This is arguably the best horror story I have ever read. The setting and culture of the tale are, needless to say, absolutely accurate. It is also one of the most artistically produced, beautiful books I have seen in many years. ( )

A great modern day fable on what might have happened if a psychopath in ancient Mesopotamia was left with no choice but to kill everyone who knew about an accidental message from the gods in the hopes of gaining glory and taking the place of his king.

This is a short story, not a novel by any means. And it took about an hour and a half to read. The story glosses over large swathes of time and plenty of details that would be important to a detailed plot and character development. The way it reads brings to mind Aesop fables or Grimm's tales, rather than a modern fiction story, and would work very well as spoken word.

While not an amazing work of fiction, it is definitely a fun read and worth the few hours it takes to read. And the kickstarter hardcover release is also an amazing work of art, story aside. ( )

I've thoroughly enjoyed Finkel's previous novels, The Princess Who Wouldn't Come Home, and The Last Resort Library, but this is a very different kettle of fish. I was excited to hear that he'd written a story based on his knowledge of ancient Assyria, especially because I recently read and loved his Ark Before Noah history book. The result, however, is rather unsettling: very bleak and dark, with scenes of extreme violence, and a plot which only really makes sense when you've read the afterword. The Exorcist, a powerful priest-diviner at the court of King Ashurbanipal, finds his authority threatened by a mysterious fragment of text that he can't decipher. To make matters more alarming, it has been written in stone rather than in clay - an impossible feat, which proves that it must be a divine message from the gods. Thirsty for power, the Exorcist will stop at nothing to hide his ignorance - and to find the source of this remarkable artefact, in the hope of discovering further messages from the gods.

Now, while I found the story itself rather unpleasant (and perhaps that simply comes down to the fact that there isn't a single character one can really get behind), I did like the way that Finkel conveys the enormous power of cuneiform script - its complexity and the many different levels of meaning that could be encoded within a text as the writer and reader became more advanced. And I was interested by the way that he makes demons and gods a very present and active part of Mesopotamian life, just as people at the time believed they were. But ultimately I found it a rather cold book, perhaps more of an academic thought experiment than the warm and engaging novels Finkel has written before. I'll be very interested to see what other people make of it. ( )