By S. Deeth "Sheila Deeth" (OR, USA)
I'm guessing Suren Fant's The Godless loses something in translation, though it builds a certain charm from the uncertain sentence structures and tenses. Turns of phrase are alternately odd and appealing as Aren's life spins out of control, memories and dreams intertwining, sweet wife Manush, domineering father, friends who may have died or might betray him. But Aren isn't just a young man inheriting a fortune. An accidental encounter with drugs reveals strange powers and the quest to understand them fills much of the tale.
While the action moves from Armenia to Germany to America and beyond, Aren's attitudes are distinctly un-western. "Women can hardly realize such reality," he muses at one point. "They are tender and delicate." As he soon is not.
The quest for a missing "cargo" takes Aren to Germany, but already he's far away in his mind. Meanwhile a mysterious French-speaking Englishman could be friend or foe. Detached writing portrays hotel rooms and scenery with equal frugality, while longer passages are filled with thoughts, plans and ambitions, leading to curious revelations of God, Jehovah, Lucifer, disciples and angels alike. Biblical allusions mix with un-Biblical musings and the complexity of light and dark is somewhat reminiscent of Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch though harder to read. Not one for readers distracted by poor translation or intense introspection, but certainly an intriguing tale.
Disclosure: I received a free ecopy through a social networking site and am offering my honest review.
By hawkssr (Arizona)
The author's imagination is quite good. His book kept my interest but like the former reviewer said it has been translated so there are some problems in that some of the words were wrong. Nothing that you don't understand, as you just put them in or change them mentally as you read. The punctuation is different also so takes some getting use to but again shouldn't deter you from reading this book. The author describes exactly what the books is about, maybe he should not have given so much detail and let the reader start putting two and two together as they read. All in all I think this was a well written and interesting book with lots of action in it. Good job!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LLF4VC
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