Gods of the Wyrdwood: The Forsaken Trilogy, Book 1: 'Avatar meets Dune - on shrooms. Five stars.' -SFX

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The world building in this is incredible, while Barker just drops us into this very strange and very violent land as we follow the story we are literally immersed in Crua. Trees are very important to this story and there is one part where Cahan and another character are trying to wrap their heads around just how large the trees are in the Wyrwoods and you almost feel like you are standing there with them straining to understand the enormity of the thing before you. It was truly one of the best written scenes in the book.

Good (and great) authors come up with great story ideas, but story ideas don't come with perfect timelines. The author has to fill in the blanks.

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Describing Gods of the Wyrdwood is tough because, to be honest, it’s plot is not its strongest element. I thought I should state this upfront because Barker’s plot here does meander quite a bit; sometimes the pacing is a bit slow, there are parts in the middle where it drags a bit, and things don’t accelerate until the last little chunk of the book. The book almost feels episodic at times, like an epic and dark slice of life book. Things definitely happen in this book, but they don’t build on top of each other as you would expect from a traditionally plotted story. If you mostly read for plot, you might walk away disappointed.

As said previously, Barker doesn't handhold the reader, and while that can result confusing at the start, once we form our own image, the result is quite satisfactory. The plot is definitely dark, but I would say it is quite justified, as a result of a brutal and complicated world, that gives no opportunities to the weak. On top of my personal little quibbles with the character work, I also just couldn’t seem to figure out what the point of the plot was supposed to be. Every time I thought the inciting incident had happened, it turned out to be just another ‘false start’, if you will. It wasn’t until the 70% mark that the ‘side questing’ was over and the actual main conflict of the story emerged, after which the pacing suddenly just cranked up to eleven. To be fair, I quite enjoyed just plodding along and exploring this alluring world in all its glory, but it did make the story feel rather aimless for a large part of it. All in all, apart from the worldbuilding, nothing much worked for me. I kind of get what Barker was aiming for with this one (it has themes of found family, a message of standing up for yourself and being true to yourself even if everyone else treats you like a lesser person, etc.), but it just fell flat on all accounts. It felt like there was much more telling than showing on the whole. The pacing was odd and sometimes dragging, the characters were a bit one-dimensional and the story just didn’t pull me in as much as I wanted to despite the decidedly cool bits (the Wyrdwood and its creatures!), the sections written in the second person didn’t add enough to the whole atmosphere or the plot for that matter. If I have to summarise in one sentence, I’d say Gods of the Wyrdwood is missing a heart.

Barker’s writing style was very difficult to get into at first. His prose is very choppy like a thriller novel but that only works when you’re writing something thrilling. Instead its more like “The tree. Green leaves. Rough bark. Tall. Good for climbing.” When he was fifteen he ceased to matter. Another Cowl-Rai had risen, another chosen one, raised in the name of a different God. The years of vicious physical and mental training he had endured, the sacrifice, all for nothing. He became nothing.

The details, I think they are true. But they do not tell everything.’ Galderin scratched his cheek. ‘I can find out, if you wish.’ She ignored that, instead stared at her child. A sweeping story of destiny and redemption. Weighty, deliberate, tender and brutal, this is a big, wonderful book and an utterly involving read." — Daily Mail

