Beneath A Thousand Skies

Summary:

I came across this series during a search for books that had any inspiration from or similarity to The Mummy (for obvious reasons if like me you adore that film); and it was actually the second book in the series ‘The Tomb of the Sun King’ that caught by eye – to the point where I backed the recent kickstarter for it, as it sounded right up my street and the writing I had seen I enjoyed. However, logic (and plain old common sense) said start at the beginning, especially with the wait for the kickstarter to be fulfilled, so I decided to pick up The Stolen Apolcalypse which is a prequel novella.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I think if this had been my first knowledge of the series I might not have gone further, and not because it’s a terrible novella, or the writing doesn’t work. It was a quick, fun read, but in some ways it felt it should have either been a short story snapshot of our main characters to introduce them; or a little longer, to give the story a bit more room to breathe.

I do very much like the setting, both for the closeness it provided the story and because Benson captured brilliantly that curiousity that comes from being in old buildings that hold a history, and possibly secrets; and I very much like how the history and archaeology were layered into every element of the story. That this is contrasted both against scholarly study, skulking misdeeds and the general chaos of modern life washing against history, added a vibrancy to the settting and story.

Ellie and Constance our two main characters were for the most part a lot of fun, although I think Constance was the one that stole my heart. Her sense of adventure, and her sheer delight at the possiblity of skulls were a lot of fun, and there was a sense of chaos around her that really appealed to me. Ellie was an interesting character as well, and I do look forward to seeing more of her in the later books; I felt that here though, there was possibly just too much about her going on in a short space of time – from the scholarly aspect of her personality, which I loved how Benson wrote that part of her and was nodding along in agreement at some of what she was saying, to the anti-matrimony, feminist approach that felt a little too heavy handed in places. I can see the intent behind it, and I think in a longer story where it could be built up it would have worked better, here it was little jarring against the backdrop of the central story. Although I will say I liked the scene with her and the groom, where her attitude and the resulting bluntness it gave to her words about marriage were absolutely spot on and it was lovely moment.

However, where I feel The Stolen Apocalypse fell short was not so much with the plot itself, but its resolution, and part of it was due to the closeness of the setting, and also the length of the work with it being a novella, it just felt very…convenient? There were certainly challenges, flashpoints of danger and dismay, but it felt like the solutions were always very close at hand; and it meant that after the first couple of instances it took any real feeling of threat out of the story. I don’t think Benson tried to do too much for a novella format, but that the story needed a little less of certain elements, and more fleshing out of the threat, or for there to be less a pattern of things just falling into place.  

Despite this unravelling of the tension, and what was an almost rushed ending – that did wrap up all the threads, but felt almost like a sigh at the end, rather than that contented feeling of everything coming together; I did enjoy this novella and I am still excited to dive into the series as a whole.