Godkiller
Ratings174
Average rating3.9
Godkiller comes out of the gate swinging and doesn't slow down for the entirety of the book, and I absolutely adored it. Despite some minor issues with the early parts of the book, this was an absolute romp the entire way through, and if this is what Hannah Kamer releases as a debut, I feel like she's going to have an insane career going forward, because this book screams quality.
Having one of the most interesting twists on gods that I've seen in modern fantasy, the world of Godkiller is brilliant. Gods are seen as parasites following an all out war against them, and we follow a Godkiller, Kissen, as she escorts a young girl, who's been joined to a god of white lies, across the country on a quest to sever the link. We also follow Elogast, an ex-Knight of the realm, who joins Kissen and Inara on their journey.
I enjoyed Inara and Kissen's PoVs quite a bit. Inara has to deal with the trauma of losing everything she's known since she was a child, and following her emotional journey through those feelings was really cathartic, as she came to terms with the fact that the people she'd lost were gone, and that they weren't coming back. It felt extremely real, and when compounded with the themes of found family, was extremely heartwarming to read about.
Kissen however, was my favourite of the PoVs. Kissen is a character whose loss mirrors Inara's in a lot of ways, so Kissen takes it upon herself to make sure that Inara doesn't end up the same way that she has. Kissen is a bitter and angry shade of her former self, hell bent on numbing her pain by making sure that the gods that inhabit the world feel just a modicum of it themselves. Her learning to open herself up throughout the book is really touching, and resonated with me on a personal level, since for years I was emotionally locked off. I also really enjoyed the disability representation that she brings, since generally losing a leg in fantasy is treated as something that closes doors completely, however, Kamer has managed to write in prosthetics in a way that fits the world really well.
The PoV I didn't enjoy, was Elogast, the ex-Knight. The story that surrounds him, is really interesting, but fuck me, Elo's chapters were dry to read. Initially, it wasn't too bad, but very quickly, he shares the same space as Inara and Kissen, so switching to his perspective to see the same events as the other two, felt more like I was being deprived of an interesting PoV, than being given the opportunity to see the world from a new perspective. Elogast has a really tropey backstory that I've seen done before. He begins to improve towards the end, and I am genuinely excited to see his PoV in book 2, due to the shift he takes at the end of the book.
The side characters are pretty decent, but aren't enough of a focus for me to have really connected with them in any major way. I liked Kissen's family well enough, but other than that, none really stand out to me all that much. The only other one I can recall decently well, is a water god we meet in the latter end of the book, who was really cool, and introduced a unique worldview to the story that I hope to see expanded on in the sequels.
The story was superb. The way Kamer weaves twists and turns into it is really clever, where she plants red herrings that the reader will just run with, and turns innocuous passages into masterful foreshadowing. Each twist landed for me, with one needing a bit more expansion in later books admittedly, but that one was by design. Outside of that, the general structure of it lends itself really well to Kamer's lightning fast pacing. This book covers more ground than some doorstoppers I've read in the past, forgoing the usual epic fantasy filler that those books are laden with, and I really appreciate that here. This is an incredibly short book, which is usually a negative for me, but I don't think I'd want this to be that much longer. The only thing that I might want, is a bit more in the final setpiece of the book, since that went by really quickly, but not so quick that it wasn't a satisfying end.
Overall, I thought this book was incredible, with few to no issues throughout. Again, the only major gripe that I had with it was the Elo's PoV was really boring to inhabit when I had to, but I hope that's fixed in book 2. 4/5 stars, I highly recommend this book.
