New Book Review: The Gravity of Obedience

Title: The Gravity of Obedience 

Author: Brian A. Mendonca

Date: 2022

Publisher: Book Pop Media

ISBN: 978-1-956918-03-8

Quote: “Send them all to a Loyalty Circle. It will remind them of Zann-Xia-Czul’s protection and what he does to people who lose their faith.”

If you can have a magic kingdom, does anything else about it need to be probable? The magic kingdom of Throatia has a "god," a source of their magic power, and he's a mean one. He demands that Throatians obey laws no human "tribal god" ever tried to get away with. Loyalty Circles, which are religious services in Throatia, are forced duels in which losers are eaten by the "god" Zann-Xia-Czul. Breeding Farms await the survivors; there must be a good selection of young human bodies for this "god" at all times. The "god" speaks only to the king, who has to go and visit him once a month.

That's normal, for Throatia. When the king stays on the sacred mountain a little too long, it's because he's been told that, from Zann-Xia-Czul's point of view, things are not normal. Prince Thane has a good unofficial thing going with the scholar Cereene (whom he refused to kill in a Loyalty Circle), but they've never received permission from their "god" to marry each other. Now Zann-Xia-Czul wants Thane married to the neighboring Princess Lydia, just to bring Lydia into Throatia where she can be sacrificed to his greed. After her Thane has to be sacrificed too. 

Part of the reason why Throatians are as willing to kill one another as they are may be that, we are told, they're also required as a religious discipline to eat only raw meat, and so they all have continual indigestion. I didn't ask Mendonca what his glyphosate reaction is, but I have a guess. 

Blood flows copiously before Thane gets back to Throatia, where he is the logical next king, and finds a pretender claiming his throne. What he does...oh, that'd be telling, but although this book stands alone, it's Volume 2 in a series and leads into Volume 3. 

I've read fantasies that I liked better, but this is a well written, fast moving story. If you like stories that start with a dystopian fantasy and are about how the characters make their dystopian worlds better, you will like The Gravity of Obedience.