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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Unfortunately, for me, this book was a classic case of good idea poor execution. I think this book has a solid premise and from what I read, the plot itself didn't seem bad. However, I didn't really connect with any of the characters and the writing wasn't my favourite. The worst part for me was the fact that there were passages of dialogue were Nigerian dialect/slang were used, which I am not familiar with meaning there were some aspects I didn't understand and a lot of the time these passages were not explained. I think I perhaps could have pushed my way through the rest of this book, but I did that recently with another book I didn't enjoy and I just didn't have the energy to do the same here. I just wasn't enjoying reading this book and found it hard to pick it up to continue it.
I just finished reading Suyi Davies Okungbowa's David Mogo, Godhunter. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to read this book prior to its publication. I want to thank the publisher for this opportunity, but my review of this book is not impacted by their generosity.
The book centers around David Mogo who is half-god and half-human. The story centers in Lagos where a bunch of Gods have fallen to earth and are causing a lot of chaos. David starts out the story as a godling hunter. Basically, he helps people get rid of the godlings for money when they've gotten into parts of Lagos where they really shouldn't be. Through a series of events, David's world turns upside down and he's forced to reconcile who he is versus who he wants to be.
As a whole, I really enjoyed this book. I found the writing very easy to follow. The pacing of the book was really good and kept me reading. Although the book didn't necessarily leave itself open to a sequel, I definitely could see how a sequel could be possible. One of the things I really enjoyed was the level of detail Okungbowa puts into the creation of the world where Mogo exists. From a worldbuilding perspective, I found myself enthralled by the world he created and really enjoyed meeting the various characters. One of my only problems was that there are a lot of characters in this book, so keeping track of who is who at times was a bit difficult (also, some have multiple names). If you read this book, I would recommend keeping a list just so you don't have to worry about this minor issue.
If you're looking for an interesting read, I would highly recommend this book.
The book centers around David Mogo who is half-god and half-human. The story centers in Lagos where a bunch of Gods have fallen to earth and are causing a lot of chaos. David starts out the story as a godling hunter. Basically, he helps people get rid of the godlings for money when they've gotten into parts of Lagos where they really shouldn't be. Through a series of events, David's world turns upside down and he's forced to reconcile who he is versus who he wants to be.
As a whole, I really enjoyed this book. I found the writing very easy to follow. The pacing of the book was really good and kept me reading. Although the book didn't necessarily leave itself open to a sequel, I definitely could see how a sequel could be possible. One of the things I really enjoyed was the level of detail Okungbowa puts into the creation of the world where Mogo exists. From a worldbuilding perspective, I found myself enthralled by the world he created and really enjoyed meeting the various characters. One of my only problems was that there are a lot of characters in this book, so keeping track of who is who at times was a bit difficult (also, some have multiple names). If you read this book, I would recommend keeping a list just so you don't have to worry about this minor issue.
If you're looking for an interesting read, I would highly recommend this book.
A new take on classic Urban Fantasy—Godpunk?
Gods have rained down on Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We enter the story some time later, into the dystopian society that has developed here in the aftermath. David Mogo, our 1st person narrator, is a demi-god working as an illegal godhunter. An old wizard with dubious morals sends David Mogo off to catch two high gods, Taiwo and Kehinde. David is in need of money to fix his roof, so off he goes, despite his misgivings about this wizard. Obviously things don’t go as expected.
This was the first part in a book that reads like three novellas collected in one volume, with a red thread running through them and each connected closely in terms of time, location and characters. Enjoyable, even though I never really connected with David Mogo on an emotional level.
I looked up a lot about Nigeria, the orishas, Nigerian Pidgin, a lot of vocabulary, food items, clothing styles, etc. Then I was looking up info about Lagos, Victoria Island, Makoko, and, and, and... all this kept slowing down my reading speed, as I kept going off on tangents and looking something up almost constantly... My kind of fun!
I struggled a bit with the Nigerian Pidgin used in some of the dialogues, but decided to just go with it — I hope I managed to get the gist of the conversations.
Interesting article in the Guardian about the floating city of Makoko:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/23/makoko-lagos-danger-ingenuity-floating-slum
Bottomline: I had fun, my imagination got engaged, I learned a lot of new things, I enjoyed the writing. I would read more by this author. 4.5 stars.
+*+*+
Part of my #ReadPOC2021 challenge. I read this for the March prompt, „A Work of Fiction“.
