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Dec. 16th, 2022 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretNo Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
An unarmed, naked, mentally ill black man is killed by the police. Except it turns out he may have been a werewolf that the police shot while he was a werewolf, rampaging. And it turns out there has been a lot more secret magic in the world. The revelation shatters the social structure of the world.
I liked Turnbull's first novel, The Lesson a good deal, but I thought it had significant structural and pacing problems and lost the thread at times. This book showed Turnbull's increasing command as a writer. It's an incredibly assured book. From page one I had the very strong sense that Turnbull knew where he was taking me and every strange jump in perspective or timing or narrative felt of a piece, with a single unified vision. It was compulsively readable and endlessly thought provoking, and often quite moving.
I am left sitting a little uncertain about the ending, which mysteriously features a bunch of characters given detailed descriptions but no names, whether there are clues that a more careful reader could've used to get a little more sense out of it or whether it's simply suspended until the followup book answers more questions, as the book is advertised as the first book in a Convergence Saga. But it's okay to be uncertain, too, it's a book very much at home with the complexity of the world and the ways we impact each other. I kept thinking as I read of The Good Place's mantra about what we owe to each other. That is a central preoccupation of this book, too, in deep and complicated ways about how race and sexuality and identity more generally impact our moral obligations to each other, and our ability to recognize those obligations. And in fact, even like The Good Place, there is a section about living and reliving one's life trying to make better choices.
I've seen a few reviews who argue that there's something very specifically familiar about the book's premise: That an event can be The Shattering and also barely affect most peoples' lives unless they happen to be vulnerable and affected people, the way pain is distributed unevenly and unfairly through society, the way some people still fight for power even as the desperate are calling out for help. It's definitely a vibe.
An unarmed, naked, mentally ill black man is killed by the police. Except it turns out he may have been a werewolf that the police shot while he was a werewolf, rampaging. And it turns out there has been a lot more secret magic in the world. The revelation shatters the social structure of the world.
I liked Turnbull's first novel, The Lesson a good deal, but I thought it had significant structural and pacing problems and lost the thread at times. This book showed Turnbull's increasing command as a writer. It's an incredibly assured book. From page one I had the very strong sense that Turnbull knew where he was taking me and every strange jump in perspective or timing or narrative felt of a piece, with a single unified vision. It was compulsively readable and endlessly thought provoking, and often quite moving.
I am left sitting a little uncertain about the ending, which mysteriously features a bunch of characters given detailed descriptions but no names, whether there are clues that a more careful reader could've used to get a little more sense out of it or whether it's simply suspended until the followup book answers more questions, as the book is advertised as the first book in a Convergence Saga. But it's okay to be uncertain, too, it's a book very much at home with the complexity of the world and the ways we impact each other. I kept thinking as I read of The Good Place's mantra about what we owe to each other. That is a central preoccupation of this book, too, in deep and complicated ways about how race and sexuality and identity more generally impact our moral obligations to each other, and our ability to recognize those obligations. And in fact, even like The Good Place, there is a section about living and reliving one's life trying to make better choices.
I've seen a few reviews who argue that there's something very specifically familiar about the book's premise: That an event can be The Shattering and also barely affect most peoples' lives unless they happen to be vulnerable and affected people, the way pain is distributed unevenly and unfairly through society, the way some people still fight for power even as the desperate are calling out for help. It's definitely a vibe.
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Date: 2022-12-17 01:31 am (UTC)