May, 2001

The first in a trilogy of books about the gods, or more accurately, their human avatars struggling against each other. This would be a typical "gods playing their games out by manipulating humans book" except that the "actual" gods don't play a part, just humans who carry a piece of a god, thus gaining abilities and knowledge. Saberhagen is also playing the game of "surprise! This is actually our world, just in the far future, fooled you, didn't I?" that he enjoyed in The Books of Swords, he's just not at all subtle in this book.

MAJOR GRIPE - Apparently Saberhagen is now big enough that he no longer requires an editor to actually read his book. He also does not seem to re-read it himself. The continuity is jumbled, with passages just stuck in, apparently because he realized too late that he needed to tell the reader something, but doesn't bother altering a previous section to fit the info where it actually happened. The entire book is not like this, but it happens enough to grate. It's not unlike a 12 year old's description of a movie, "Oh wait, I forgot to tell you something that happened in the very beginning which I need to tell you now, so that the part the happens next makes sense."