No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

I would like to thank Sarah from Titan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out Now

Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle eBook

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of breadcrumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

Seeing is believing. A simple statement that alleges that once we actually have physical proof in our eyes that we can’t deny it. But this past few years has tested that proverb to breaking point. People can shout fake news; create conspiracy theories or most of all mentally re-adjust their reality that images of deadly police racism; fascist marches or deadly diseases can be wiped over. We are in a phase of competing realities - old and new and which takes over is yet to be decided. When I read Cadwell Turnbull’s excellent contemporary fantasy novel No Gods, No Monsters I think I’ve found a novel in discussion with the 2020s that also has a compelling storyline, sense of mystery and ambition that made it a brilliant reading experience.

The world changes when a Boston police officer responds to reports of a wild animal attack. A wolf leaps at him and he shoots. The wolf turns into a man. A few days later a highway is shown on various news streams to be stopped by a parade of wolves all standing in a row who then change into human beings. But a few days later the footage changes. Some now believe and others take the view the original film was the fake one. This event is known as the Fracture to represent the competing views in society.

The man who was shot was Lincoln brother to Laina a young bookseller working with her husband in a co-operative. She is approached by Rebecca who was one of Lincoln’s pack and is also approached by a woman who is invincible and is given the tape of what actually happened to Lincoln. The world is learning that Monsters are real; and this is something many including some Monsters would prefer not to be widely known. Strange societies, spies and rebellious spirits are about to all try to impose their view on the world.

I loved that No Gods, No Monsters takes its approach telling a unique story. Turnbull has broken the story into sections creating a mosaic novel that concentrates on many characters in the months after the Fracture. WE meet characters and then jump to different parts of the world from Boston to Puerto Rico; from powerful rich secret societies with hidden agendas to a meeting of local co-operative workers assessing the year to come. – and nothing ever goes quite to plan or how the reader expects things to go. It is not a linear story; there is no central character all tales hang onto but instead we get an exploration of how events change people; motivate them to take a stand; to hide, to fight or to even push back against those who are felt to challenge the existing order of things.

There is a large cast of characters from Laina; her husband Ridley and Laina’s lover Rebecca. This is a story full of LGBT characters living their lives and added into the mix the new ways of co-operatives and activism that more older forces dismiss as fads or aberrations. Lincoln’s death provokes the more conservative ‘good’ and ‘evil’ sides of Monster society to protect themselves and they do not welcome these younger elements doing their own thing or not respecting the rules that the two sides have agreed upon to make the world work. There is a theme of a slowly approaching change; a recognition of people that the world has ignored and a sense that for some this cannot be tolerated. It is not hard to see this as a novel in discussion with our own world and time and the sobering deadly last act of this instalment of the series reminds us for some taking a stand means putting lives on the line. This is a story not afraid to have powerful character development, action or discussion of ideas and switch moods accordingly.

I really appreciated the ambition of the story. We get co-operative businesses, state politics and then on top discussions of parallel universes; families being destroyed by drug abuse; shapeshifters; magic and much more. We have tech mages; shapeshifters and more powerful mysterious gods we do not yet fully understand. We are so used to epic fantasy being about mythical older versions of our world that I think here we get a modern epic fantasy that is actually dealing with the issues of today and is not yet fully explaining its world of monsters. This first instalment is about explaining the principles of the world; introducing the main actors for us and then starting to set the events to change things in motion but there are still a few cards yet to be played just hinted at. This a world I suspect that will challenge the idea we have monsters in the first place.

No Gods, No Monsters was a read that I savoured from Turnbull’s fascinating approach to telling a huge story; the quiet emotional power that each of the story segments has; to its intelligent exploration of our world meant there was nothing I did not enjoy about this story. This is modern fantasy in dialogue with the 2020s and a creative series opening that means I will definitely be seeking out the next instalment and I strongly recommend you seek this book out!