Seven to Eternity Volume 1: The God of Whispers

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Not as great as the previous volume, yet the Springs of Zhal delivers a great epilogue to a story that sadly doesn't have the original number of avid readers during the time when the first issue was published five years ago. The entire Seven to Eternity epic. The God of Whispers has spread an omnipresent paranoia to every corner of the kingdom of Zhal; his spies hide in every hall spreading mistrust and fear. Adam Osidis, a dying knight from a disgraced house, must choose either to join a hopeless band of magic users in their desperate bid to rid their world of the evil god, or to accept the god’s promise to give him everything his heart desires.

Seven To Eternity by Rick Remender | Goodreads Seven To Eternity by Rick Remender | Goodreads

This is the type of story a reader starts, thinking "I don't know but I'll keep going, maybe it gets better". And you keep going, keep going and then you get to that final chapter, paragraph, issue and bam. In a fantasy world where the King of lies (not his actual name) rules, a bunch of misfits warriors kidnap him and plan to go over half the world to get the magic that'll help get rid of him once and for all. Is the art awesome and the story intriguing enough nonetheless to make me want to read the next volume? I think so. The theme of this gorgeous art comic is dark fantasy mixed with some mystery and Western-like plots. This'll serve as a review for the series as a whole. The starting premise is that we have a fantasy world where many members of it each have indivdualized powers. In particular, one person has ascended in recent years into a sort of fantasy Dark Lord: the God of Whispers, whose thing is that he can see through the eyes of anyone who makes a deal with him, and if he dies, all those who have made pacts with him die as well. Our main character Adam Osidis is from a family who was exiled because his father spoke out against the God of Whispers as he ascended, and is shunned by both the God's people, and those who later rebelled against the God, as the father then kept them out of the fight. Adam goes to the God of Whispers, obstentiably to save his family from the GoW's wrath, but in the middle of the discussion, a band of rebels capture the God and begin a long journey to take him to the magical McGuffin place where the god's connection to those bound to him can be severed, and he can be killed without killing them.

Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT Problem is Remender's pacing is choppy and the first two issues were somewhat hard to come by before I finally got the gist. His prose his rather boring and the dialogues are a bit sedative. That seems to be a recurring problem with Remender: good ideas, poorly expressed. The art is quite good and the plot is one that can be turned into something very intricate and fascinating, so once again - fingers crossed. Or it could just sizzle out into boring old nothing, so you know the odds are really 50/50.

Seven To Eternity comic | Read Seven To Eternity comic online Seven To Eternity comic | Read Seven To Eternity comic online

Of all the villains we have encountered in the genre of comic books, the Mud King ranks amongst the most complex and the best. This is Othello’s Iago, rendered as a god. The Mud King is, above all, driven. To achieve his objective, the Mud King creates a scenario where his beloved daughter Penelope, trying to rescue him, could be slain? (We as readers do not much sympathise with Penelope – she is a ruthless monster wearing the mask of a creepy doll – but the Mud King grieves for her passing.) Later, he allows himself to be blinded – not an enormous impediment to someone who can see through the eyes of any person who has accepted his bargain, but still, a physical diminishment. Why? The Seven come to realise that the Mud King has his own agenda, and even while he is caged, they are his pawns. I would be remiss to not mention the art by Jerome Opena. I didn't think he could get any better than he already was, but man, he gets better every time. This volume has some great visuals in it, and its all handled masterfully by Opena and the rest of the art crew. I gave a book an extra star just because of the art.I could go through the book and point out the flawed world-building, annoyingly unexplained plot elements and myriad other problems but suffice it to say, though I can’t fault Remender’s ambitious vision, there’s too much here to take in at once and he’s not a good enough writer to lay it all out well. I’m not saying I need everything spelled out for me or that we should know everything in the first volume, but there are key elements to the plot that we should at least have an idea about to start with and the detail just isn’t there. And this is a problem with magic stories in general: without limitations and anything can happen, it’s really hard to care about any of it. I waited for this with great anticipation. I think it's my first "I can't wait for that comic" comic. The artwork is truly well done. But it is the story and the complex plots that intertwine the stories of all the characters. The conflicts are done well and are a believable basis for ill will. It is a complex story and as you read you realize nothing in this plot is easy. By the end I was wondering who the good guys were. The God of Whispers is an excellent and complex character. Eschewing brute force he relies on exploiting inner frailties. The bargain he offers is interesting as it changes from person to person. He is truly insidious and Remender does a great job with the individual characters.

Seven to Eternity : Rick Remender (author), : 9781534319318 Seven to Eternity : Rick Remender (author), : 9781534319318

Remender lists famed series like “Dune” and “Lord of the Rings” as direct inspiration for this mashup of sci-fi and fantasy and it shows. There are starships, dynasties, and men destined for the throne while villains sit upon it. With its Western themes, castles, futuristic technology, and bizarre creatures in these ‘blasted lands,’ I can’t help but be directly reminded of Stephen King’s magnum opus, “The Dark Tower.” While he has never been quoted in saying that this book exists because of that series, I can’t imagine it would without it.”

Under all the fantasy trappings are some core themes that help ground the book. The question of principles, and when to bend, is constantly on Adam’s mind, as his father’s unwillingness to compromise is largely responsible for his family’s current state. At what point do you stop fighting fights based solely on principle? It’s a struggle many people can relate to, especially when Adam is tempted by an easy solution. The God of Whispers’ abilities to subtly control people, to pull their strings and spread lies, leads to some interesting questions about power and the concept of truth. I can’t help but see some parallels to the currently political landscape. I'll stop dancing about it: this is a bleak ending to the series. It choreographed this direction pretty clearly long in advance, but it's still kind of breathtaking on how dire the story is at its end. It's a little too epic in execution to be considered grimdark proper, but Adam Osidis is absolutely a grimdark protagonist. The story, in that sense, is about masculinity and the banality--or maybe pettiness--of evil. The actions of others and Adam's father's pride clearly traumatized Adam, and this story is the slow unfolding of his desire to protect ultimately himself at the cost of all else. And "all else" is more literally everything than I'd usually mean it. Remender has created a very thorough fantasy world to essentially make a point about toxic masculinity; Adam shares a lot with Walter White. I enjoyed it, though I think it maybe didn't quite need to draw out the point so much.