Son of War

But as the game's battles got more complicated, I was unlocking advanced skills, getting used to the new weapons and generally feeling much more god-like than I did at the beginning of the game. Both Kratos and I had some rust to shake off, it seems. On the surface, the game's story also starts out small: Kratos leaves his home with Atreus to scatter the ashes of his wife, who had just died at the game's start.

They're heading for the highest mountain in the realms, per her dying request.

'God of War' returns to form with good ol' father-son bonding

Naturally, there a number of hindrances along the way, and things become far more complex by the time the game hits its second half, with the pair plundering ruins, fighting mythical beasts, dealing with interpersonal drama and finding their road getting longer and longer. Along the way, Kratos has to figure out exactly how much to tell his son about his past.

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Atreus does not know that Kratos is a god, nor does he know that makes him a god. That tenson underlies many of their interactions throughout the game and provides for some wonderful character development as Kratos begins to trust his progeny more and more. After a lot of world-building, the second half of the game throws everything into high gear -- I could barely put it down.

1940s house

After a somewhat slow start, the narrative develops quickly, while the environments and enemies get progressively more challenging and cunning. But both Kratos and Atreus grow stronger, which makes the challenging combat more of a delight than a burden. And while undeniably brutal and bloody combat remains a hallmark of the series, the shocking gore that overpopulated God of War III and the Ascension prequel get turned down significantly.

You're not cutting out a centaur's entrails or beating a realistic female avatar's brains out this time. In yet another sign of maturation, the disappointing and misogynistic sex mini-games that cluttered up previous entries are nowhere to be found. Ultimately, this all adds up to the rare revival of a series that exceeds its origins in many ways.

Sam has settled for a job in a paper factory and thinks he has put his dreams and the terrors of Burma behind him. Ellen knows how fragile their marriage is. Joe, who lurks at the top of the stairs, overhearing their quarrels, is anxiously between them. The novel opens with a gift from Sam to Joe: Soon after, Ellen takes Joe to piano lessons.

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She wants him to sing in the choir, to learn tap dancing. But her ambitions for Joe bump up against her natural obedience, her abiding sense of duty, and her patient endurance of a poor, hard life. And that's all the story of the novel: The other characters - Ellen's creepy half-brother whom she meets for the first time; Joe's friends; Sam's old comrades; the sly little girl who does handstands against the wall without tucking her skirt into her knickers; - weave into a story about growing up, holding secrets, discovering furtive desire.

When it came out in , The Soldier's Return was judged by knowing critics to be one of the best novels of the year - certainly the best "English" novel in a year dominated by works of postcolonial fiction. At the age of 60, Bragg the novelist had, it seemed, found his subject: The story of Joe Richardson, born working-class in Wigton, Cumbria in , was manifestly a fable of the author.

On the home front

Trained as a historian, working as an arts journalist, with a Lakeland poet's sensibility, it was clearly a dilemma for Bragg b. The Soldier's Return covered the first seven years of Joe's life - the war years, in which the only child was in sole possession of his mother, before his father Sam came back from Burma to reclaim his conjugal property.

This second instalment deals with Joe's next seven years. How long will it be before the fictional character catches up with his author?

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Let us hope Melvyn Bragg lives to be