Review: The Undying God by Nathan Wilson

The Undying God
by Nathan Wilson
Publication Date: Oct 8th 2012
Source: Author
Find This Book: The Undying God
Rating: 4/5





A copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 I really liked the characters and the plot of this book, It was very intriguing and made me think about societies ideals. The villain, Margzor, believes that keeping ones virginity is an awful thing and that it’s something to be done when you love someone and someone loves you. His life has been pretty much the worst and he yearns to be loved. A demon posses him and gives him the idea to kill the demigod of virginity, Astalla, and become a demigod himself. He has so much hate that he believes in these ideals so strongly that he starts murdering the Demigod’s followers. It could just be that I wasn’t paying attention as closely as I should have to the book (there were a lot of breaks because I needed to paint a couple rooms) but I feel like his background wasn’t really explained, and that was disappointing. I felt it was really easy to feel pity for Margzor and I’m curious about his childhood and what originally caused him to hate.

 The Literary Foil of Nishka and Arxu was really interesting to read (props for the cool names too). Arxu needed Nishka to bring out the good and emotions in him. He had been murdered and brought back to life, completely emotionless and he couldn’t remember anything about his life. Nishka on the other hand cares deeply about her father and his well-being, which is why she left her small home town to sell his goods. Her father hires a pale stranger (Arxu) to guard her on the road until she gets back. When Nishka almost dies, that’s when the humor of the book, Hrioshango, comes in. He’s constantly on the wrong side of the law and really perverted, but made the book pretty funny. He’s pretty much a foil of himself which sort of makes sense since he’s a chaos magician?

One thing I absolutely loved about this book was the description. It was so deep and vivid, with amazing vocabulary. There was so much of it, you could picture what was going on easily (for better or for worse with those bloody gore scenes) without being an overload. Another thing I loved was ALL of the characters. Even though I don’t think everything I wanted was explained, the characters were well thought out and realistically deep. You could watch the characters grow and muture…. Or grow into even more hatred… Margzor realizes that he has the chance to be saved from his hate, and chance to give up his goal and to stop killing, and he puts that hope 100% into Nishka who had shown him mercy without even realizing it. Then he decides to kill Astalla’s followers anyway? I didn’t really get that part… Another part I wasn’t so sure about was when Margzor looks in a pool of blood and sees the image Nishka and Arxu together… I’m pretty sure Margzor doesn’t have magic, so how did that happen?? Also, how does Arxu get his memories back? Was it because he walked into the ruins of his old home? Because he killed his murderer? Because he almost dies? I have no clue, but all of a sudden he has them back… Lastly, I don’t get how the title of the story fits…. “The Undying God” because I’m pretty Sure 3 deities die in this book sooooo….

I guess I’m just being nit-picky, but Nishka just abandoned her father, never really sold much of anything, and then disappears… I’m curious about what happened to Hrioshango too. But I suppose this was a happily-ever-after story in the end. So it had its pros and cons. The fact that it centered on a sensitive modern issue such as sex was refreshing for me. It’s such a touchy subject in this day and age where some people do covet virginity and where others probably couldn’t care less about it. This book really made me think. It was pretty hard to pick a side between the ‘villain’ and the ‘good guys’ because they both had valid points. By the end of the book I still hadn’t made up my mind! All in all I really liked this book even with these little criticisms and I will definitely re-read in the future.