Book Review: The Age of Zeus

Title: The Age of Zeus
Author: James Lovegrove
Publisher: Solaris

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And give humans the powers of gods? Absolute disaster. A few months ago, the Olympians popped out of nowhere. Only one thing was certain. They were more than human. They might or might not be gods, but they were better. Stronger. Faster. Yet they were inhumane. Like tyrants, these 'gods' ruled over the human race with an iron fist. Any resistance was crushed. The protagonist later meets with Zeus, the leader of the Pantheon. Sam Akehurst , the protagonist, discovers that the 'gods' came about their power by a process which anyone could take part in. They had a discussion on power the 'gods' hold and whether it should be shared among the entire human race. "How do we decide who to give these powers to? And if we give these powers to everyone on Earth, who then shall watch over them? If we have a group of people with even more powerful abilities to watch over them, then the same problem shall arise." Yet 'Zeus' has no right to decide who to give those powers to. It would be impossible to be impartial with regards to who to give those powers to and thus it is better for all of us and for mankind that such would not happen...

Hurt. Sam Akehurst joins a resistance, the TITANS, against the Pantheon. Her only reason for this was to get payback. Years ago, her husband was killed on a stampede caused by Artemis and Apollo when they decided to go to the Central Park and shot some humans. The mental trauma caused by the incident also caused Sam to lose her unborn child. Later in the story, Sam felt betrayed when her employer, Regis Landesman, took her position as leader of the TITAN strike force from her and declared himself leader of the team. Nonetheless, Sam manages to over come her inhibitions and places her trust in Mr Landesman to lead the team well. However, Mr Landesman betrays her trust by abandoning a teammate in a moment of crisis. We do not know whether it was intentional or not but it hurt Sam greatly as the teammate was her best friend on the team. As a result of Mr Landesman's actions, the mission was a rather hollow success.

The climax of the story would naturally be the final battle between the TITANS and the Pantheon. The TITANS worked by the divide and conquer strategy. They would converge on a single 'god' and take him or her down while the human troops who pledge to help them keep the others busy. All of the individual battles were dipicted and though the reader knew that the TITANS were most likely to win t the end, the results of the battles were often in doubt. The gods would miss death by a few inches while the TITANS would be save by a last minute appearance.

They story had a very satisfying ending. The Pantheon was defeated and the world resumed its normal routines again. Sam was able to put aside her past hurts and starts her life anew. She marries one of her teammates and had a baby who was named Will. The ending was full of hope and life and the reader would feel good that Sam has finally found her peace.