All That Lives Must Die (Mortal Coils #2)

All That Lives Must Die (Mortal Coils #2)
Author:  Eric S. Nylund
Age genre: Fantasy | Young Adult Fiction
Release date: July 20th 2010
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This is simply amazing. In the first book it took forever to build up the plot and background for the entire story, but once it got going it got me hooked because it was so "deep" so to speak . This book continues where it left off, Eliot and Fiona have discovered that they're Infernal/Immortal hybrids courtesy of their father Lucifer and mother Atropos. They get shipped off to a school for powerful mortals, Immortals and Infernals. It's there that they get taught the basic skills of surviving the harsh and cruel world they live in (where young Immortals tend to die at the hands of their older relatives). 

We learn quite a bit more about the two warring divine/demonic families, the weaker but no less dangerous mortal families (humans with magical powers and links to the two main ones) and how they're related to the whole war in heaven affair. It turns out that the Immortals are at a severe disadvantage over the more powerful Infernals (who have both human and colossal "Battle-forms") who derive power from the land they own and the armies of demons linked to them. The only thing saving them is the peace treaty between both families. It kinda surprises me that the Immortals aren't in fact "Gods" in the usual sense but rather extremely powerful and intelligent humanoids. The Infernals can cause Solar Eclipses, warp the fabric of space and time, command undying armies of demons and the Immortals can do what, cut anything with strings (Atropos) or divine the future (Chronos) or are just really good with weapons (Ares). Pffft, any powerful human could do that. Well, from that statement you can probably tell that I'm rooting for the Infernal team, kinda hard not to since they're pretty wicked (cool and evil) to begin with. =P


Scores
Cover:  7.5
Characters: 9
Story: 9


Overall:  9/10
Comment: Hopefully Book 3 comes out soon because the reimagined universe of Mortal Coils is pretty mindblowing compared to most of the mainstream rubbish out there (coughGoddessTestcough). The characters are "real" and react accordingly to the circumstances. Again, unlike most characters found in mainstream novels, they don't do anything out of character or for no specific reason just to further the plot. Keep up the good work Eric :)