Book Review: The Godless by Ben Peek
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 1 of Children
Publisher: Tor (UK: August 14, 2014), Thomas Dunne (US: August 19, 2014)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Godless caught me off guard a bit, as it ended up not being the kind of book I was expecting at all. Mainly, it doesn’t read like it was meant to have a traditional story plot, and I don’t doubt that could be the reason for the many reviews I’ve seen describing it as confusing or difficult to summarize. Books like these are generally not my cup of tea, but The Godless did manage to hold me rapt with its epic world and fascinating mythology.
Thousands of years ago, the gods warred. After their conflict, the dead or dying ended up scattered across the world, becoming part of the forests, mountains, and other features of the land. Since then, men and women have awakened with strange and spectacular powers that are derived from the fallen gods’ bodies. The Godless takes place mostly in Mirea, a city built by a massive stone wall that spans a mountain range which houses the body of one of these gods, Ger.
The book follows the lives of several characters: Ayae, the young apprentice of a cartographer who discovers she is “cursed” after emerging completely unharmed from the flames that devoured her shop; Bueralan, an exiled baron who leads a team of mercenaries hired by Mirea to sabotage Leera, a neighboring enemy kingdom; and Zaifyr, a mysterious, centuries-old mystic who teaches and advises Ayae after the emergence of her powers.
The Godless is indeed a bit difficult to describe, as I found it overall heavy on ideas and history while coming in on the lighter side when it came to plot and character development. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Even though books like this aren’t typically my taste, they are chockfull of potential if written well. To its credit, The Godless did keep me interested, but it didn’t have the momentum I desired. While the concepts of the gods and the individuals with special powers are nothing short of extraordinary, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing from the story, a lack of a unifying thread tying it all together which would have made this one a truly engaging read.
The characters themselves are well-formed with very complete backstories, but their personalities seemed muted somehow. I felt no particular affinity towards any of them, and despite the time spent with each character, I regarded them from an emotional distance. The Godless also isn’t something I would call fast-paced or a page-turner, though it does have its moments at the beginning and towards the end. There’s a lot of detail to take in in between, meant to be absorbed and savored, so I wasn’t surprised this one ended up being a slower read.
I think I went into this expecting something akin to a heroic fantasy, but that wasn’t how it played out, and it was through no fault of the book or the author. By design, the narrative seemed more interested in emphasizing the complex philosophy and theological ideas, the political history between Miera and Leera, as well as the lore and mythology behind the gods’ war and the Cursed.
It’s a compelling read, and there’s no denying that. This first book is a great introduction to a series with a boatload of potential. Still, while I enjoyed reading about the world of The Godless with its diverse peoples and cultures, its rich history and politics, my own priority would be characters and story. But obviously, we all have different tastes. If the sort of world building I described in the above paragraph is something you enjoy, then this book would be perfect for you.
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Tor UK!
The BiblioSanctum 
Based on your description I think I would like this one quite a bit more than you.
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I’m glad! It’s always nice whenever I write a “not my thing” review and see that others can still say, “But it sounds like mine!”.
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I have had my eye on this one but…yes i need world building, but I do need characters too
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And a bit more story for me.
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It’s interesting to read your review and realize that I sort of gave up on this book about a month ago. Although I hate to say “gave up” because I do want to finish it. It just wasn’t holding my interest. I love books about dead gods, and hopefully I can get back into it.
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I know what you mean! Sometimes you just have to set a book aside in order to “regroup”. That’s why it took me a while to read this, I kept taking breaks from it, but I knew I wasn’t going to give up.
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I’m sorry it wasn’t as good as you thought and finally quite different. But it sounds like a nice introduction and I hope the next one will be better!
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I probably won’t pick up the next one, but not because I thought this was bad. I’m just more aware of the style now, and if book 2 will be similar, I know it’s not going to be for me 🙂
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Personally I’ve always quite enjoyed the “gods live among us” thing, but this doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. There are so many five star epic fantasies out there that I don’t want to spend ages reading a book that’s only average – especially since those books aren a little outside of my wheelhouse. I want to feel connected to the characters I’m reading about!
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Yeah, I definitely think this one will find an audience, though to borrow your words, it was simply “outside my wheelhouse” 🙂
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hmm… I think I may pass on this one. Its one I *might* like, but heavy on history and light on characters sounds very close to *yawn* for me.
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History and philosophy and ideas – which I know is like candy to some, but my tastes just don’t run that way 🙂
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I absolutely agree with your comments tbh. I did enjoy this more than you did but when I was reviewing it I struggled to say that I liked any of the characters and that’s because there is definitely more world building than people to love and hate. I feel at the moment that I’m waiting to see what transpires. I liked the world building but it was slow. That being said I’m intrigued so will carry on with this one.
Lynn 😀
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I look forward to what you will think of the next book! I will probably be skipping it, so I’ll be living it vicariously through your review 😀
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Thats disappointing to hear that it was on the lighter side where characters and development are concerned because those are always my fav parts versus a worlds history (while that’s of course important sometimes that can stride over into the info dumping realm if done wrong)
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Hmmmm, I was really excited about this when I first heard of it because I love the idea of gods becoming mortal/dying/disappearing/etc, but I pretty much require a normal plot structure to be comfy with a book so weak plot and characters probably won’t work for me *sigh* Oh well, thanks for helping me decide about this one 😀
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