Slow Gods

I surprised myself with the choice of Slow Gods as me latest read. Not because there was anything out of the ordinary for my tastes in the blurb or the genre, but because I have only recently finished a Claire North book. In fact, it was because I enjoyed the last book of hers so much that I decided to give this one a go. I was also drawn to the fact that the genres of the books are very different.

This is a space opera on the usual mind bending size and scale of the genre. The universe is spanned, decades (if not centuries) are crossed in the telling of the tale of Maw (full name Mawukana na-Vdnaze). The story charts Maw’s early life the path that leads him to become a pilot. In the Slow Gods universe being a pilot isn’t the same as working for EasyJet and having a silly hat. Pilots minds are used to fly across what is called “Arcspace” a kind of universal shortcut between two places that destroys the minds of pilots. But Maw is different, and his differentness is the key to the story and determines the course of the narrative. I won’t spoil it, it’s a bit plot point!

With Sci-fi I always need to be convinced that the mind-blowing inventions and creations dreamt up by the author are, at the very least, thoroughly thought through and well constructed. And Slow Gods certainly meets that criteria. Arcspace, the Shine, The Slow, and any number of worlds, species and events are extremely well articulated and feel like they are plausible enough to not cause any jarring sensation to the reader. If Sci-fi isn’t pushing the boundaries of the viable and feasible then it’s not doing its job properly in my opinion!

I enjoyed Slow Gods, I think I might have lost a bit of focus on some of the plot points in the middle somewhere, but that was more down to my busy schedule than the book or the writing. And I soon got back up to speed with the story and the character arcs.

If you like big, bold, slightly unsettling sci-fi then you should give this one a try. I would love to learn more about The Dark 😉