Review of Antiqutiy’s Gate by R.F. Hurteau

Warning: Contains little spoliers

Antiquity’s Gate is a novel where you could seriously see this as being adapted into a Netflix film/tv series.

The plot is simple. Years ago a bunch of aliens named the Therans who are basically the Elves came to earth. What do you think happens next? Boom! Apolocyapse 2.0 and here we are with humans living in enclaved societies run by these Therans. Needless to say, both sides don’t like each other. Plus you also have halfies!

Felix and Ripley are two of the best characters in the novel. Willow, Felix’s wife finds herself pregnant with twins which are frowned upon in Theran Society. Nero, her father fits the description of what a stereotypical villain. And in this case it works, because there have been many figures like him in history. I would compare him to Commodus and the real Nero, because they were vain, rude, selfish and arrogant. Although the real Nero had more complexity to him than what was reported. I also make this point because we’re not viewing it from Willow’s father point of view. In this regard, I think Renee could have explained a bit more about the philosophical methods that both races, Theran, and Human use to justify their means of co-existing with each other. I would have wanted to see more scenes showing the divide between Theran and Human as well.

What I want to know in the next series, if Therans don’t like humans, why keep them? Are there more species around the world? I want to know more about the world, which if you do it in a fantasy setting, you’ve read it a hundred times before, but in this sci-fi series, I’m actually intrigued as to what happened in the first place. Authors take note.

I feel Willow’s character was under-used and I want to see more of her in the next novel. The dialogue was excellent and made you thought that you were not reading just any sci-fi book, but you were watching a movie.
It got so good in the end and I was rushing before I stopped and the ending was an excellent cliff-hanger. Just when the plot started moving it ended. Some may not like it, but I did. I thought it was great.

My rating: 5/5