Review -- World's End: Book one of the Age of Misrule Trilogy by Mark Chadbourn

World's End by Mark Chadbourn promised to be a high energy, dark fantasy novel about what would happen if ancient Celtic gods suddenly returned to our world. It only delivered on half of that promise. While there are plenty of references to Celtic mythology and folklore, they weren't enough to carry this novel. It's funny because the mythological references felt as "alien and unknowable to me" as the gods did to the main characters. Read on to hear why this book failed to hold my interest despite the praise surrounding it.

The lives of five people who have never met are suddenly turned inside out when strange unnatural occurrences being to happen around them. First there's Jack "Church" Churchill, a man who lost his girlfriend two years ago. There's Ruth, the high powered lawyer. Laura, the raver and computer hacker. Shavi the "New Age mystic" type of character. And finally there's Veitch, the former criminal. These five characters are the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons--the five fated to stop the dark forces from taking over the world.

World's End is told in the third person, but it's a roving point of view, and at some points it's almost omniscient. Half the time a chapter would be focusing on Church--ostensibly the "main" main character--but then we'd get a paragraph that described Ruth's feelings or Laura's. These shifts in perspective while not confusing, made the book feel uneven. This is especially pronounced in the beginning of the novel when it's mostly just Ruth and Church. However, once the five are united, Ruth seems to disappear from the narrative except for when she verbally spars with Laura. The characters don't get equal page time, and because of the roving point of view, I felt like I didn't get to know most of them very well. Church is the only exception, but he wasn't terribly interesting to begin with.

The plot is fairly standard, and if this was a video game, I'd have to describe it as one big "fetch quest." The five are told that there are four powerful artifacts that will help them stop the evil gods/otherworldly beings from destroying the world. While a couple of the artifacts have recognizable names--Excalibur or the Holy Grail/Cauldron--they're essentially just MacGuffins. The characters have to go get them, take them to a place, and then that's it. The reader doesn't even get to see the ritual at the end that "activates" them.

Over the course of World's End the characters and the reader are beaten over the head with the same mantra: magic went out of the world when reason and logic took over; humanity is missing something essential. By the end of the book almost all of the main characters were echoing this sentiment. I don't mind the message, per se. What bothered me was how heavy handed it came across. The gods say it. The characters' guide Tom says it. And even the characters say it. It was just too much.

While I picked up World's End specifically because it did something different--using Celtic mythology and folklore--I made a critical error. I don't know any Celtic myths or the geography of Britain. I understand that this novel was written for a British audience, so this isn't a huge deal, but I felt lost for almost the entire thing. The Celtic gods are constantly described as unknowable, alien, and beyond the characters' comprehension. That's the way I felt while reading about them. I don't know my Nuada's from my Balfor's from my Galstonbury's. 

World's End couldn't draw me in, no matter how badly I wanted it to. It's an apocalyptic fantasy novel that doesn't use Christianity as its base. It's something different. But in this case it was too different for me to appreciate. I couldn't get close to the characters, except for maybe Laura towards the end. The plot plodded along in the beginning and then rushed to something of a cliffhanger ending. The Celtic names, places, and myths were almost impenetrable without some sort of foreknowledge.

World's End has merit. I don't deny it. While uneven in places, it wasn't poorly written. I'd recommend it for fantasy lovers who don't mind the fact that they'd have to read the whole trilogy to come away satisfied. As for me, I wasn't able to immerse myself in World's End to want to finish the trilogy. I came away from it feeling disappointed.