Godkiller: A Novel (Fallen Gods, 1)

On the plus side, the author used dialogue to carry the story, with just enough exposition to fill in where needed. Characters were believable in their words and deeds, but I didn't find them terribly engaging. Kissen seemed to be constantly raging and mistrusting, Elo seemed to stumble along in a fog and little amnesiac jackalope god Skedi flip-flopped between being annoying and helpful. Inara was really just a tagalong in much of the story. Their backstories were almost superficial and they were very much acted upon by external forces at all times. One Amazon reviewer said they just seemed to always be travelling and bickering in a repeat loop (paraphrased). Still, I felt the story was crafted fairly well and the world-building, although bland, was adequate to support the plot. A few other issues for me: > The audiobook narrator had a great "upper-midlands" (Yorkshire?) accent - which I loved - but with a distracting catch in her breath at the beginning of every sentence. And it almost came at a staccato pace during scenes of battle or high anxiety. > Other major characters were left in the dust with little mention. Inara's mother seemed to be significant to the story, but so little is known about her at the end of the day. The king's backstory was almost purposely superficial just to support a plot twist near the end. A mysterious woman in the pub writing letters with lemon ink is mentioned, then ignored for the remainder of the tale. Was it Inara's mother? Guess we have to read book 2 to find out. Which brings me to a personal complaint about trilogies in general. I wish authors could study works like Connie Willis' Oxford time travel series or Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series. Both are trilogies, but each novel stands on its own within the series. I felt Godkiller was purposely written with the faults I've listed above in order to require readers to purchase the other 2 books in order to hear the full story. Too many stories are written this way nowadays. We readers seem to be just cash cows to be milked for 3 books in order to get a full epic tale. Hey publishers, I'm a little tired of that. On a final, positive note, I think this story would make a great Netflix (or SyFy Channel?) series. It's already written in 'scene' mode so adapting to screenplay format shouldn't be difficult. This might offer a chance to resolve some of the issues I've mentioned above.

This book was a slow read for me which is surprising with its low page count. I was very intrigued the first couple chapters but then the story slowed waaaaaay down. I don't know if it was so much world building in too short a time frame but it was rough. I almost gave up. But then the action started and the twist happened and it was good! I liked where it ended and want to read the second now. I just hope it doesn't suffer from the same problem.

It has phenomenal world-building and fantastic characters. I immediately went to get the second book in the series.

Beautifully written. I cannot wait to read the next one