Blog Tour Book Review: THE LORE OF PROMETHEUS by Graham Austin-King

I received a digital review copy of the book as part of this tour in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinion.

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy/Sci Fi
Age Range: Adult
Star Rating: 3.5 stars
Series: standalone
CW: PTSD, torture

Synopsis:

John Carver has three rules: Don’t drink in the daytime, don’t gamble when the luck has gone, and don’t talk to the dead people who come to visit.

It has been almost five years since the incident in Kabul. Since the magic stirred within him and the stories began. Fleeing the army, running from the whispers, the guilt, and the fear he was losing his mind, Carver fell into addiction, dragging himself through life one day at a time.

Desperation has pulled him back to Afghanistan, back to the heat, the dust, and the truth he worked so hard to avoid. But there are others, obsessed with power and forbidden magics, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth of his gifts. Abducted and chained, Carver must break more than his own rules if he is to harness this power and survive.

Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.

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BBYNA 2020 Winner

THE LORE OF PROMETHEUS won the BBYNA 2020 (Book Blogger’s Novel of the Year Award 2020)

BBNYA is a yearly competition where Book Bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors. If you are an author and wish to learn more about 2021 BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website www.bbnya.com or twitter @bbnya_official and follow this link to enter! Please make sure to carefully read our terms and conditions before entering.

If you are Book Blogger or reviewer you can apply to be part of 2021 BBNYA panel via this form.

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Review:

THE LORE OF PROMETHEUS straddles the line between contemporary fantasy and a sci-fi thriller. It wasn’t what I was expecting, a lot more brutal and taking longer to get to the powers than I’d anticipated. It did make it a book of two separate halves, though the voice and character was enough to bind it together without feeling disjointed.

I’m not a big contemporary fantasy fan, nor a big fan of military stories, plus I am very squeamish, so I was surprised I actually enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s very fast paced story, easy to read in one sitting, with a really good character voice from Carver.

The first half of the book has very little magic/power in it, as nearly all of part one is focusing in Carver in Kabul working as a security consultant. Mackenzie, an Aussie nurse who gets kidnapped because of her fire abilities, is an occasional narrator. Without her, that first part would have simply read like a contemporary (possibly thriller) about a man with PTSD returning to the country where he saw military action.

Then he’s kidnapped too, and both of their powers start coming out (Mackenzie gets about as much page time if not more than Carver in this section), taking the book into SFF. Not entirely sure which one the book is ultimately, as it could be called either depending on whether you want to call it magic or dark superhero-like abilities (though they’re not heroes, nor supervillains. Just very unlucky people who have been badly hurt.)

The book does not hold back on describing the torture the two go through – phycological and physical. In short, they’re lab rats in a dark cell designed to break the to “free” their abilities.

I have no idea as to the accuracy of the setting or the military and private security aspects. However, there were enough small details about the weaponry that made it feel researched.

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