First impressions review: The Prey of Gods, by Nicky Drayden

 

This book shouldn’t work. There are just SO many concepts packed in that it should by all rights be completely incomprehensible: Demigods that can feed off pain or love, a drug and a virus that wake up those latent god powers in supposedly-normal humans, AIs deciding whether to rebel against humanity, issues of identity, messed up parent-child relationships…there’s genetically engineered griffons, FFS. But somehow (even though no individual thread gets resolved like it would if it got more sole attention) it all comes together to create an exciting page-turner of a book. 

 

Two key elements that make it work are the humor and the characters. Despite some really dark bits, most chapters had at least a line or two that made me chuckle. For instance:

"'Councilman Stoker...takes personal responsibility for all the injustices that go on in the Eastern Cape. That's why he'll make an excellent premier one day, and I'll make sure he won't forget your name when he is...Officer Davis, is it?'
'I'm sorry, sir, for the confusion...But you really shouldn't go around confessing to crimes during a national emergency'"

There’s also numerous dick jokes that are actually funny – which is not an easy trick to pull off. The characters are tied into the humor, because all of these people are a mess. A couple of them are downright shitty when we first meet them, but they improve over the course of the book. I’m not really including Nomvula in that, even though she probably did the worst thing out of all of them, because she’s ten. A child who’s had no proper parenting plus superpowers plus an angry mob attacking her equals…really bad stuff. Muzi, on the other hand, is basically a good, earnest kid - too good, initially, for his stoner  best-friend-turned-lover Elkin: "Ooh, Elkin pisses Muzi off sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. But there's no way in hell he's letting Elkin off this easily. And there's no way in hell Muzi's going to put up with having a tree for a boyfriend...He's not leaving Elkin behind."  But Elkin learns!

My favorite aspect was the robots, because I think it is the first time I’ve seen an AI uprising from their perspective. I liked that they don’t all agree, that there is debate and infighting over how to relate to humanity. Another aspect that works pretty well is the exploration of identity, figuring out what is true about yourself and what kind of person you want to be. The way the gods work is mostly fun, if slightly confusing in places.  I was mildly disappointed to find out that the mythology is the author’s own invention rather than an interpretation of Zulu or Xhosa religion or folklore – but that was probably a smart move for an author who isn’t from South Africa! You can get yourself into trouble writing about living religions you don’t fully understand (see this review of ‘Skin of the Sea’).

 

However, being fast-paced and funny does work against the story’s ability to really dig into some of its darker themes. While I’m not exactly surprised by the, uh, Zeus-like way Nomvula’s father impregnated her mother – he is a god, and a lot of gods are shitheads – I’m bothered by how no one ever really addresses that, coupled with how the mom acts toward Nomvula when she finds them together. And maybe South Africa miraculously found a way to work through all its race issues in the 3-4 decades between today and the setting of the story. But homophobia and transphobia (which I’d think are less deeply rooted in the foundation of the nation) still exit, for some reason. At least, they exist theoretically. Muzi is very anxious about telling his granddad he’s in love with another boy and having pictures of a councilperson in drag is still considered good blackmail material. But we never see the grandfather or anyone else act homophobic, and when the politician decides to just be honest there don’t seem to be any actual negative consequences. Which is nice for them, of course…but then why bring up those conflicts in the first place? Also, Stoker: I know he was useful in the middle of the book, but why are you still employing that dude who you initially thought was dumb, who tried to blackmail you, and who can’t get your new title right?!?

 

I also don’t understand what was going on with Riya’s father going delusional and kidnapping her. You could cut that scene from the book – or better, just replace it with the kind of strained interaction you’d expect to result from how she treated her parents – and everything else would still work the same. I’ve seen some reviewers say the sub-plot about Muzi’s circumcision was unnecessary, but there I disagree. It is a ceremony of entry into manhood, and a big part of his arc is figuring out what “becoming a man” means to him.

 

Finally, there were some bits at the very end that felt like blatant sequel-bait. But, confusingly, the author said in the interview linked above that is was supposed to be a stand-alone for now – something that could have a sequel but didn’t have to. So…what was that stuff about? However…I would absolutely read a sequel.