Post about the March prompt: https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2021/02/08/nine-works-of-fiction-by-authors-of-color-to-expand-your-reading-list/
Main challenge: https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2020/12/11/reading-writers-of-color-2021/
From the author‘s website: (slightly amended)
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian author of fantasy, science fiction and other speculative works inspired by his West-African origins. His new epic fantasy trilogy, The Nameless Republic, is forthcoming from Orbit, beginning in May 2021 with [b:Son of the Storm|50718369|Son of the Storm (The Nameless Republic, #1)|Suyi Davies Okungbowa|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601953281l/50718369._SY75_.jpg|75749627]. His highly-anticipated debut, the godpunk fantasy novel David Mogo, Godhunter, won the 2020 Nommo Ilube Award for Best Speculative Novel by an African. Learn more at suyidavies.com.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
Gods have rained down on Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We enter the story some time later, into the dystopian society that has developed here in the aftermath. David Mogo, our 1st person narrator, is a demi-god working as an illegal godhunter. An old wizard with dubious morals sends David Mogo off to catch two high gods, Taiwo and Kehinde. David is in need of money to fix his roof, so off he goes, despite his misgivings about this wizard. Obviously things don’t go as expected.
This was the first part in a book that reads like three novellas collected in one volume, with a red thread running through them and each connected closely in terms of time, location and characters. Enjoyable, even though I never really connected with David Mogo on an emotional level.
I looked up a lot about Nigeria, the orishas, Nigerian Pidgin, a lot of vocabulary, food items, clothing styles, etc. Then I was looking up info about Lagos, Victoria Island, Makoko, and, and, and... all this kept slowing down my reading speed, as I kept going off on tangents and looking something up almost constantly... My kind of fun!
I struggled a bit with the Nigerian Pidgin used in some of the dialogues, but decided to just go with it — I hope I managed to get the gist of the conversations.
Interesting article in the Guardian about the floating city of Makoko:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/23/makoko-lagos-danger-ingenuity-floating-slum
Bottomline: I had fun, my imagination got engaged, I learned a lot of new things, I enjoyed the writing. I would read more by this author. 4.5 stars.
+*+*+
Part of my #ReadPOC2021 challenge. I read this for the March prompt, „A Work of Fiction“.
Post about the March prompt: https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2021/02/08/nine-works-of-fiction-by-authors-of-color-to-expand-your-reading-list/
Main challenge: https://lonelycryptidmedia.com/2020/12/11/reading-writers-of-color-2021/
From the author‘s website: (slightly amended)
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian author of fantasy, science fiction and other speculative works inspired by his West-African origins. His new epic fantasy trilogy, The Nameless Republic, is forthcoming from Orbit, beginning in May 2021 with [b:Son of the Storm|50718369|Son of the Storm (The Nameless Republic, #1)|Suyi Davies Okungbowa|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601953281l/50718369._SY75_.jpg|75749627]. His highly-anticipated debut, the godpunk fantasy novel David Mogo, Godhunter, won the 2020 Nommo Ilube Award for Best Speculative Novel by an African. Learn more at suyidavies.com.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
This is one of the most surprising book that I have read in quite a while. Not only provided it twists and turns in the story of the superhero who realises that he needs other people in order to succeed in his quest, it also holds an interesting and diverse cast of characters.
First of all we have David Mogo, half god half human with more than human powers but not fully divine, He sets out onto a quest to find out about and understand his godhood, the powers he has, but he also wants to set things right between the humans and the gods that have descended upon earth, more precisely onto Lagos and create havoc wherever they go. And there is Papa Udi, the wizard who took David Mogo in, when his mother left him on the wizard's doorstep many years ago.
And then there is a whole cast of characters who come in as the story unfolds. One of the things I loved most in this book is its relational character, how people bond and connect together and you have such a variety of relationships, barely ever based on the bloodline, but based on circumstances and based on choice and care and love and how you want your life and that of your community to be.
The world, respectively Lagos we encounter in this book is dystopian at least, vast parts have been laid bare by the catastrophic event of gods arriving in the human dimension and not returning to their abode. The book is fast paced. It is part urban fantasy but also more. There is a lot of fights and gore and torment in this book, don't get me wrong. But my impression is that when you put this book into one category you miss out onto the whole that it has to offer as expectations might be raised that will not be met by this book, because, possibly the best way of putting it is, that it has been written in-between the genres of urban fantasy, dystopian novel, speculative fiction and general fiction.
There are at least two other languages represented in this book apart from English. For one of them I got somewhat the hang of, with the other, I wouldn't understand at all, but it didn't matter as David Mogo stuck to his English and sometimes you don't have to understand the words in order to get the meaning.
This was a book that took me out of my comfort zone of Western UK and US publications of science fiction and fantasy writing, and I am so glad I got this opportunity to read this book. It is one of the most 'equal' books that I have come across, where male and female meet in a balance, and mutual respect is the basis for the building of any kind of community from anyone's perspective.
And last, but definitively not least, what I am particularly happy about is, that, for once, the mother has not gone missing.
