I am a big fan of David Gemmell and his novels. His writing style is fast paced and he usually tells interesting stories with relatable characters I enjoy spending time with. Echoes of the Great Song mostly follows this trend with an enjoyable story that is grand in scale. Unfortunately the story is not told with the flare I’ve come to expect from a David Gemmell novel and I suspect the ambition behind the story is the reason for this. Although I enjoyed the book quite a lot it does not compare to some of his other novels. As mentioned, the story being told is pretty grand, but it never comes across as such while reading it and I never quite felt connected to what was happening. It may be that the length of the book forced him to rush over some of the sections that could have helped flesh out the story and made it more real, but in the end it feels a bit rushed. Perhaps if the story spanned over two or three books we may have seen the full potential. The biggest problem I had with the novel was that I wasn’t able to connect with, and therefore care about, any of the characters. None of the characters evolved over the course of the story and the ones with potential rarely featured at all. This prevented me from experiencing the story with the characters and made me feel like I was seeing it from a distance. Again, if the book was longer, or in more volumes, we may have had more time with the characters to get to know them. As it stands, they were interesting but I was left wondering who they really were.The two criticisms I have bother me because of the potential I see for the story, not because they ruin the experience. Despite those criticisms I really liked the novel. The world he creates is interesting because it is not your average fantasy realm and some of the themes the writer touches on are quite interesting and made me think.All in all a must read for any David Gemmell fan and I can highly recommend it to readers who like fantasy with a bit of a twist.
Due to almost supernatural events life for a once vast, powerful, and intellectual nation seems to be running it's course. Soon there will be a new threat and those who still reign as near gods to the normal inhabitants are'nt to happy about it, and wont give up what they've still got without a fight. And boy are there some fights.I realy liked this book because in many sences it was a tragedy, and a real struggle for the elite few to try and hold onto their former and glorious lifes, while their oppressed lesser's have to deal with teaming up with them just to stay alive. It left me constantly wondering who i should support, but in a good way. And it also has some great militaristic and tactical/mental asspects to it,while still getting some comedic releife to keep it from beeing over bearing at some points. Enywho, I loved it, it's dark, well thought out, and has a sad but sattisfying and realistic (used loosley since this is fiction) ending when given the circumstances.P.S- It switches points of view to multiple charecters, so if you get confused at first that's probably the reason. I don't remeber exactly but i think there's only like 4 main peoples point of view.
What do You think about Echoes Of The Great Song (2002)?
Another great standalone book by David Gemmell, loved the way he spins the unique world, it’s destruction to ice age and how the god like race cope with the changed world. While the flow of the book is like any other Gemmell book – a page turner the plot differs quite a lot. With the focus more on world building, unique races and their survival, the book ends up scarifying on the hero angle. Don’t get me wrong the book has many hero characters just they don’t fell as epic as what I expect from such a story, but again such a story will span over 3 to 4 books by other authors. With this book i have ended up reading all of Gemmell's book, will miss his writing,he was one of the best modern fantasy fiction writer.
—Mayank Agarwal
Talaban, Ro, Rael, il pazzo Viruk, Avatar: saggi, dei, egemoni, tiranni. Sofarita, subumana che riscatta il suo popolo e apre gli occhi agli Avatar. Cas-Coatl buffo richiamo al dio precolombiano. Almeia dea di cristallo assetata di vita e sangue. Chi ha il potere è convinto di essere un dio e che chi non l'ha sia subumano. Chi no ha il potere odia chi ce l'ha e trama per rubarglielo. Poi arrivano gli Almec, più forti di tutti, e allora gli Avatar e i subumani si alleano. In fondo è tutto già visto ma il libro ha un buon ritmo, i personaggi sono interessanti. Bello.
—Stefania
This served as my introduction to David Gemmell and will not be the last book of his I pick up. The characters are memorable and the myth and magic of Echoes' world stand out in the crowd of sci-fi/fantasy. The story and action move along at a good rate and the multiple plot points come together for what promises to be a great climax. Most surprising is the manner in which one of the primary characters transitions from dispicable to admirable throughout the course of the novel. Unfortunately, the momentum that builds throughout the first 5/6 of the book crashes headfirst into an unsatisfying and hurried conclusion.
—Brad
