Godclads

Blurb

In the gutters of New Vultun, the greatest megacity in the world, Avo finds himself resurrected from the clutches of death and tasked with a mission by a father he long thought dead. Now, he must rise to stop the usurpation of reality by the Eight Great Guilds that rule his world. Only by learning from his deaths and grafting newer and greater eldritch gods onto his being can he reach apotheosis and avert certain damnation.

Yet, as he ascends to claim the mantle of divinity, a question lingers… what kind of god will he become?

Thoughts

As of writing this review, I’ve read the first six arcs available on RR. I stopped here because I had to get on a flight, and thus couldn’t access more sweet sweet chappies.

God damn this series is fresh. I read this while on holidays, after reading Noobtown, Dawn of the Void, Dear Spellbook, Ghost of the Truthseeker, Edge Cases, Tower Apocalypse, Queen in the Mud, The Daily Grind, Dungeon Tour Guide, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten about. But in those series, I swear some of their settings were blending together. Magic fantasy world in an ancient to medieval time period is a bread and butter staple of Progression Fantasy, and fantasy as a whole. Some sci-fi-themed books, like Stargazer’s War, are effectively just sci-fi as window dressing, but people still wail on each other with swords and shields, they’re just now phaseblades, light sabres, psyblades, etc.

Godclads laughs at this.

Without a shadow of a doubt, its setting is the most unique, interesting, and also batshit insane thing I’ve read in the past few years.

If you thought Cyberpunk 2077 was a bit too dark or gritty, ha. The fusion between modern technology - or moreso the future of our modern technology (called coldtech), with eldritch themes (heavens and hells and the corpses of gods), and ontological concepts (matter that cannot be destroyed if someone remembers it), biology gone crazy (the entire race of ghouls created as a weapon), and so much, it’s threaded through every single aspect of life for Avo.

Now, I say this as someone that also loved Malazan. And like Malazan, Godclads has all this history, and you get dumped right into the middle of it. And instead of throwing you a life jacket, the author starts hitting you with a metal pole dubbed MORE LORE until the sheer amount of terminology overwhelms you. I love it. Others may find it overwhelming.

Here is my favourite example so far, from chapter 3-5’s epigraph:

The Guilds built the Warrens to be temporary. The widening of the Tiers was supposed to be a continent-wide project. A stable haven for humanity to re-expand across this broken world. And what more poetic place to do it than from the forge that once made the gods themselves?

The blocks were fabbed by Voidwatch. An act of unity between the voiders and the terrestrials. A cleansing of old wounds. Highflame provided most of the Souls. Ori-Thaum built the Nether. The No-Dragons reseeded the world with life while Stormtree wrestled the ecosystem back from the hypercanes and chronostorms.

Hells, even the Mandate got in on the action, mauled as they were. Filled out the local oceans and rivers again while Sanctum stiched the broken planes of geometry back in place.

Ashthrone? Their Hells made the whole enterprise logistically feasible. Just a shame about how the others tried to cut them out afterward. Some say that was what started the wars again.

Truth is, peace can’t last; Existence can’t uphold eight different utopias. Not after all the blood that’s been shed.

It’s very cool, but yes, I—like you—also have no idea what anything means. I’ll figure it out soon… I’m sure.

Alright, enough gushing about the world. Characters are great. Avo is a psychopathic MC filled with dry wit. Draus is Draus. Everyone else is background, but still very well done.

Prose is good, and quite purple if you’re into that.

Pacing is tight. Avo, as a psychopathic ghoul, is constantly fighting.

And have I told you about the setting??

I kid, I kid. Just go read it.