Every legend promises the same thing: at the time of the land’s greatest need the heroes shall return. What they don’t mention is that we are the greatest threat our green and pleasant land has ever known. In the legends, saving the land never involves the slaughter of its inhabitants. Legends lie.
In a single night six girls who have never met and bear no relation to each other are struck down by a mysterious sickness that leaves them in persistent vegetative state. Across the city an old woman who hasn’t opened her eyes in years finally wakes. Her first words are: The Horned God is Awake.
One for one. Josh is about to learn the terrible truth behind these three words seared in the floor of his crazy grandfather’s flat. He is all that stands between our world and the cleansing fire of the once and future king. The question he must answer, how do you kill a god the world has forgotten about?
Steven Savile has been an international sensation, selling over half a million copies of his novels worldwide and writing for cult favorite television shows including Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Stargate. His US debut Glass Town, a brilliantly composed novel revolving around the magic and mystery lurking in London, came out in December 2017. Coldfall Wood, while set in the world of Savile's US debut Glass Town, can be read as a standalone novel.
British Fantasy. If you like fantasy books and/ or happen to be an Anglophile, this book is definitely up your alley. It starts out a bit after Saville's prior book, Glass Town, but can be read independently of that book - as I did. We encounter a cop in modern day London dealing with the fallout of the events of Glass Town, but we also encounter a Muslim kid executing an honor killing and a pair of racists who beat up a star soccer player who happens to be Muslim in retaliation, as well as a pair of burglars encountering a very strange house. The first half of the book sets the world for this particular tale, and the back half of the book is the Battle for London. All in all, an excellent effort from Saville, and recommended, as I said at the beginning, for fantasy lovers and/ or Anglophiles.
Caveat: I myself am neither, and thus even while intrigued by the premise and story, I struggled a bit with it. Hence the 4 stars for what really would be a 5 star tale if I was more into its genre.
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15 August, 2018:
Reviewed