3 Stars for "The Black God's War" by Moses Siregar III

3 stars out of 5: This novel has some technical polish to it, but the culture and world of the novel are never created sufficiently for a fantasy audience to suspend disbelief. The story is populated with so much mysticism it is becomes increasingly difficult to take the events of the novel seriously, and maintain any real emotional investment in the characters. The presentation of religion in the novel is handled in a really very bizarre manner that calls attention to the unreality of the fiction, and misconstrues contemporary religions. This book will be hard for high-fantasy fans to enjoy, given the shallow nature of the world and characters. The new-age approach to many of the concepts will also alienate people familiar with the references the book includes. Though it is an interesting mix of influences, the world of the novel suffers from an extreme lack of development.

“The Black God’s War” by Moses Siregar III tells the story of the ten year war between two rival states in the world of Gallea. One nation is called Rezzia, and its armies are led by a young prophet, Caio, and his sister cynical sister, Lucia who together hope to convert the neighbor state, Pawelon, to the true religion of Rezzia. The Pawelon have defended their culture and mystical beliefs for ten long years, and the young prince, Rao, comes of age swearing to bring the conflict to an end. The two ways of life are tested against each other, and the new generation of leaders must find a common ground or risk losing the lives of their people and their own minds.

“The Black God’s War” is competently written, and maintains a brisk pace throughout the story. The plot is complex enough to maintain a refreshing originality, while also heavily referencing Homer’s Iliad. Much of the style of the book mimics Homer’s epic framework, which adds an interesting dimension to the events of the story, and the choices of the characters. Mr. Siregar also draws heavily from contemporary religion, and works hard to incorporate and unite several perspectives. Even though there are many subplots at work through the story, none are abandoned and each one reaches an adequate resolution.

While most conventions are well-executed, there are also some problems in the book. The biggest of these problems is Mr. Siregar’s treatment of religion. Religion and mythology are almost entirely the focus of fantasy novels, and so it is not inappropriate to include religious or mythological elements in fantasy book. Many of the best fantasy authors have done exactly that, and done it admirably. But Mr. Siregar’s presentation is somewhat hard to follow.

The first reason the presentation of religion in “The Blackgod’s War” is difficult to understand has a lot to do with how abstract it is. There is a great deal of mystical activity involving psychic planes, auras, a sort of astral projection, divinities and the righteous equivalent of magical powers. Whole battle sequences actually take place within the minds of main characters and the thrust of much of the action involves thinking, meditating, and praying. So much mysticism is ultimately included in the story that by the end of the book that it’s easy for readers to lose any suspension of disbelief.

In addition to the sheer amount of references to spiritual energy and religious magic, neither belief system or culture seems terribly well-thought out. Many of the deities in Rezzia’s religion seem entirely without motivation, and the greater truth which they claim to represent seems ultimately very shallow and silly. On the other side of the spectrum, Pawelon mythological beliefs very closely mimic those of eastern religions. The book spends a great deal of time talking about karma and the overly simple what-goes-around-comes-around principle it represents in the book.

This is a problem for two reasons. First, there’s no reason to include actual beliefs from real religions in a fantasy book. Fantasy authors are allowed to make up whatever they feel like and are the least limited to things that actually exist. Second, including actual religious beliefs in any novel runs the risk of misrepresenting that religion, which is irritating in the best cases and downright offensive in the worst.  The way karma is handled in “The Blackgod’s War” is an example of both problems. Using terms lifted out of actual religions raises the question of reality for the reader, and there is a constant tension between the fantasy world created in the book, and the real world being directly referenced.Ultimately it keeps readers from connecting to the fantasy world in any significant way. 

More than that, and the issue of karma is a perfect example of this, is that Eastern religion is presented fairly poorly in this book. Karma is regarded as a reward-punishment system for good or bad actions, which is actually a pop-culture MTV bastardization of the concept. In the original Buddhist sense, karma was the force which tied souls to the endless cycle of reincarnation in the Wheel of Samsara that ultimately kept them from reaching enlightenment. In that sense, there’s no such thing as good karma or bad karma because all karma keeps a soul from reaching enlightenment. Nor does karma have positive or negative consequences in daily life because it is ultimately a force which acts after a person dies, but before they are reincarnated. Many of the concepts used from eastern religions are really more new-age reinterpretations of misunderstood ideas, which in the first place, don't need to be involved in the novel at all, and the in second place, at least should have been researched.

Ultimately the entire presentation of religion seems trite and lazy. It doesn’t work to give the reader any sense that the world in which the story takes place is at all self-contained, which is always the goal of good high or low fantasy.

3 stars out of 5: This novel has some technical polish to it, but the culture and world of the novel are never created sufficiently for a fantasy audience to suspend disbelief. The story is populated with so much mysticism it is becomes increasingly difficult to take the events of the novel seriously, and maintain any real emotional investment in the characters. The presentation of religion in the novel is handled in a really very bizarre manner that calls attention to the unreality of the fiction, and misconstrues contemporary religions. This book will be hard for high-fantasy fans to enjoy, given the shallow nature of the world and characters. The new-age approach to many of the concepts will also alienate people familiar with the references the book includes. Though it is an interesting mix of influences, the world of the novel suffers from an extreme lack of development.