Daniel Pugsley – Son of Babylon – Raven の Nest (wordpress.com)

Son of Babylon is the first book of a saga that will bring us back to the 18th century BCE, following the life of the young Bani in Babylon. For the beginning of the series, I have to say we are really off to a good start.

In this book, I really loved the description of the historical events, customs and traditions of ancient Babylonia, and it was visible that there was a lot of research behind this book to be able to nail all the details and not give a sense of something being out of place with the setting.

The first half of the book focuses more on the various intrigues at the royal court, which all seemed like a big introduction to what was about to happen. We have many macro-events while the protagonist is at their mercy, and we get to see him act only in the small and common parts. It might seem like a negative thing, but I’ve in fact loved it as it adds realism with the fact that Bani, at this stage of his life, is merely a child and has almost no power to affect events of that scale.

If the first half was good, the second one becomes so damn interesting as we see Bani growing up and starting to take the reins of this life, bringing us to many cool adventures and meeting various interesting characters that we will start to know and love.

The only thing that I didn’t like much was that there were many time gaps, which made the story feel a bit disconnected. I would have preferred to have less of them and have the possibility to enjoy the characters even in their more quiet daily moments.

The finale was superb! I loved this first book of the series, and so I hope I will be able to read how it continues soon! I really liked Bani as a character, and I want to know more about what will happen to him!

Totally recommended and the perfect start for a series that could be quite successful.