The eARC for this review was provided to me from the publishers Rebellion Publishing and Abaddon via Netgalley in return for an honest review.
First of all we have David Mogo, half god half human with more than human powers but not fully divine, He sets out onto a quest to find out about and understand his godhood, the powers he has, but he also wants to set things right between the humans and the gods that have descended upon earth, more precisely onto Lagos and create havoc wherever they go. And there is Papa Udi, the wizard who took David Mogo in, when his mother left him on the wizard's doorstep many years ago.
And then there is a whole cast of characters who come in as the story unfolds. One of the things I loved most in this book is its relational character, how people bond and connect together and you have such a variety of relationships, barely ever based on the bloodline, but based on circumstances and based on choice and care and love and how you want your life and that of your community to be.
The world, respectively Lagos we encounter in this book is dystopian at least, vast parts have been laid bare by the catastrophic event of gods arriving in the human dimension and not returning to their abode. The book is fast paced. It is part urban fantasy but also more. There is a lot of fights and gore and torment in this book, don't get me wrong. But my impression is that when you put this book into one category you miss out onto the whole that it has to offer as expectations might be raised that will not be met by this book, because, possibly the best way of putting it is, that it has been written in-between the genres of urban fantasy, dystopian novel, speculative fiction and general fiction.
There are at least two other languages represented in this book apart from English. For one of them I got somewhat the hang of, with the other, I wouldn't understand at all, but it didn't matter as David Mogo stuck to his English and sometimes you don't have to understand the words in order to get the meaning.
This was a book that took me out of my comfort zone of Western UK and US publications of science fiction and fantasy writing, and I am so glad I got this opportunity to read this book. It is one of the most 'equal' books that I have come across, where male and female meet in a balance, and mutual respect is the basis for the building of any kind of community from anyone's perspective.
And last, but definitively not least, what I am particularly happy about is, that, for once, the mother has not gone missing.
The eARC for this review was provided to me from the publishers Rebellion Publishing and Abaddon via Netgalley in return for an honest review.
I gave this a good shot; read half of it. It was an interesting start. The title character is a Nigerian demi-god based in Lagos. An event known as the Falling has resulted in an infestation of gods wreaking havoc over the populace. And David Mogo, as a Godhunter, has the skills to deal with them. The pacing flags in several areas and there's several instances when local slang or patois is written in and I have no idea what people are talking about, or I can't understand what they're saying even given the context. That was annoying. It appears as though the book is also three consecutive novellas, though they're obviously linked. After the first ended, I was left thinking, okay, what's going on? In short, I decided to move on.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is one of the rare cases where I worked out a rating and chose to round up rather than going with the closer rating. When I put this through my system, it came out to 3.85, but it honestly deserves the boost.
I would describe this book almost as Nigerian Percy Jackson but for adults. It has a similar feel of figuring out who you are and where your limits are, but with more grit and more attitude. David Mogo himself wasn't terribly likable for me, but the other characters are really endearing, each in their own way. My only wish was that David be more proactive, and for the last third of the book to have gone on forever. It really races at the end, and I wasn't ready for it.
Characters: 8
Plot: 7
Setting: 8
General Appeal: 8
Writing Style: 7
Originality: 9
Ending: 8
I would describe this book almost as Nigerian Percy Jackson but for adults. It has a similar feel of figuring out who you are and where your limits are, but with more grit and more attitude. David Mogo himself wasn't terribly likable for me, but the other characters are really endearing, each in their own way. My only wish was that David be more proactive, and for the last third of the book to have gone on forever. It really races at the end, and I wasn't ready for it.
Characters: 8
Plot: 7
Setting: 8
General Appeal: 8
Writing Style: 7
Originality: 9
Ending: 8
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
***I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review***
When I read this description, I immediately thought it would be something I would love. It was right up my alley, Gods taking over the world and a demigod who needs to face them, what more could I ask for?
Sadly, this didn't live up to my expectations. While the premise was good, the telling of the story essentially info dumps and couldn't hold my interest. I felt almost as if this was a book telling me how to cast instead of entertaining me with people who had these abilities. I ended up not finishing just because I couldn't bring myself to read it anymore. I gave it two stars because I think this could be a great book had a lot of the excess information been cut.
When I read this description, I immediately thought it would be something I would love. It was right up my alley, Gods taking over the world and a demigod who needs to face them, what more could I ask for?
Sadly, this didn't live up to my expectations. While the premise was good, the telling of the story essentially info dumps and couldn't hold my interest. I felt almost as if this was a book telling me how to cast instead of entertaining me with people who had these abilities. I ended up not finishing just because I couldn't bring myself to read it anymore. I gave it two stars because I think this could be a great book had a lot of the excess information been cut.