Yadduk is a young cowherd who lived in Lachvi, an ancient village that existed in the Himalayas in 294 B.C. He is abducted by the mountain god, who is an eerie spirit that roams in the mountains and devours young cowherds. The mountain god travels through black holes and carries Yadduk to his home planet, Seabor, which is a strange world of undulating liquid helium oceans and glowing radioactive forests. He introduces him to his people, the iljjocks.
–from the blurb about The Iljjock Yoke
The iljjocks are godlike creatures that look like animals. A dog-faced iljjock informs Yadduk that he has been brought to Seabor for a great purpose- he has to mate one of them and attain divine powers. Once he had the powers, he would return to Earth and distribute them to the rest of the human race so that the humans could help the iljjocks fight their enemies, the vile and vicious seamones!
Thank you so much to Anita Vaani for providing me with a digital copy of this book to review!
Whew, I’ll be honest; this was another one that was difficult for me to review! I have a lot of conflicting feelings about it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Again, similar to my review for Purity Lost in Vain, I tried my best to balance being subjective and objective, here. Hopefully, I succeeded with my review for The Iljjock Yoke!
But keep reading to find out what I did and did not like about this one.
Review
I’m going to begin with the positives. Anita Vaani has a lot of talent as a writer; she writes incredibly vividly, and she has a knack for world-building. I loved reading about the planet of Seabor, because it had so much depth and history to it.
Additionally, I loved the way she wrote this in a way that reminded me of old myths and stories. It fit the vibe of the story so well, and that’s something I absolutely loved about this book!
That’s also the reason I didn’t mind the fact that the characters were a little lacking in depth and traditional characterization. Though, I’m not sure I’m phrasing that correctly, to be honest. Basically, the way Vaani told the story, as I mentioned, it felt like I was being told a folktale by an old bard. The characters and the way Vaani wrote them blended with that style, too, and I didn’t really mind that. Though, I didn’t like their personalities all that much, to be honest. As I said: conflicting feelings.
As for the plot as a whole, I generally enjoyed the flow of it. It definitely kept me interested. Honestly, I didn’t have any real issues with the overall storyline; mainly, I just didn’t like a few specific aspects of the plot and the story. (Though, to be fair, I definitely admire Vaani’s creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.)
Anyway, because some of those aspects played a fairly large role in the book as a whole, it did detract from my enjoyment of the story. So, overall, the plot wasn’t my favorite, but I can appreciate that it was well-structured.
TL,DR Recommendation
All things considered, this book is not something I would recommend to everyone. Still, this was definitely an interesting read; I’m not discouraging reading this! Vaani is definitely a talented writer, and I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future.
If you do choose to read this book, drop a comment down below and let me know your thoughts on it! I love to connect with people about the books I’ve read. Additionally, if you liked this review of The Iljjock Yoke, feel free to check out the Book Reviews tab to check out my full library of reviews.
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