Sullivan's 5th in the series is nowhere near as good as 1-4. It takes place mostly in the underworld and has many longwinded speeches by 'Gods' explaining the origins of the world from their own viewpoint. Where these tales have sometimes lacked in character development, the author usually makes up in spades for plot and storyline propulsion/pacing. Here, we neither had the plot, spacing nor characters. I will always forgive a one off book by an author whom I generally quite enjoy ... so I will be back for the end of this series. ( )

Description
With fear and unwavering faith, Tressa led them into the underworld; with great hesitancy they had followed.

The band of seven had died to save Suri. They knew they would have to cross through the underworld and return to the land of the living, but none of them knew what the underworld would hold. Now, they must cross its entire length: 4 distinct spaces separated with three doors. Three doors that very well may be locked.

Fortunately, they have a key; unfortunately, they will encounter things more difficult than unlocking doors, and will learn that even their existence in the underworld is at stake.

Disclosure
I personally bought this book. There was no agreement with the author, publisher, or any third party that I would publish a review. The following review is unsolicited, unbiased, and all opinions are my own.

Review – Spoiler Free
Fifth in Michael J. Sullivan’s The Legends of the First Empire series, Age of Death is a bit of an in-between book, as much for its place in the series, as for its actual content. (Read my review of book 1, Age of Myth, on my blog) The book has a definite beginning and end, but the story catches the characters mid-step, while reading through what they’re doing and how it works out, strengthens the series storyline, and is definitely necessary to a good telling, it’s also obvious that the story is far from done.

I loved watching key characters develop and grow. While some significant characters of the series are mostly untouched in this book (much like in the previous book, Age of Legend, read the review on my blog), Sullivan uses a few strong scenes to ensure that their storyline is continuing to move forward and that the reader doesn’t forget them.

This book dives deep into the world of Elan, both physically and historically. Having read all of Sullivan’s other books based in this world, I was glad to have a better picture painted of the history of Elan. A lot of historical events are introduced or clarified, Sullivan does so with the finesse of a few threads that come together by the end of the book, avoiding an inglorious information dump on the reader.

This book definitely ends with a cliffhanger – unexpected but inevitable, and curious but not crushing. While I’m not aching to know what happens next, I’m definitely glad that the next book is already on my shelf and I’m not awaiting its release.

There were some points where the writing felt a little choppy, almost like some things are described a little too much, leading to an unnecessary second sentence, when just one would flow better. Despite that, the story still clips along at a fast pace, like much of Sullivan’s other work.

Overall, the story in this book isn’t my favorite of the series, but I enjoyed the read. It is definitely necessary to the series storyline, building and developing it in a way that couldn’t have been combined into one of the other books. ( )

For the first 4 books in the series I listened to the audiobooks (and narrator Tim Gerard Doyle is AMAZING). Due to COVID-19 my library system has had issues, only has the paper book, and I can't even request a book to be ordered. So I read the paper version, which has the advantage of being able to go back and re-read key passages, as well as apparently Michael's wife Robin has written afterwords in all the paper books which I enjoyed a great deal. As for the story itself, it's great, though not my favorite in the series. I'm looking forward to the finale to see how all the strands play out. ( )

The good news is that death is not the end, but that is also the bad news.
-The Book of Brin

Age of Death picks up exactly where the cliffhanger ending of the previous book leaves off. It makes for an intense start to the book that unfortunately slows back down as the story splits to follow both events in the underworld and how things are going in the regular world.

This is a solid middle book where some forward plot progression is made, albeit at a slow pace. It also wraps up in a cliffhanger-style ending, though I didn't feel urgency of the previous book as I don't feel that the characters are truly in jeopardy. Everyone keeps making the abyss a big deal, how Trilos fell down it and disappeared but we know Trilos is in the garden so obviously the abyss is not the end of their existence. I am genuinely curious to see how these stories will come together for the grand finale and hope the question of who Lothian sacrificed to make his dragon is answered. ( )

Great continuation of the series ( )