (DNF at 20% —100 pages)

1 star for DNF + 0.5 star for interesting premise.

Overview: Omnipotent gods grow bored in the languid void of immortality and toy with the brief lives of mortal men during a Bronze Age. A plague of cannibals (zombies?) rove a landscape to further terrorize humans. There’s dragons, too. An unlikely cast from various walks of life tell the tale here.

Immediate thoughts: an interesting premise and plot is suffocated prematurely by “this-then-that” prose.

Reflection: Often I felt as though I was reading a stop-motion film where the author described the events frame-by-frame, freezing the action to reposition the characters then starting and stopping on repeat—hoping to achieve fluidity but ultimately only generating stuttering prose.

This is my first DNF of 2023. DNFs—especially DNFs of ARCs—are deeply regrettable for me. I committed to providing an honest review and I hoped to do so with a complete understanding of the entire novel.

I want to also emphasize that this is not a mismatch between reviewer and book, nor is this an anti-indie author argument. One of my favorite novels of all time is the grimdark novel “King’s of Paradise” by indie author Richard Nell.

I hope to revisit Cameron’s work someday. His imagination and zest for the genre is clear.

Constructive feedback:

- The publisher’s description on Netgalley —paired with positive reviews of the first entry online and author presence/esteem on /r/fantasy —convinced me to commit to reading over 1000 pages between “Against all Gods” and “Storming heaven.”

- The essence of the plot holds exceptional promise for an action-driven narrative in a unique fantasy setting.

- To my knowledge, no one has ever written a series with the elements of these novels: immortal gods, mortal men, a plague of cannibals, and dragons.

- The premise is *strong.*

- A good story is not just the sterile listing of sequential events and dialogue.

- Strong writing emphasizes the relationship between the prose and the reader.

- Strong writing understands that the reader is intelligent and autonomous, capable of imagining action occurring in the subtext.

- Strong writing generates anticipation within the reader, should have the reader develop questions about and hold stakes in the narrative.

- Prose does not need to explicitly state each gesture or pose made by each character.

- Readers—especially adult readers interested in the mature themes of a grimdark novel—should be given the freedom to imagine scenes with *sufficient* prompting.

- Imaginative prose is a balance that exists between too much and too little involvement from the writer.

- Worldbuilding can become a barrier to a reader’s investment in the narrative.

- Use caution with exposition and jargon—these can make for an unnecessarily over complicated narrative.

- Keep things simple. Keep them cohesive.

This was better than the first book in some ways and just a page turner like the first book. The characters are not the most likable at times but there wasn't anyone that I didn't dislike particularly and quite a few that I still liked. Zos and Era are quite different but having the contrasting personalities is good in its own way. Some characters go through so much only to have to suffer more but still find a way to survive. That is being human and going against impossible odds is what epic fantasy is all about at times. Of course there are the twists and turns that I enjoyed and did not see coming. The direction of the story is straightforward at times This was another enjoyable read and will eagerly await the conclusion of this series in the next book. I will want to read this one again I think and hope to find new things to enjoy upon rereading. Thanks to netgalley and publishers for a chance to read a good book. Miles Cameron can expect praise for another good book.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.

The second book in the series is often not as good as book 1, but I think that's not necessarily true here. The subject is kind of original. On the surface its a familiar theme, but there is an undercurrent of.......difference, oddness, complexity......

This book/series is a hard one to review. I am enjoying the story, but it's very complicated, with a lot of switching of viewpoints and the story arc lurches around It took me a while to get back up to speed on the series because of this, and I'm sure I'll be back to square on before the next book comes out. To be sure, I will be reading the next one and I'd still recommend that you do too.

I'm hopeful this Gods, magic, aliens, rebellion etc. gets to a place where the story tangles all come together. An enjoyable mess at the moment!

The giant wall of text to get through before the book started really intimidated me as a reader. I skipped over it, but I felt really hesitant going in. I prefer an appendix in the back if things aren't important.

When I started chapter 1, it felt so exposition heavy. I just had a really hard time focusing. Then when I finally got moving, there were a lot of typos in the manuscript that kept pushing me out of the story. I think I was set up to fail on this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette for the ARC.