{"id":266,"date":"2004-02-26T07:19:48","date_gmt":"2004-02-26T13:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/?p=266"},"modified":"2004-02-26T07:19:48","modified_gmt":"2004-02-26T13:19:48","slug":"review-a-target_blank-hrefhttpwwwamazoncomexecobidosasin0812545958fantasistnettouched-by-the-godsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/2004\/02\/26\/review-a-target_blank-hrefhttpwwwamazoncomexecobidosasin0812545958fantasistnettouched-by-the-godsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: <A target=\"_blank\" HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0812545958\/fantasistnet\">Touched By The Gods<\/A>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another great Lawrence Watt-Evans book!<\/p>\n<p>I just finished reading <A target=\"_blank\" HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0812545958\/fantasistnet\">Touched By The Gods<\/A> by Lawrence Watt-Evans last night.  It was, of course, up to his usual wonderful work.  Though, I have to admit I had some issues with the names he used.  They were occasionally hard to pronounce and that interrupted the &#8220;flow&#8221; of the story for me sometimes.  But, that&#8217;s really my only complaint.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a fairly straight-forward theme, really, a champion who is chosen by the gods during a time of peace is suddenly thrust into a war that could destroy civilization as he knows it.  Standard heroic fantasy stuff.  Of course, Lawrence Watt-Evans manages to bring those &#8220;stock&#8221; characters to life and make them real with an expert stroke of the brush.  Malledd, who is the god&#8217;s chosen champion, is born into a smithing family and takes up the trade at his father&#8217;s anvil.  He grows to enourmous size, even for a smith, but settles into a peacefull life with his wife and children.  But, it&#8217;s not meant to last, and it would have made a boring book if it had!  An enemy of the empire in the far East has found a dark magic that he hopes will allow him to avenge himself against his people&#8217;s conquerers.  And, along the way on his quest for vengence, he discovers that the gods can favor more than one champion&#8230;<br \/>\nI won&#8217;t tell any more than that, though, lest I give something away.  Let me say only that <A target=\"_blank\" HREF=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0812545958\/fantasistnet\">Touched By The Gods<\/A> has some interesting takes on destiny and duty.  In fact, they&#8217;re themes throughout the book as Malledd struggles with the internal conflict between staying home with his family and doing his duty to his empire.  An enjoyable read and a bit of a break for Lawrence Watt-Evans who is well known for his <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ethshar.com\">Ethshar<\/a> series of books.  I really can&#8217;t say enough about his fantastic fiction.  And, yes, I meant that as a play on words!  So, what are you waiting for?  Go get this book and read it!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another great Lawrence Watt-Evans book! I just finished reading Touched By The Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans last night. It was, of course, up to his usual wonderful work. Though, I have to admit I had some issues with the names he used. They were occasionally hard to pronounce and that interrupted the &#8220;flow&#8221; of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,16,23],"tags":[414,135],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantastic-and-surreal","category-fiction-and-its-kin","category-review","tag-far-east","tag-lawrence-watt-evans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasist.net\/scroll\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}