Ben Peek’s ‘The Godless’ – a review

The Godless by Ben Peek
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ben’s a friend of mine, but regardless, he’s produced a very fine book. Truth be told, I’m not a huge fantasy fan: it’s a genre plagued by cliché and loaded with genre conventions. Or perhaps I should rephrase this: fantasy too often doesn’t live up to its potential. I’m a fan of fantasy as it could be, rather than as it is. The thing I like about The Godless is that it breaks so many of those tedious conventions, most obviously in terms of race, but also in terms of narrative. His book is rich and multilayered, it isn’t strictly linear, and I didn’t ever think: “Oh, I know how this is going to end.” I suspect some fantasy fans might find it slow or perhaps too complex, but that says more about their reading habits than the book itself. If I were to have any gripes they would be minor ones: there are a few copy editing errors and at points I felt it might have been tighter. But as I say, these are minor compared with The Godless’s virtues. Give me original and ambitious over another rehearsal of narrative conventions any day.

View all my reviews