Group Reads Discussions 2023: "Children of Gods and Fighting Men" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

What did you think of the fantasy pick this month?!

A few questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the mythologies?
2. What did you think of the pacing?
3. What did you think of the relationships?
4. We see mothers from many different angles in this book. What struck you most about how they compare and contrast?
5. Overall thoughts?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[Kaia]

1. I enjoyed the mythologies, though I wish they had been fleshed out a bit more. I wanted to know more about the histories of the two groups and how they came to be enemies.

2. The pacing mostly worked for me, though I felt that Gormflaith’s thoughts in her sections were a bit repetitive at times. I liked the back and forth between narrators and seeing their stories slowly come closer together.

3. I liked how Fodla gets to know the mortals and begins to change her opinion of them, and her relationship with her nephew and the characters who help her. Gormflaith is quite ruthless, and I didn’t really care much for her or the power hungry characters in her sections (except Olaf, for some reason, who I did like), though they did feel realistic.

4. As a mom of a young teen son, the motherhood aspects of the story definitely pushed some buttons for me. I could relate to both Gormflaith’s and Fodla’s desire to keep their children safe and protected from the world to some extent, while the children want to break away and be their own people. And also how Gormflaith seemed a bit blind to what was happening with her son and felt that she knew best, when maybe she didn’t.

5. Overall, I liked the book. I liked Fodla’s sections best. I’m not sure if I feel strongly enough about the story to continue the series, though. I listened the audiobook, and the narrator was very good and helped a lot with the unfamiliar (for me) names.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

1. What did you think of the mythologies?
I enjoyed the mythology. I’m less familiar with the Fomorian side of things but pretty familiar overall with the Tuatha de Danann. Thought it got a little info dumpy at times but that it was well researched overall.

2. What did you think of the pacing?
I think the pacing was fine. I thought it read fairly quickly for a 400 page book (didn’t feel like one?). I did get a little annoyed with the constant back and forth of POVs. It might have been nice to break it up into more chunks than alternating chapters between the two POVs.

3. What did you think of the relationships?
I thought they were a little blunt and lacked complexity or nuance. Everybody is using everybody. Fathers use daughters for marriage. Queens use sons to gain power. Women use kings to become queens. Tomas uses ex to spy. There wasn’t a lot of feeling to them and I was frustrated. The sister sister relationship held promise but that went out the window pretty early on. Murchan and Fodla’s relationship is probably the most enjoyable one, but I was annoyed by that too because of Fodla’s forced naïveté. (Isn’t she like 80 years old? The all men are bad schtick got annoying fast.)

4. We see mothers from many different angles in this book. What struck you most about how they compare and contrast?
It felt like it was intended for us to like one character much more than the other. I think Gormflaith’s idea of motherhood is kind of toxic but then I think the noble self sacrificing mother portrayal by Ronnat and by some extension Fodla was weak (women can be good mothers while still wanting more than just motherhood). Gormflaith is willing to sacrifice everyone but herself, Ronnat sacrifices herself, and Fodla is somewhere in between (wasn’t able to save from Tomas, sacrificed Lonan for Brannoc but drew the line at Murchad). Would have liked to see the middle ground there somewhere. I also think it’s hard to compare and contrast the two when the children are at such different stages in life. It would have been more interesting to compare Fodla’s mothering with Gormflaith if Brannoc was capable of more independence.

5. Overall thoughts?
Overall the book was just too on the nose for me. There were too many parts where someone just sighs and says “oh well, that’s a woman’s lot. What could I do?” (Like okay fine but you don’t need to say it, we know.) The constant “all mortal men are evil!” From Fodla was super annoying. I get it, she was sheltered. But we got to the end of the book and it was still happening even though actions should speak louder than words.

I also thought the plot structure was too ambiguous. I was never given a reason to want to turn the page. I’m guessing book two gets more into the fantasy aspect of the Tuatha de Danann versus the Fomorians but I don’t think I’ll continue.

[Bonnie]

Did not expect Irish Cersei!

Prose 'workmanlike' and sometimes a little too obvious. I didn't feel like I could get the measure of anyone besides Fodla and Gormflaith. Unlike (IMO) better writing in Daughter of the Forest, The Mists of Avalon, The Last Kingdom, etc.

...however I was at least mildly interested in where the story would go, how Gormflaith would extricate herself from the [lack of] aging situation.

[Kaia]

Bonnie wrote: "Did not expect Irish Cersei!

Bonnie -I had this same thought when I was reading the book!

Sarah, you make many good points about the lack of nuance and middle ground. I think you helped articulate what it was that made me not necessarily want to read the next book, even though I didn't exactly dislike this one.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

Kaia wrote: "Bonnie wrote: "Did not expect Irish Cersei!

Bonnie -I had this same thought when I was reading the book!

Sarah, you make many good points about the lack of nuance and middle ground. I think you ..."

Yeah this was a weird experience for me. I didn't actively dislike it and I finished easily enough. I think in the end the style disagreed with me. There was a story in here I could have loved.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

We will be discussing this book on Zoom today at 2 pm ET! Come join us! Details and Zoom invite will be posted in this thread:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Peaktopeak]

Hope the Zoom was good!

Overall I liked this one and it moved fast for me. I will most likely go on with the series.

The mythologies meshed with other things I have read but yet felt so much more real. I put that down to her research and it being a great mix of elements. There was a moment I found funny - Olaf cracked me up with his - I think I'll go home and be King of Norway - but he really did LOL. For five years, according to Wikipedia. Also, I read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... a while ago and loved it. I found this story to be a cool new perspective on Boru.

I agree on the lack of nuance and middle ground. And, when only experiencing this world through the 2 women, I found the contrast to be more about being worldly and trying to direct your life vs drifting and hoping for things to happen. I never really identified with Fodla's society and how they had withdrawn yet continued to spy and judge and I was disappointed in Fodla's lack of growth. But she did appear to struggle, I am interested to see if/how she develops.