Seven to Eternity Volume 1: The God of Whispers

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From start to finish, it layers all the threads that have been woven into a tapestry of everything from waging a war on the inherent loneliness of being alive to vanquishing the most monstrous villain there is, Self-Interest. And in this volume’s closing chapter, it’s Adam’s inaction and inattentiveness that costs a fellow rebel her life. Remender also tosses in a few prose pages at random intervals, as if the book didn’t already have pacing issues. I enjoyed the characterizations of the main two characters - Adam Osidis and the villain, the Mud King - but almost every other character felt cliché and irrelevant. One reason all these things work, I think, is because Remender doesn’t stop to explain anything, so the reader is a bit spellbound.

Seven to Eternity Series by Rick Remender - Goodreads

It choreographed this direction pretty clearly long in advance, but it's still kind of breathtaking on how dire the story is at its end. These are eternal questions, but the expression of them nevertheless seems quite direct, centred as the story is on the God of Whispers, merely hearing whose offer makes one suspect, and who even when the heroes manage to break his power, has much of the land keen to reinstate him, whether to maintain their own power derived from him, or simply because they can't let go of the story they've told themselves about how the world is. It felt as though the smaller trim wasn't delivering the full impact of the spectacular art and those early chapters felt like a chore - a feeling not entirely foreign to Remender’s storytelling. Hero warns Captive-Villain-With-Talking-Powers to stop talking, then lets him drone on for two pages until SURPRISE he makes something bad happen. I hope Remender can get a better handle on this in the next volume--now that things have settled down into a journey narrative, the story should be easier to follow and perhaps enough background can be filled in to make this a worthwhile endeavor.

Adam and the Mud King's journey comes to an end at the fabled Springs of Zhal, which promise to cure the fallen Mosak knight of his fatal affliction and fulfill the promise the God of Whispers owes him. As for the contents of the book, it was closing in on a five star rating, but I've got enough nitpicks here to hold it back. Remender lists famed series like “Dune” and “Lord of the Rings” as direct inspiration for this mashup of sci-fi and fantasy and it shows.

Seven to Eternity, Vol. 4: The Springs of Zhal - Goodreads Seven to Eternity, Vol. 4: The Springs of Zhal - Goodreads

Avalanche of emotions and front to back conflict ensuing all to the tune of Opena's outstanding pencils, and Hollingsworth's colour work.Seven to Eternity is a wild ride that explores themes of choice (and the illusion of having one), true desires, and the great lengths and risks one is willing to take for such desires to come into fruition. The last issue needed to be longer and probably would have been better as two distinct issues to give the ending time to breathe. I had some issues with the story, in that there is so much for the reader to learn and understand about the world, there wasn't a lot of time for actual world-building.