Review: The Prey of Gods

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a near future South Africa, an ancient goddess launches a plan to regain her lost glory by any means necessary...

The Prey of Gods isn't one of those books that is easy to sum up. My little teaser is the bare bones but it's a lot more than that. Told in five more or less parallel threads, it is a story about identity at the heart. Sure, it has awesome things like free-willed robots, goddesses, and a cross-dressing senator with some golden pipes, but it's about identity at its core.

This book gripped me from the first page. It's future South African setting leaped to life. I had no trouble believing in the characters or the world. Muzi struggles with his impending manhood ritual and his feeling for his best friend, Elkin. Nomvula struggles with her mother, a nearly catatonic woman who rarely speaks. Wallace Stoker struggles with his future in the government and his other identity, a golden-voiced diva named Felicity Lyons. And Riya Natrajan, pop idol, struggles with her secret past and secret illness. Oh, and there's the murderous goddess, awakened AI robots, a drug called godsend, and all those pesky dik-diks running amock. You know, run of the mill stuff like that...

The Prey of the Gods is one of those loaded books, like a baked potato with every imaginable topping in existence thrown on it - great concepts, interesting characters, and stellar writing. The pace is great and the twists kept me rapt. It was the best sf/fantasy novel I've read in a long time. 4.5 out of 5 stars.



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