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Despite the usage of these popular fantasy tropes, author Barker does a fantastic job portraying this struggle in Cahan and another side character, Venn. I actually found myself frustrated with Cahan many times because even though I knew he swore off his own powers due to the destruction it would cause, I couldn’t help but constantly wish he would utilize it. The character truly did come across as sanctimonious at times and it was hard knowing that he could end more of his struggles if he simply just used his abilities. My irritation at Cahan’s dedication to his pesky morals signifies how skilled the author is at demonstrating the tenuous and insidious nature of power and its corruption, which clearly affected me, the reader as well. There is also an abundance of odd names and terminology, which was nearly impossible to keep straight. The social structure and positioning was also unusual and difficult to wrap my mind around. The family setup, with firstwives, secondwives, firsthusbands, secondhusbands, and so on, is interesting but difficult for my monogamous mind to comprehend. And then there are trions, those who are neither male nor female, husband nor wife, but something uniquely their own and prized for those differences. One of our main secondary characters is a trion, and they were pretty fascinating. An experienced novelist at the top of his game - this is Avatar meets Dune, on shrooms' Five stars from SFX This is a brand new fantasy from the author who wrote The Tide Child trilogy but instead of being on the high seas with dragons, we are in the dark forest with very strange creatures that are almost alien. So if you decide to read Gods of the Wyrdwood know that you’re in for a long haul. Not only is Gods of the Wyrdwood a huge novel, but it’s the first of a trilogy. Barker does give a satisfying ending to the battle for the people of Harn but there is a bigger conflict coming that he sets up at the end. So be ready for a lot of reading, but enjoyable reading.

It’s not just the mysterious atmosphere of Gods of the Wyrdwood I liked, but the feeling that anything could happen in this world at any moment. The novel shines when it describes the eponymous forest, which has many of the hallmarks of the dangerous fantasy forest, but still manages to feel intimidating. The inhabitants of the forest, both plant and animal, are incredibly unique and creative. I can only wonder how the author came up with all of them. The religious system of conflicting gods and their followers competing for supremacy and domination felt really original to me in the way it was portrayed. The magical system was also interesting, though perhaps feeling a little less original, as it involves a lot around the common themes of malicious fantasy forests and “with great power, comes great responsibility,” the latter of which being pretty ubiquitous. I also have to mention the magic system, it's as interesting as the world building. There were a few times when Cahan used his Cowl in the book, it was fascinating. I really can't wait to see what he does with it next. But in a land where land is won and lost for uncaring gods, where the forest is full of monsters, Cahan will need to choose between his past life and the one leads now—and his choice will have consequences for his entire world. Therefore, there are many elements of the book – the deities themselves, the role of the genderqueer but magically powerful trion, etc. – that feel underexplored and underdeveloped in Wyrdwood. It is likely that Barker will further develop these aspects of the book in future volumes of the trilogy, but here it is almost like you are looking at all of these cool things out of the corner of your eye. They are obviously there and important to the story Barker is telling, but they never quite come into full focus as the plot unfolds.We also don’t get to know much about the trion, people who are neither male nor female, they exist to be a bridge between them. I liked the concept of families consisting of more people rather than only husband and wife. There are second and third wives and husbands as well as at least one trion, taking care of the children together. At least, that’s how it worked before the new regime arose in the name of a new god, who also decided to get rid of all of the other gods and their worshippers. Crua, as you might imagine is not a peaceful place in the present. Now the trion are used and abused and massacred for “the greater good”. We can only assume it’s not going to end well for those who took part in that. GODS OF THE WYRDWOOD is again a change-up in theme and tone as Barker shows off that versatility I just mentioned. The book is aptly named as there are definitely some weird things afoot with both the worldbuilding and characters, but in a very very good way. I always appreciate when an author injects some unusual elements into what can be a somewhat formulaic genre at times. It keeps the reader on their toes and there were quite a few moments where I was like, "where the f--- did he come up with that?" These moments were always welcome though and they created a great deal of mystery, especially when it came to the enigmatic fanatical leaders who set forth the rules regarding who are worthy to be part of society and those "clanless" who are essentially scum and should be discarded. I think "good" fiction authors work to fill these blanks until the chain of events is "good enough." That chain may allow some plotholes and require some inexplicable decisions to be made, or characters to simply have a character flaw of massive stubbornness to "explain" the inexplicable, but once they've reach what to the undiscerning reader is a likely to be a tolerable level of cohesion, they move on to the next part of the story they were originally planning. I loved all three of them equally, maybe Cahan a tiny bit more than the other two because we knew him the longest, but they're all very dear to my heart.