Pale Kings

A book deep in lore that I found quite appealing as some books nowadays merely touch the surface, I will admit I had not read the previous book but I certainly will be now, I liked the character development and the world building and was fully immersed from start to finish, a damn good read!

I enjoyed this, but unfortunately for me didn’t realise it was the second in the series, I felt a bit lost at times, but the writing was good and characters interesting, so not going to mark down for my lack of paying attention, enjoyable read, better if I had read the first.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Pale Kings starts off slowly, picking up where Lost Gods left off. Yongo takes his time to orient you: The Shedaim Brotherhood is broken, magic is stirring once again, dark beasts have arisen… and gods now walk the land. Strange visions come upon Neythan, Sidon must navigate his way through court intrigue and betrayal, and Daneel and Josef wrestle with the choices that pull them in opposite directions. The slow-build and the changing POVs are slightly disingenuous though. As revelations build, so does the tension, until you’re gripped by the events unfolding before you.

If there were an overarching theme to Pale Kings, it’s trust and betrayal. Nothing is as it seems—and that’s the beauty of this novel. As layer upon layer of history and the hidden past are revealed, Neythan soon discovers that everything he once believed in may not be the truth—and the things he thought were myth and children’s stories may prove truer than fact. Visions and prophecies don’t add clarity either, muddying perceptions of what is to come. When everyone and every faction is working to their own purposes, hiding secrets from each other, each new piece of information necessarily forces a fresh evaluation of who can and should be trusted.

There’s so much more to be unpacked in this epic about the gods who once walked the land and seek to do so once again. And that ending sets up so much excitement for things to come!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Angry Robot via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Pale Kings is the second epic fantasy novel from author Micah Yongo, after 2018's Lost Gods. It's also the sequel to Lost Gods - a fact that is not necessarily clear on online marketplaces: Both Amazon and B&N online for example don't have the book listed as a sequel and the blurb says "From the Author of Lost Gods." I haven't read Lost Gods despite me having bookmarked it a while back - none of my libraries have a copy and I was hoping they'd follow on my suggestion to acquire it, but so far no good. So I was coming into this book a bit behind a reader of the first book, so keep that in mind.

And does Pale Kings work as a starting point for a new reader in this series? It kind of does, in that I was able to follow things as they occurred, and I grew to care about the world and some of the characters and their fates. On the other hand, the book is definitely building upon setup and character work done in the prior novel, so I wouldn't recommend trying to start here, even if you won't be totally lost if you try. Overall though, Pale Kings is an intriguing epic fantasy novel which definitely works, and I will be trying to pick up Lost Gods to get a more complete understanding of the story before the next book's release.
--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
The Surviving members of the Brotherhood of the Shedaim's last sharim - Neythan, Arianna, Josef, and Daneel - are scattered across the Five Lands, having been betrayed by their elders....and the fate of everything lies in their hands. Neythan, Arianna, and their comrade Caleb go south to decipher the mysterious magi scroll they have obtained. Daneel runs from his former comrades with a young boy he was once sent to kill, a boy who might be less ordinary than he appears. And Josef remains with the remnants of the Brotherhood, guarding Sidon, the young Sharif (king) of the Sovereignty of the Five Lands.

Their paths may have diverged for now, but disaster is coming to the Lands. Already, the city of Geled has mysteriously been destroyed, and now a lost son of the last Sharif is working with the nomad tribesman displaced by his ancestors to bring back the Father of the Gods to wreak havoc upon the land and restore him to his birthright. As the four go forward, they will find more to themselves, and the world, than they truly knew, and that beings known as Pale Kings have been making their influence around the world for hundreds of years, and that their plans are nearing fruition......

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Pale Kings begins with a cryptic prologue that sort of sets the stage for our four most prominent heroes - which helped me, cryptic as it was, since I hadn't read Lost Gods first - and then it throws you into the stories of the major characters. Each chapter is written from the point of view of various characters: Neythan, Sidon (followed by Josef), Daneel and Noah, as well as that of Joram, one of the central antagonists (sort of).

And this story structure allows for the point of view characters to really shine and develop throughout. The story for the most part keeps each of the point of view characters separate from the others until the very end (and even then), so each set of characters essentially has their own journey, each incidentally related to the other. And the point of view characters are pretty good - Neythan as the seeming chosen one, Daneel as the guy trying to do what's right and help out Noah and figure out what Noah's importance is, Sidon as the young ruler trying to claim his birthright among a bunch of sharks with their own agendas, etc. Even Joram, the point of view character helping the antagonist is interesting in his motives and insecurities - he's most definitely evil in his actions mind you and pretty horrifying in what he does, but he's understandable and not cackling evil, with his journey never feeling like it's a fait accompli either.

The non-point of view characters are a bit more hit or miss, with the lack of knowledge from the first book definitely hurting me here. This is especially the case for Neythan's companions, one of whom (Arianna) is supposed to be of significant plot importance but just seems a hanger-on due to her lack of perspective here with little to actually do other than note what is happening around Neythan. Similarly, the plot agendas of some of the characters, most notably Neythan, are a little less clear without the first book's guidance. Still it all generally flows pretty well, with the exception of one point in which a set of characters returns to a town off-screen where one of their number is being held hostage and just leaves with the hostage back in tow without any issue ENTIRELY off-screen, which just felt extremely jarring considering the attitude of that town earlier in the book.

I'm being extremely generic in this review so far, for which I apologize, since it's really not as helpful as I could be Essentially the book has four parties - one trying to discover the secret history of Neythan and decipher the truth behind the past and a magical scroll, one of the young king dealing with nobles who seem to be plotting to remove him from rule, one of an assassin on the run after betraying his guild to save a kid and discovering the powers of the young kid, and one the antagonist following the whispers of the sealed-away evil God as he attempts to gain power to lead that god's rebirth into the world. Even without the background of the first book, these plots generally are pretty interesting, and the book concludes them all in intriguing, if cliffhangery places. Yeah this book ends in a cliffhanger, so you shouldn't expect a satisfying resolution here.

But overall, Pale Kings is a satisfying epic fantasy story from a different viewpoint, so if you're willing to read a trilogy to get max enjoyment out of it, it's worth your time.

I'm happy requested this ARC and discovered this new to me series.
I liked this book, it's engrossing and entertaining and made me turn pages as fast as I could.
It's well written, the world building is fascinating and there's an interesting character development.
It's the first I read in this series but it surely won't be the last as this was a very satisfying reading experience.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I’m a little torn on this book, because I enjoyed the first one quite a bit (even given the rather problematic killing of a disabled character as motivation for the MC.). But this one, just didn’t hold my attention that well. Especially given it’s one of those rare sequels where I actually read it immediately after the first one.

There are aspects that are still interesting to me, like I think the worldbuilding is fantastic, and there's clearly a lot of depth to it. But I didn’t connect with any of the characters much. Like, it should’ve been sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, especially given that ending, but I just didn’t care enough. Not sure where the disconnect was, but yeah, that’s about where I stand on this one. Great ending, should have held my attention, didn't for some reason!

But even so, the ending was solid enough that I'll definitely read the next one!

I’ll still recommend that anyone who loves epic fantasy try this one out, it’s got the political intrigue and high stakes that so many people enjoy, and I suspect others will connect with the characters more.