Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

A hundred years ago the Egyptian gods defeated all other gods and now reign supreme over the earth. Dividing the land up amongst themselves, their feuds and squabbles and hatreds reflect on earth amongst the mortals. Thousands of men and women join their deities' armies and navies, their service and sacrifice the ultimate worship.

Lieutenant David Westwynter is a British soldier of Osiris. Having barely escaped with his life from a trap in Petra, Jordan, he knows his only hope is reaching Freegypt, what was once Egypt, ironically the only country in the world the gods haven't laid claim to. Once home to all, none of them want to fight over it, and it is the only independent, non-religious land left.

There David falls in with a beautiful aloof woman called Zafirah and her Liberators, freedom fighters who are part of a larger movement within Freegypt. Their leader is a masked man called the Lightbringer, who turns out to be more than he seems in more than one way.

As the Lightbringer's vision of freedom from the warring gods and a plan to fight back brings unity to Freegypt's people, so Ra, the sun god, seeks to unify his squabbling descendants on the godly plane. With so much history and hatred between them, he despairs of helping them change and forgive, and stop the wars among their human followers on earth. But as with Freegypt, the one person who can unify the gods against a common cause is the Lightbringer, and only David is in any position to speak reason to this revered human seeking to bring a new age to the world - and discover who he truly is.

At its heart, this is a simple story, simply told. The prose was refreshingly unpretentious (I confess, I do expect some pretension from sci-fi), without the superficial need to clutter its sentences with techno-gabble or other made-up words. I loved the ending too, the scene in England, which neatly summed up the "message", if you will, of the story.

Now, I decided not to spoil the first revelation, simply so I could discuss things more openly, but I will say this: the first revelation is very predictable, and you'll guess it early on because it's quite obvious. That's mostly because the story's so neatly laid out, and things that need to be prefaced, are. I don't hold that against it though. In a way, it read like one of those satisfying Hollywood movies, and indeed is structured much the same way, with the exception of the scenes amongst the gods, which added another, intriguing layer.

While David doesn't narrate, his is the only human perspective we get, and the style is noticeably different from how the Lightbringer talks to him in private - it's a nice display of inflection and syntax, showing skill and craftsmanship at work. There's more to Lovegrove than "meets the eye", so to speak. The simplicity of the prose and the neatness of the story work because the author is skilled, but it's like this iMac I'm typing on: the clean, smooth, almost featureless exterior hides a great deal of clockwork inside. (Not literal clockwork - you get me.)

I was intrigued by the premise, and I would have liked to understand how it works more. The gods are very very real, here. But how humans got caught up in obeying their dictates, doing their will, was never quite clear. And the world beyond the wars - that I would have liked to have seen. I guess it's no different than ours, really, aside from the different way countries are aligned.

At the end of the day, The Age of Ra is deceptively simple, and has a gentle yet poignant message about power and religion that is easily heard because it is not preachy or moralising. This isn't a story about religion, or who is right. I won't try to sum it up. I'm still pondering.