Review: Hammer of God

Hammer of God is the third book in Karen Miller’s Godspeaker trilogy (the first books being Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom).

The trilogy as a whole focuses on two separate lands – Mijak, a harsh desert country ruled by warlords and their scorpion god, and Ethrea, a more traditional lush European-influenced land. The first book in the trilogy focused completely on Mijak, and its Empress’ rise to power, while the second book introduced Ethrea and its first female ruler, Rhian.

Hammer of God sees Rhian in power and beginning to face the threats that endanger her country, the most disturbing of which is ravening Mijak, which is conquering the world country by country. In order to save Ethrea, she must immerse herself in political intrigue and trust those who should, by all rights, be enemies.

Miller’s strength is worldbuilding, which shines especially in the scenes taking place in Mijak. This country is unique in fantasy fiction, and compelling because of this. Ethrea feels much like dozens of other countries, and is less interesting in comparison.

Miller does do a good job of filling out her characters – the reader is never left wondering as to a character’s motivation thanks to a lot of internal dialogue. Sometimes it feels like a good deal of this could easily have been left out of the book to no detriment, saving the need to wade through a lot of talk to get to the action. The characters do sometimes descend towards cliché, especially Rhian as she fills the role of warrior woman, though this is hardly unusual for the genre.

This is, in some respects, the weakest book in the trilogy. There isn’t much action for the length of the book, and some of the plotlines conclusions seem almost glossed over. The whole series seems to be concluded almost too easily, with no satisfying resolution to some of the subplots.

That said, most of these issues are relatively minor in the scope of the book (and are common to much fantasy fiction). Miller’s prose is always well-crafted and easy to read, and it is a simple thing to get lost in the worlds of Mijak and Ethrea.

Hammer of God is published by Harper Voyager.