To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods ARC Review
Book Review:
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods
by Molly X. Chang
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After the author's letter at the beginning, I was mentally preparing myself to be wrecked by this book.
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For a fantasy book, I don't believe there was a lot of world-building happening. We learned bits about the past war over magic users and the one-day war of the invasion. Otherwise, it felt like we barely learned of this content. The book takes place in the Er-Lang Empire, a part of Pangu. There are five countries on this content (or world). All of the countries are living under the turbulent peace of an invader. Twenty years before a portal opened above Jing-City in Er-Lang and Roman planes entered Pangu. In this timeline, the Roman Empire never fell but controls a large portion of our world. It appears to take place in a modern-day timeline as they have technology and the Earth is dying.
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One of the big concepts of this book is magic versus science. Due to the world of Pangu having magic they never really explored the developments of science. All of the science (read mostly technology but some medical) is brought by the Romans. Their advanced weapons allowed them to hold dominion over the people of Er-Lang. It is interesting that even though of course they would not want the natives to have science no one was curious enough to try to make anything their own.
The magic system is a very versatile kind. Not everyone is born with magic, those who have been are known as Xianling. Even though some powers can be similar, like the ability to control water, no two powers are the same. Such as one might shape water whereas another could turn it into ice. Our main character has a very rare gift the ability to cause death itself. She can do this by depleting a person's Qi. Magic does not come without consequences though, to overuse it taxes the body and depending on the powers causes early death.
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Ruying Yang only wants to help keep her family alive. Her whole life she has lived in fear; of her father's drunken anger, of the Roman soldiers who look on her people with disgust, and of her sister dying to the same drug as their father. Ruying is willing to trade her happiness for the lives of her sister and grandmother, as she believes any daughter would. So much of Ruying's actions are focused on either what is the honorable thing to do (for her family, not the world) or what she believes to be the cowardly thing. All the burdens she shoulders even from the beginning make her incredibly lonely.
There is a subplot of, longing might be the right word. I wouldn't even consider this a slow-burn romance as there isn't romance. Ruying has been mostly alone for a very long time, outside of her family and two childhood friends most people would shy away from her gift. Then when working for the prince she loses contact with everyone. Her only source of comfort for the awful things she is doing is Augustus. He is mostly kind, doesn't see her as a monster, and doesn't mind when she challenges him (well mostly). Through this, it leads to affection from both sides not just Ruying. That is all that is realized in this book though, is a longing for connection with anyone. Is Ruying being completely in denial sure but she is young and utterly alone.
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I did enjoy part of the book. However it never fully gripped me like I hoped. Thankfully it was not nearly as devastating as I feared either. While the things happening to the people of Pangu were awful the point was being driven too hard with the same words. A subtle style could have had more impact. This could become a good series with serious thought and attention paid to character and world development.
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