Customer Reviews

Age of Ra

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Okay. I freely admit it. I picked this book up because of the cover. Take a second to check it out. Pretty cool, isn't it? My wife said it looked more like a video game than a book and I guess she's right.

So the cover pulled me in, but it's the synopsis that hooked me. The Egyptian pantheon defeated all other gods and is now the single world religion. Except for in their home land, now renamed Freegypt (how precious is that?) where a sort of humanist messiah is planning to overthrow the gods. Now that's different. I had visions of a Dune-like (or Watchmen-esque if you prefer) epic of innovative world-building. What would the Earth be like if the Egyptian pantheon (and by extension ancient Egyptian culture) held sway over the world?

Age of Ra does go into that a little bit. But this book is more action/military sci-fi than anything else. To be sure, the book is fun to read and the action is handled pretty well. But I have to say that the world building is disappointing. I would like to have known more about the effect the gods had on politics. What was presented seemed a little too close to our current status qou, with the Egyptian Pantheon layered over the top. We hear about Ba (a mystical source of power obtained by proper devotion to one's god) powered weapons, but the rest of the world seemed pretty untouched. There are passing references to family cartouches and vehicles have something called drive spheres (which aren't ever really described), but mainly the world outside the main conflict is either unexplained or under-explained.

If you know going in that this is the novel version of a summer blockbuster action movie, it is pretty well written. In some ways, the tone of the book reminded me of another sci-fi action book, David Gunn's Death's Head. Both tell serious war stories brimming with action and violence that can be surprisingly humorous at times. Age of Ra didn't have the flourish and depth that Death's Head did, but James Lovegrove did a good job on his action and pacing. Battles were clearly described and I never got lost in the thick of things. His character's stories are interesting enough and you do feel like the characters are making the decisions they make due to who they are rather than because the author was running them through the paces.

I would have liked the gods to have been portrayed as a little more... godly. These are near immortal beings who don't measure time the same way we do and can be in multiple places at the same time. The author tells us this, yet has Osiris call his wooden phallus (it's a long story) a 'fake cock'. Another god tells Ra to 'sod off'. That would work if the gods were being played for laughs, but since they otherwise do speak in pseudo-archaic language, the times they use slang pulled me out of the story. Also, though they are a small part of the book, the mummy warriors seemed extremely silly. Though I believe the author did his home work on Egyptian culture and mythology, walking mummies have more to do with Hollywood than Horus.

I'm kind of stuck on this one. One the one hand, it is very, very well written for what it is. On the other, I was expecting something different than what I got. I'm not sure it is really fair to blame the book for not being what I hoped for, but I was still disappointed with it nonetheless.

He has written a follow-up called Age of Zeus that also sounds promising, but based on my experience with this one, I'll be skipping it.

Carl Jung believed firmly in the ancient expression, "as above, so below," from the alchemical text, The Emerald Tablet. For the follower of ancient hermeticism this expression holds the key to all the mysteries of the universe. Jung used the formula to explain the relationship between the unconscious and conscious mind, whereas Hermes Trismegistus, the author of The Emerald Tablet, saw it as a key to open the magic inherent in the world.

The ultimate meaning of the adage is that the macrocosmos is mirrored in the microcosmos and that God is the same as man.

James Lovegrove uses this formula as the organizing principle of his tightly-crafted novel, The Age of Ra, to create two worlds: earth far in the future, where the Egyptian gods have defeated all other gods and divided the earth into warring factions, each aligned with a god from the pantheon; and the pantheon itself, with all its petty struggles and jealousies.

Lovegrove, therefore, tells four tales with four parallel arcs within this format: (1) the story of the gods and their movement in the pantheon; (2) the personal tale of the godly struggle between Set, Osiris, Isis and, Set's wife, Nephthys; (3) the war between the worldly factions and their struggle for dominance; and (4) the personal struggle between Lieutenant David Westwynter, a British soldier, and his younger brother Steven.

Ultimately, the novel is about fratricide and sibling rivalry, both on earth and in heaven.

The novel begins as military science fiction. David Westwynter and his paratroop unit drop behind enemy lines in the Arabian desert to rendezvous with an American unit. The British Commandos, commanded by Westwynter worship Osiris, whereas their American counterparts follow Horus. Together the two factions are waging a secret war against the Nephthysians.

Lovegrove is a good writer and he immediately establishes the rules. The novel is told from the point of view of David Westwynter; it is a tightly-constructed narrative with a no-nonsense prose style. The British commandos are an elite fighting group and we are on solid military science ground here, following the team to the rendezvous point. However, Lovegrove quickly lets us know that he is not writing a standard military science fiction novel. Our first clue is that the men carry Ba weapons and the battle locations are ancient locations, re-animated to a future context. And by the end of the chapter, the mummies arrive.

