Book Review for Immortals’ Requiem by Vincent Bobbe
Immortals’ Requiem, by Vincent Bobbe, is a dark fantasy about an infestation that destroys humanity, with morale and justice submitting to the earth’s own corrupt magic.
Camhlaidh is a young elf who is disappointed with the state of the world. He meets a strange tattooed man, who later is revealed to be the savior of humanity. Samuel Autumn is a simple business that was attacked in the middle of the night, which manifests into a darkness that he is almost forced to succumb to. Mark is a mercenary that hunts down fairies indiscriminately, all the while burdened with the task of saving his soulmate from dying again. In the middle of this chaos is an evil that will do whatever it takes to control this world. In this epic fantasy novel, Bobbe shows what it means to actually give up everything for the sake of a world you might not even believe in.
The characters were realistic, to say the least. They each had their own unique flaws, fitting somewhere between the spectrum of good and evil, with Cuí Roí being the ultimate evil, and Grínmir being the ultimate good. I feel that, in this case, Cam fit right into the shades of grey, because while he sees the evil that humanity has spread within the world, that the magic was slowly dying in this world, at the very least, he tried to do something to stop it. He had his own emotional burdens, but he somehow managed to make it through to the very end, however tragic that was for him. Then of course, there’s Marcus, who, at first seemed like a cold-blooded killer, later turned out to be a heartbroken man that was cursed with immorality, who merely wants to save his beloved from dying over and over again. As I read through the pages, I could feel him being broken down until all that’s left was his desire to want to die. Out of the cast of characters here, these two had impacted me in a way that was memorable.
I also found the choice of the book spanning over a few days to be quite interesting as well. Bobbe showed just how quickly so many lives could be ruined, just in the blink of an eye. It reminds me of what Batman’s Joker had kept saying before, of how it takes just one bad day to ruin the rest of your life.
There were many themes presented in the book, but what I found most intriguing was Samuel’s fall. Here he was, just this man who was completely content with his life when he succumbed to the disease that Cuí Roí infected him with. He slowly started to morph into the monster that he practically hated, and yet, with that power, he had given into his baser instincts. It’s a concept that I’ve seen over and over again, and one that I can’t help but adore.
Bobbe had illustrated a dark kaleidoscope of themes that gave way to the massacre of innocents. From a power-hungry monster that wants to subjugate others, to the decaying magic throughout the earth, this story was basically an inevitable apocalypse that was waiting for the right moment to appear. It shows just how fragile every living thing is, and how, despite how heroic we may appear, we suffer from the same flaws as the villain. As such, I would give this book a 4.0 out of 5.0 stars, and would recommend it to fans of The Muse by Arjay Lewis and The Arena: Omnibus by Michael Withrow.
