The Last Sacrifice

Thoroughly moored in the grimdark genre. The Last Sacrifice is bleak, unremittingly so. We are introduced to a world where the gods most definitely do not care. They are not good, yet are still needed to ensure the worlds continued existence. Their disciples go about the world randomly selecting people to be their sacrifices to appease them.

The central story here surrounds a man called Brogan, returning from his time in a mercenary band to find his wife and 2 children have been taken as sacrifices. Seeing that the gods and their disciples have done nothing for him he raises a gang to try and rescue them, failing but killing the gods followers and desecrating their sacrifice site in revenge, without understanding the consquences.

James A Moore does a fantastic job in showing the two sides to this. Both are driven by suspect things, but both fundamentally think they are in the right. Brogan, who feels wronged by the gods (justifiably) and lashing out against them, and the Grakhul, the servants of the gods, who see their duty to keep the gods appeased, but not understanding the personal cost of what they are doing. This conflicted and bleak heart makes this book.

That being said, there are some issues. The start of the book is extremely abrupt. We are not given much time to really build our understanding in the pain of Brogan's loss (or that of the Grakhul for that matter). It took me a while to really start empathising with either side as a result which undermined the power and the impact, but as the book progressed and we got to know the characters better, that cruel dichotomy at the heart of the story added some power to their actions, even if I never fully connected with each character as I might have liked.

This is very much the first book in a series and the ending was somewhat abrupt, but I do look forward to continuing it. There is an intriguing melancholy to everything here.