Review: The second half was spectacular and will have you emotionally involved with the events and characters.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 17, 2013
The first half of this book starts out slow, confusing and frustrating.  I liked the first scenes and they drew me right into the book, but then I sort of slogged through until about 50-60% of the way, which was when it really started kicking in.A lot of the story was pretty predictable (even many of the twists).  There was one thing I never saw coming, only really figured out what they had planned as it was happening and then I was thinking, "Oh s*** he's doing that?  We're screwed!"  And by "we," I mean the good guys.  I really liked that part.  It was probably my favorite part of the book.One interesting aspect of the book is that, like with many ancient myths, there isn't a whole lot of happy endings.  Things just get really messy, really bloody, and while things work out in the end, it's sort of a conditional good ending.  I guess, really, that's a good and bad thing in the book.  I got pretty invested in some of the characters only to see them go through great pain and/or die.Other than how slow the first half of the book was (I trudged through it and only because I promised to review it), I was a little frustrated with him constantly using terms without explaining them.  I know more about Islam and Muslim culture than the average American and I was constantly stumped by words he used.  He also frequently used spellings I'd never seem before (or rarely seen).  For example, though I have seen Ra spelled Re, I have never seen Set spell Seth (even though it is an alternate spelling and that's probably just my ignorance).  Didn't realize they were one and the same until I looked them up, and I used to be fascinated with Egyptian culture.  Even at one time learned to write using hieroglyphs.  I'm not sure if his writing Najjal for the Islamic "anti-christ" was a typo or just a mistake since it is actually Dajjal.I also had a hard time reconciling true myths and roles various gods played in them to the myths in the book, though I largely attributed that to artistic license.  For example, Seth is not evil.  He doesn't even represent evil.  He represents chaos and I think the story would have been much more interesting if the author capitalized on that distinction.  Also, Seth is responsible for sending the dead onto the afterlife, which made it weird that, in the book, he required sacrifices that prevented people from entering the afterlife.  Sobek, associated with Seth in the book, was actually companion to all in the Egyptian myths.  He didn't choose sides but aided Seth, Isis, Horus, and Ra.  He was actually closer associated with Horus than Seth (who was his father in some myths).  Just some interesting little tidbits.  I'm no expert.The last scene is the only time in the entire book that I laughed.  In closing, the story was dark, complex, and with engaging characters.  Some might not have had as much trouble with the first half that I did.  I might have just been in a mood.  Who knows.  If you're a stickler for Egyptian mythology, I'd say stay very, very far away.  Other than that, it's a decent book.  The second half was spectacular and will have you emotionally involved with the events and characters.  Lots of action, intrigue, and mystery.