hmm, I think i’d place a small bet on the author having played (or at least helped a young person play) Impossible Creatures.

what I liked: totally brave approach to imagining what it might have been like “if” the immortals, angels, fallen, and creatures of myth & the bible were part of a giant antediluvian mashup that’s channeling LOTR & Indiana Jones in a big screen way. I also liked that in the midst of all this horses were introduced and their growing popularity is a way of marking the passage of time.

what didn’t work for me : there are some real “whiplash moment” scene changes where things are just dropped - these abrupt changes will leave you wondering.

the character development was not what kept me turning the pages but the action and bigger than life imaginging of what it might have been like made up for it