Thank You Mr. Kemp for bringing me back to my D&D roots!! It's been a long while since I read this genre and I'm glad I have the privilage to say you brought me back!! The Godborn is the second novel of the soon-to-be released The Sundering series and yes I did read the 1st book Companions. If you are a Kemp Fan you will enjoy the book with it's strong beginning , middle and ending. I was able to follow along without re-reading the whole series which was a plus for me. I look forward to reading the next book in the series when I have a minute to breathe.**This book comes to me from Net Gallery in exchange for my honest opinion.** The Godborn is the second novel in The Sundering series of books set in the Forgotten Realms. Each of the novels in The Sundering is designed to be a standalone installment, so, reading the previous novels is suggested but not required. This one is designed to be a sort of capstone to the "Cale" series of books, which I haven't read. Moreover, if you haven't read any of the authors novels in the Forgotten Realms before, you may feel a bit "Dropped in" where you have no idea who the characters are. However, despite this, the author does attempt to fill in enough of the blanks to make even a newcomer understand the character relationships in broadstrokes. This novel, when compared with The Companions is much, much darker and centers around the goddess Shar attempting to consume Toril while another group of companions tries to stop it. Several of the companions have a piece of the "Dead god" Mask inside them and attempt to resurrect the old god who is the enemy of Shar. While the companions attempt to foil Shar's plan, the Lord of the eighth layer of The Nine Hells, Mephistopheles, wishes to absorb the remains of Mask's divinity in the hopes of acquiring enough power to defeat the Lord of the ninth layer and all of The Nine Hells, Asmodeus. To do this, he signs pacts with many, including a very unfortunate group of brothers who leave nothing but carnage in their wake. All the the two brothers have to do is find the son of Cale and they will be granted a painless death, but until then, they are cursed.Until I read The Godborn, the only Forgotten Realms novels I read were authored by R.A. Salvatore so I was expecting a similar, but not identical, presentation style. The book is well written, but is far darker than any other novel I have read in the Forgotten Realms. The darkest parts of the novel center around the brothers and include graphic scenes of what they do, from wholesale slaughter of a village, to physically corrupting a child, to the assualt on an Abbey. Outside of that, the novel still remains quite dark, but nothing too intense. After reading The Godborn, I've decided to read more of this authors work in the Forgotten Realms if only to fill in the gaps with the characters mentioned. At the end of this book, I'm left with questions that I hope will be answered in other novels, such as what happens to Cale's son? What happens to Mask? What happens to Mephistopheles?
What do You think about Godborn (2000)?
I think this is easily one of Paul S. Kemp's best novels.
—Harrysgirl99
