Book Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5 / 5 stars)
“Memories make those experiences softer, and knowledge makes the problems you had then seem simpler.”
Etevun has brought darkness as he has risen to power. The Evil One, as he is rightly named, has eliminated the Gidat and forced one of the last ones, known as the Lady, into hiding. She is on a question to find the last of the Gidat, a boy named T’Gan, and deliver him to safety. But to gain his trust, she also must teach him about the first Gidat, Minkos. Through the Telling and through their journey, T’Gan begins to grow and accept the prophecy lain before him.
Echoes of the Gidat is a neolithic fantasy reminiscent of a legend combined with adventure. It goes back and forth between Minkos and T’Gan’s story, paralleling each other’s voyages. Emé Savage has created an amazing world, with echoes of our own world, as well as elements from other stories and her own imagination. You will learn about a world at it’s birth and how those events impact T’Gan’s life today. The amount of details and effort that went into this is unimaginable, and to that I have to give a big kudos.
While the story itself is compelling, it does take a bit to get going. There are many unusual phrases (which made the glossary helpful), and I’d say it took me about 35% of the way through to start to piece together all the details. As well, it also took a bit to start identifying the character’s personalities. Minko’s was the most defined, and with T’Gan as his parallel, I began to see their similarities. But these problems it was an initial hurdle that I had to cross in order to really dive into the story
But, once the pieces fall into place, the story is quite compelling. The second half of my book, as T’Gan and the Lady begin their journey, drew me in, and once Kay joined their party, I couldn’t put the book down. Kay is probably my favorite character, and that is only after her brief appearance, and I am excited to see how her story unfolds.
That being said, the Echoes of the Gidat is creative and unique and I cannot wait to see where the story will go in Tetarul Parallel.
What’s it about?
The Gidat have existed since the First One, who was the Hearer of the Voice and defender of his People. His journey revealed a malevolent entity more powerful than anything that came before.
Thousands of years in the future, the Gidat are all but extinct due to a genocide perpetrated by a King who has acquired unnatural powers. The Lady must find and deliver a boy out of the hands of the King. This boy is the Last Gidat, and the best hope for a ravaged Sadatian people.
Through The Telling, the First Gidat reveals a malevolent entity that can take any form… including a King. Can the echoes of a long-forgotten story help a boy who has lost everything?
E.S. Barrison 