[rating=3]

Yes, that is a low rating for me. It’s because the book was written as the first in a series, and it knows it. It’s not so bad in the second book of a series, but in the first, you have to be careful.

It’s self indulgently long, leaving things not particularly resolved at the end. It’s not like star wars A New Hope, for example, where they still have to defeat the Empire, but have defeated the death star (Can’t say that’ a spoiler 😉 ). There’s completion there. Son of Heaven doesn’t do tha. It feels like it ended in the middle. Like I said, that’s fine for the second in a series. Not so much for the first.

There’s a great deal of character development in the book, but little in the way of plot development. It’s set after the fall of civilization, with the middle part of the book detailing that fall. That bit was good. I liked it a lot. The first section, however, could have been cut down dramatically. Especially as it seems that the setting that’s been detailed, in that first section, isn’t going to be that important, long-term.

Well written, but the pacing needs work. In my humble opinion, of course 😉