Sunday, October 09, 2011

God's War


If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Kameron Hurley's God's War. Hurley's heroine, Nyx, is one of the most bad-ass characters I've seen in a while. She's a bounty hunter on a world where two Islamic countries are in the middle of a three hundred year old war. Nyx has a handful of employees and other than that it seems everyone else wants her dead or at least severely beaten on a regular basis.

There are magicians and shape-shifters, though this is science fiction rather than fantasy novel. Having said that, what happens to the shape-shifters mass when changing form isn't explained and so it seems pretty magical. The magicians are mighty handy surgeons who have organ and limb transplants down to a ho-hum. And there's this thing with bugs. There are bugs and bugs and bugs everywhere and they're used for all manor of useful things, many of which - like powering semi-organic vehicles - happen without my understanding, but my understanding isn't necessary to a great story. All this weirdness just makes for lots of cool.

It's a very brutal world and Nyx is on the receiving end of much of that brutality. Her ability to get back up even when her body, her team and her circumstances are falling into shit goes beyond making her an interesting character and actually inspires me. If you like Batman or Conan, but wish they had a little more depth and humanity, Nyx is your lady.

Check it out and if you like it, the sequel, Infidel, will be out in mere days. I'll definitely be picking it up. You can get both books through Kameron Hurley's website.

4 comments:

Church said...

Interesting. There's a My Little Pony fan character named Nyx, although she doesn't share much in common besides the name. A bit of googling reveals that they both share the name of a Greek proto-god.

JLeuze said...

Thanks for sharing, how can I not add a book the author describes as "bugpunk" to my wishlist?

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

Church: In the novel, Nyx was short for Nynissa (I could be a little off on the spelling). I wonder if the same holds true for the pony?

Josh, I'm glad that helps to pique your interest. For me, adding punk to everything drives me crazy. But whatever we call it, it's good.

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

Hold the phone, stop the presses! Turns out Hurley is a My Little Pony fan! Check out the end of this interview: http://booktionary.blogspot.com/2011/01/interview-kameron-hurley-author-of-gods.html