Quick Review of Bid the Gods Arise

Bid the Gods Arise by Robert Mullin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rob Mullin excels at world-building and characterization. “Bid the Gods Arise” deftly blends SF with just a touch of fantasy to create a fully realized world featuring interstellar kidnapping, gladiators, corruption, swordplay, and a bit of everything else. The characters include enough warriors, clerics, and barbarians, both human and otherwise, that I expected a D&D-ish adventure, but the author doesn’t take that easy route. Instead, Mullin hints at greater stakes than mere swordplay.

The characters overcome misperceptions and personal differences. In a gritty, corrupt environment, they lift and encourage rather than demean each other. There are scads of nihilistic life-sucks, let’s-kill-every-in-our-way stories out there, but this isn’t one of them. Kudos to the author for doing that.

This is the first in the Wells of the Worlds series. The story continues in Forsake Not the Gods. A prequel, Blood Song, is a novella featuring the female gladiator Dania, one of my favorite characters in the series.

By the way, check out the series soundtrack on Spotify. (https://open.spotify.com/album/0qZg9u…)

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