Review: The Gate of the Feral Gods

The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Stay the fuck away from gods.”

It’s so odd how this series, for all it’s been a hit, fluctuates in quality for me from book to book. I gave the first two books 3 stars (really the first was a 2.5 rounded up), and then the third book started what I thought would be an upward trend. But now here comes the fourth book and fifth dungeon and we’re back down to three stars again. I think a huge part of it is because I was expecting a lot more elemental shenanigans with four themed segments in this dungeon, but Dinniman spent a hell if a long time with the gnomes and only then jumped to the sands, and finally the sub…and when this book is pushing 600 pages already, it really starts getting stuck in the mud and making me question why this series is so popular again to begin with. But that sands segment with its Indiana Jones stylings is what keeps my interest the most, in part because it feels like it’s where this book delivers on its promise best. Not to mention the increasingly bonkers nature of the game’s AI, reflecting how if our world is indeed a simulation, the gods who made it must be crazy. Or feral. And no wonder the rest of the gods would prefer their isolation. But yes, while this book was a swing and a near miss for me, I’ll still be reading the fifth book in short order.

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