The Bound Gods Series is an Epic Fantasy without Heroes

Rachel Dunne’s In the Shadow of the Gods and Bones of the Earth, the first two books in the Bound Gods series, are epic fantasy with one large twist: those on the side of saving the world are flawed, perhaps evil, and capable of the most heinous acts and deceptions.
So, we have messed up humans doing horrible things for the right reasons, and decent humans committing what initially seem like positive acts, with results that turn out so very wrong.
The first book twists fantasy tropes into something darker. Joros, the “leader” who gathers the usual fantasy band to oppose the bound gods, is selfish and cruel; the mage—usually is the source of wisdom—is Joros’s fearful slave; the stalwart warrior is a broken man; and the scarred priestess who’s been good to the warrior views the twins who accompany their quest as abominations who should be destroyed.
The kindest man in the series, a priest named Keiro, is on the side of gods who will soon visit destruction on the world.
Surely, we should be on Keiro’s side: early in In the Shadow of the Gods, he tries and fails to save newborn twins from being drowned by a fearful community—twins are seen as evil in this world, symbols of the twin gods who were thrown down from heaven for their sins. The female god Sororra, who can influence human minds, is chained. Her brother Fratarro shattered into pieces when he hit the ground. Since then, his sister has influenced humans to seek out parts of her twin to put him back together and free them both.
It seems a worthy endeavor—except freeing the gods may destroy the world.
The first volume introduces a world divided between followers of the twins and the rest of humanity, who favor the parent gods who cast the twins down from heaven. Joros has turned his back on the followers of the twins and wants to burn the Fratarro’s remains before they can be reunited. But he’s not acting out of altruistic motives; rather, he’s bitter that he’s been pushed aside and forgotten by his former priests.
Basically, Joros is a disgruntled employee seeking vengeance. He’s not, in any shape or form, a good guy. He’s cruel to his mage, who he keeps as a slave; he lies to everyone about basically everything; and he finds another set of twins he offers to protect—but only because he needs them for a nasty, last-ditch effort to stop the gods if they’re unbound.
While the first novel loaded with scene-setting, the story is immersive because of Dunne’s gift with crafting deep point-of-view characters who pull us into her world. Yes, even the awful ones, like Joros, are built with depth and complexity.
Like any good middle, things get worse for our leads in the recently released Bones of the Earth, which is very much the next part of one much bigger story. Scal, a formidable Northman who is grievously injured at the start of the second book, takes a long time to recover and loses everything again, which is enough to make him wish to die for certain. His anguish growing up is a large part of what made the first book so interesting. While Scal’s in the second book, he’s far less at the center of the story.

Instead, the focus shifts clearly to the teenage twins Joros has recruited to help him, Rora and Avorro. They have managed to survive by joining an underground gang in one of the world’s biggest cities. Rora, an assassin by trade, picks up much of the narrative slack. She’s frustrated at needing Joros’s help, terrified she’s making the wrong choices, and willing to risk the closest thing she has to a family to protect her twin, though it’s a bargain she’s not sure she should make.
Then there’s Anddyr, the slave mage, who struggles against Joros’s control; while you might think we’d root for him to win his freedom, Anddyr’s mind is twisty and damaged enough to make one wonder if he should be free at all.
Meanwhile, kind-hearted Keiro is walking the world, spurred on by a call he can’t recognize, until he’s led to an area of the plains containing all the answers he seeks. Dunne does an interesting thing, making Keiro the most sympathetic and human character in the series—he worries for all creatures, he sees beauty in all parts of the world, and yet he’s working for gods who kill without a second thought. Keiro’s desire to save people is turned against him, as it seems his gods lack the kindness so present inside their follower.
Yet if I had to pick team Keiro or team Joros, it would be easy to go with the former. Joros is repugnant.
And yet—when Joros does act abominably, Dunne is there to remind us that his actions—deplorable as they are—might be the key to saving the world, and countless lives, from the vengeance of the twin gods.
Since this is just the second book of the trilogy, it’s not giving too much away to say things are much worse by the time we reach the last page of Bones of the Earth. I have no idea if it can or will end well for anyone—this might be a world past saving.
There are no easy answers in these books, and no traditional heroes to be found. But the world is drawn with fascinating detail, and populated by people, however loathsome or mysterious, who happen to be interesting.
Bones of the Earth is available now.