Reviews

The Crooked God Machine by Autumn Christian

revisins's review against another edition

5.0

Warren Ellis sent me.

Those of you who know--that sentence is enough. Yet, it isn't enough.

This book is brutal and beautiful. Horrifying and majestic. All in equal measure. It's angry and hateful. Its hopeful and yearning.

David Lynch on mescaline couldn't come close to some of the ideas and images rendered here. It's a fever dream that never breaks.

God is real and must be killed. God doesn't care if you live or die and you have to reconcile that. This book demands attentions and will claw your eyes out because of it.

It's a facehugger. What this book is trying to say won't hit you until the megaton of import punctures your chest and leaves you screaming to go and infect another person.

Read this damned work. You'll be blessed for it.

penguingin's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No

4.0

forlorncorn's review against another edition

4.0

bleak, dark and completely insane

cherylsarnoski's review

5.0

Unbelievably good. Unhinged, raw, dark, gruesome, brilliant, schizophrenic, fantasy. This is the second book of hers I read and with both books I had a very visceral reaction. Gripping to say the least. My first thought finishing both books was WTF did I just read and wow, what a great writer.

bosermoki's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

catwithakeyboard's review

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

jessriguez's review

4.0

Dark and strange. Nightmare logic. Desperation. Hopelessness. A distressing fable from some future millennium. I cannot recommend this book to anybody, which is maybe the best kind of recommendation. Looking forward to reading more of her.

thelootpersona's review

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

haversam's review

3.0

A surrealistic nightmare of scenes, as if Dali and Dante had a lovechild. A dystopian landscape where God in his black mask rules with hell shuttles and machines that spew out all means of plagues. All the loss that surrounds Charles is heart-rending and disturbing all at the same time.

It was an interesting, strange book that I think having a copy-editor going through it would not take anything away and would actually make some of the imagery even more disquieting by providing clarity.

wpsmith17's review

5.0

I have never read anything even close to the outright insanity that is in these pages. It's is a mean explosion of ideas, an epic quest to reconcile a lost faith, a dystopian novel that continuously rewrites the limits of the genre. But in all of the horror, there are moments of tenderness that strike like a hammer blow to the head. In a book this crazy, it's a pretty masterful balance.

Autumn Christian's "The Crooked God Machine" is vivid, visceral, and relentless. Just read it and see for yourself.