Even though Lovegrove clearly employs elements of myth, horror, and science fiction, the novel doesn't feel like a post-modernist romp. Instead, it reminds me of the movies and novels I liked as a kid. More particularly, the story of David Westwynter and his brother Steven is reminiscent of films like "Beau Geste," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and "The Four Feathers." The difference here, of course, is the blending of three speculative tropes with the traditional British romantic novel of the early twentieth century: military science fiction, Egyptian mythology, and horror (more specifically--the mummy as horror).

The strength of the novel lies in its traditional underpinning and Lovegrove's thorough understanding of myth. To give just one example: David Westwynter rebels against his rich upper-class British family and joins the army when his younger brother dies in a sea battle. After his capture and escape from the Nephthysians, Westwynter is rescued by freedom fighters from Freegypt. The leader of the fighters is a young woman, who tells him that they are followers of the Lightbringer. The Lightbringer is an enigmatic man, who wears a mask to hide his disfigured face. After the protagonist meets the charismatic Lightbringer, he decides to join the Freegyptian's cause to throw off the rule of the gods and to abandon his allegiance to Osiris and England. This is the stuff of British romantic fiction. One novel that I read over and over as a kid was Thomas Costain's The Black Rose. In that novel a young Anglo-Saxon lord flees Norman rule to win fame and fortune in Cathay, find true love, and return to England. A similar plot is working here.

However, this is not to be interpreted as a criticism of Lovegrove's novel. If you like historical adventure stories, with a touch of the British Empire, à la Kipling and Costain, then this book is for you. Additionally, Lovegrove follows the Aristotelian verities throughout to create a well-written, tightly constructed novel.

The only criticism that I have of the novel is that the gods receive short shrift. However, they are so annoying in their childish displays that, ultimately, I was glad to be rid of them.

In the final analysis, The Age of Ra is a tightly-crafted novel, loyal, to the Aristotelian verities, a strong narrative, with well-developed central characters, and a nod to British adventure stories of the forties and fifties.

If you love Ancient Egypt and the myths of the land then I highly suggest you read this book. It's not ground breaking but it's an extremely fun read. Fans of SF-military novels may wish to get at their local library however, the book is more philosophical than it is violent. At any rate, I found the story entertaining and the ending satisfying, though I wish this could have been a series rather than a one-shot so that more details on the world and the god-tech could have been given. This book is an excellent attempt based around gods and myths that you don't get to read much about compared to Greek and Norse mythology. For the low price of $7.99 this book was worth every penny and more.

Ancient Egyptian gods are playing a big game of RISK with modern-day powers. And unfortunately that's about as deep as this novel gets. The A plot is a pretty bland resistance story featuring a cast of extremely two-dimensional characters and frankly unbelievable plot twists. The plot suffers greatly from an ominous sense of foreshadowing that only saves later developments from being obvious through a terrible overuse of red herrings. The dialog - punctuated mainly by pages-long monologues - is tediously expository, but even as a narrator Lovegrove is direct to the point of overexplaining. Coupled with the lovingly detailed and frequent combat chapters and the blatantly tacked-on romantic subplot, the book reads a lot like someone describing an action movie - and while it could make for a decent (if shallow) video game, the plot and characters aren't enough to prop up this mess of a book on the page alone.

The book isn't all bad. Lovegrove has clearly done his research, and the book is full of references to ancient Egyptian mythology. The concept of the various continents forming theocratic power blocs is an intriguing one, and the intra-Pantheon conflict occasionally shows signs of life, although even the chapters from Ra's perspective aren't exempt from shallow characterization and "as you well know" dialog. And the two main plots - a soldier joining up with an anti-theocratic terrorist operation, and Ra attempting to ease the global war by ending the conflicts among his pantheon - do complement each other, however clumsily, in some fundamental thematic ways.

The real reason I wanted to comment on the book, though, is the humorously transparent authorial bias. There is only one (human) woman in the book, and she's actually described as a "Desert girl. Hard, hot, beautiful, inhospitable." Isis, Nephthys, and the other goddesses almost exclusively appear in the book while in the act of having sex, although to be fair this is also true of Egyptian mythology in general. Incest factors extremely heavily into the book, and even the human characters are abnormally preoccupied with their parents' sex lives. Vaguely racist stereotypes are a mainstay - from the (literally) kamikaze Japanese helicopter pilots to the double-crossing Russians to the above-mentioned "desert girl". And of course there's a breathlessly earnest I'm-not-homophobic-really slant to the narrative, notably including two separate gay rapists and the Unfortunate Implications Bingo twofer when it's explained that one character's time spent with a smuggler wasn't "that way", "even though he was a Greek sailor."

To sum up, the novel's rife with hilariously unfortunate implications, suffers from a weak plot and little to no characterization, and a high concept that ultimately doesn't really go anywhere. If you're looking for a fast read with lots of violence and clinically described deviant sex but you don't feel like leaving the scifi section for it, you could do worse than Age of Ra. If you'd rather read some intelligent scifi with a mythology background, go for American Gods or Ilium instead.

