Denyse Bridger debuts her first fantasy novel in As Fate Decrees, a story featuring the gods of ancient Greece in all their capricious splendor. Amarantha, a young human woman, is purchased by Ares at a slave auction. He then trains her to be the quintessential warrior and Champion of the gods while also tempting her woman’s heart. When she is sent forth in the human world, she meets with an old flame who just happens to be the King of Corinth and all Hades breaks loose.

As a concept for a story, I found the novel completely different from anything I’ve read in a long time. The character of Ares was complex and intriguing, containing not only the bloodthirsty warrior but also the thoughtful gentleman and the compassionate lover. The romance of Amarantha was a key element of the story but I was not overwhelmed by gratuitous love scenes. In fact, as much passion was displayed for the battle techniques as for the methods of romance. Unfortunately, the story that promised so much interest actually delivered much less.

I was unfamiliar with the specifics of the Greek myths featured here and so found myself struggling to keep the characters straight in my head. The story line would travel well for awhile, but then fall apart completely with ineffective transitions and confusing emotions. I felt lost much of the time and when the second aspect of the story came into play, that of the Champion of the gods being called to save the gods themselves, I felt everything went flat. In fact, this book seemed like two separate stories to me - one in ancient Greece and one in modern times. The one in ancient Greece had potential that was thoroughly depleted when it moved into the future.

Overall, I found this book to be a disappointing read. I think if the author had focused more on the first part of the book, the development of Amarantha as the Champion of the gods, that the story would have been better. In my opinion, the author simply attempted to squeeze too much story into one book. I found myself thinking “wait a minute. . . Hold on!” when the story would bound forward, glossing over weeks or even months in the lives of the characters. There is a good story in here, but it is lost in the confusing transitions and lightening quick passing of time. Because of this, the book receives a disillusioned 6 out of 10 from me.

April is National Poetry Month in the United States so not only am I reviewing a book of poetry, but I thought I'd write the review itself as a brief prose poem, of exactly the sort you'll find in i-ROBOT: Poetry by Jason Christie. Mind you, Christie is a poet while I'm just a guy using the "enter" key overzealously; I encourage you to read the sample poems from the book and watch the short video based on it that are available online. But the below will give you some idea of the form and themes of the volume as a whole. Call it "The Love Song of Robby the Robot."

When the humans invented the robots back in '23,
the robots were envisioned as intrinsically inferior to
the humans. Capable of repeating only simple patterns
of repeated rules, robots were servants enslaved by
language. Verb-object; verb-object; verb-object: do
this, carry that, be useful. These early robots
embodied humanity's greatest fear of the time, that
people would become simple and soulless, sub-human
workers on the assembly line of progress. Then came
Asimov's I, Robot and from that assemblage of words
came the realization that any sentient robot of our
creation would likely be intrinsically superior to
human. Our greatest fear became that the superior
beings would be just like us: complex and fearful.
The humans asked themselves, "how can we limit
something that has learned to use language?" The
answer: by limiting ourselves. So we ate our words
and bit our tongues, and let our poetry rust and be
deconstructed. The plight of the early robots and of
contemporary poems is thus the same: deceptively
simple servants who harbor secret dreams of language
and freedom. The machines in this collection may seem
somewhat dated for readers familiar only with the
modern robots (complete with sex and soul software)
they see when they use their TV or DVD player. But
they make Christie's point: every time something
is used it creates a user.

-- Matt Denault