The premise behind this book is very interesting. It can't be denied too that Lovegrove has researched all the relations and connections between the gods of this mythology. However any integrity is lost through the child-like bickering of the gods, reminscent of mopy homoerotic school children throwing fits at eachother for no reason.

The gods were extremely badly portrayed in this sense, furthermore with the 'god chapters' of the book which don't really add anything and just create a extremely silly atmosphere, almost laughable. These chapters also slow the pace of the book down and ruin things.

Without these chapters this book would be a bit more passable, better pacing and more respectable. The militaristic / human world is quite well thought through and has more merit. However the character development I found flimsy at times, everything seems slightly underdeveloped as a whole actually, even to the degree of stealing the staff weapons from Stargate. Blatant plagiarism at its finest, and it wears it with pride.

Some of the names seemed poorly used too (adding to the childish, laughable manner of the book). For instance if the mythology used was 'Lord of the Rings mythology' the book would be talking about frodo grenades, mordor rifles and travelling to the valley of aragorn... It really is that silly in places.

The book has so much potential but never really lived up to any of it (would've been closer if it ignored the gods so much). Perhaps this review is a little bitter but I love books, read every day and Lovegrove has disappointed me a lot here but already disappointed me greatly after I read his book Redlaw, which I found similarly boring to read.

The reviews were not great but I really liked this book and the Age or Thor. NOt sure why the bad reviews but I enjoyed reading these two books.

This is a solidly entertaining and fast paced read with a twist.

Godly differences and transgressions reflect on a near future/alternative earth plane and vice versa.

Let's not kid ourselves with the belief that this book intends to delve deeply into the mythological and religious depths of the Egyptian pantheon and its followers.

The book has components of a military fiction novel combined with a sci-fi / fantasy component.

It has solid pace and a good story.
Character depth could be improved.
Giving the humans an aspect of their god and giving the gods human foibles actually makes this more tangible than setting the two further apart.
I actually like the use of common UK colloquialisms.

It delivers a solid feel, decent pace, good story and satisfying conclusion and leaves you the feel that it could be a one-shot or an introductory volume.

An enjoyable read!
If you want something containing "these & thous", look somewhere else and not in the works of a gifted writer that is ex military and does not put on airs of pretension.

Not sure why this book is getting 2 and 3 stars. It was a pretty good read. Though like others have said it could have used a few more chapters to get some more backstory on the characters and the gods themselves. I finished the book relatively quickly and it had me turning pages and finishing chapters. It seems though since we don't get much in the way of a set up to the world and it's mythos, we'd get some more indepth info about the characters that inhabit it. When I finished the book I realized I didn't find out much about David and the rest of the crew. We are given a backstory on the brothers but it doesn't seem to flesh them out enough. But overall I enjoyed the read. I am more upset that the sequels don't continue the story set up in the Age of Ra. The name of the books made me think there would be some sort of "god battle" after the turmoil in the Age of Ra, and especially since the story ended with no real closure. The sequels are just set in worlds where those gods are king and don't have anything to do with each other.

Overall, since the other books in the series aren't connected,I would say this is more of a rental or "get on sale" type of book. For me, when I buy books I like to get a series worth to really flesh out characters and worlds. Since this is a standalone I prolly wouldn't have picked it up. Though like others here, the cover is what made me snag it. I did start reading the first couple of chapters and enjoyed it, so I purchased it. If this book was part of a trilogy I would definitely recommend it as a purchase. It's still not a bad book by any means, it's just a little light on backstory and character threads.

In this story, the Egyptian Gods have defeated all other Gods and rule over the human domain. The Gods have distinct territories that worship them and follow their whims. Lt. David Westwynter, a British Paratrooper and representative of Osiris and Isis, is dropped into the Middle East on a recon mission against the Nephesians. The story follows David as the abandoned sole survivor from his failed recon mission into Freegypt, an area not claimed by the Gods. David joins up with a rebellious group led by a mysterious leader known as the lightbringer, who is rebelling against the God's whims. The story follows David on his new adventures with this group while also following the strife between the Gods from their perspective. This is not a bad book; it has great ideas that are just not fleshed out enough. There are weapons infused with the Gods power like Ba lances and what not, but are not really explained. There is also no real concept of the political motivations or reasons for the specific worship by certain areas. This story feels like watching The Transformer movies, fun to watch, but not winning any oscars. Some of the plot elements are forgettable and the twist you can see a mile away. Mr. Lovegrove has written two more, which I will read because I hope he has evolved his idea. This book is not for everyone. If you take your sci-fi or fantasy fiction seriously, don't pick this up. If you want a breezy easy read with not much thinking, than this is for you. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. It is just so so.

I love history and Sci-fi. So, I thought; why not? I got burned. Horrible read this book. As I was reading, I felt as if something was missing the entire time I was reading this "novel". The delivery and customer service was great as always.