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A review by amberunmasked
Last God Standing by Michael Boatman
5.0
When I saw LAST GOD STANDING by Michael Boatman in my list of Angry Robot announcements, the author’s name didn’t ring a bell. I took in the pitch paragraph and thought it sounded funny. Then I realized who Boatman is in a delayed, “Oh! THAT guy!” moment. I didn’t know that the handsome actor from Spin City, The Good Wife, and Anger Management was an established novelist. To be honest, I only knew him from Spin City and never saw anything else in his long list of acting jobs. I searched further to see if LAST GOD STANDING was his first taste of writing only to learn that he’s been around the horror literary world for quite some time in that subgenre of “the bloodier, the better” which Wikipedia refers to as splatterpunk.
Are we at that point where we can add “-punk” to anything and people understand what it is? It started with cyberpunk, dieselpunk, steampunk. Now there’s cornpunk, splatterpunk and I’m inventing comicpunk right here, right now. My followers and I tend to be heavily invested in the comic book scene so it compels me to inform you that I would call LAST GOD STANDING either godpunk or comicpunk. It’s a multi-pantheon whirlwind of religious figures taking sides in a modern Armageddon but there’s so much reference to comic books, one can instantly tell Boatman is a big ol’ nerd just like us. “ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US!” Point of fact: his human embodiment for the once Judeo-Christian God Almighty is named Lando Calrissian Darnell Cooper, an African-American stand up comedian who works part-time in his father’s automotive business with the wanderlust of a dreamer rather than a blue collar worker.
The book moved along so well bringing a multiple god battles. The gods had agreed to be retired through a Covenant when it was deemed that humans were perfectly fine having free will and no longer needed personal interference. Not all the gods were happy sitting around finding new worlds to rule and old realm competition reared up. This rather perfectly describes most retired humans I know. The Greek gods popped up for an uprising. Boatman portrays Zeus more off the wall than any of the other gods. "Cloud Snorter and Hymen Smasher" are among the monikers. The Celtic Morrigan, whose human persona is a romance writer in Boston, pitched in to help Lando run a good defense at the Vatican when Hannibal, not even a god but a figure so legendary he wielded non-human powers on stolen divinity. And even inside young Lando, the Navajo’s Changing Woman was obligated to act as his conscience until the human man learned how to handle his true origin. Lando was born embodied with God but wasn’t aware of it until it was revealed to him. He lived a life with mentally ill symptoms like talking to this Changing Woman he called Connie, talking with animals, and suffering migraines when other gods were misbehaving. His human parents had no idea and thought they had a rather directionless son.
My only criticism is that the battle scenes were hard to follow not only in movement but in location. These are immortals for all intents and purposes though some could “die” - who could transport between countries and planets and multiverses except for Lando who required assistance of other Aspects and Angels. Only a few of the former gods chose to take human forms. Buddha, by the way, is an overweight comic shop owner filled with joyful philosophies and gas both of which he shares openly. I wasn’t sure if the locations were really on Earth unless it was especially clear like the Vatican scene. The epic snowy showdown at the end seemed to be otherworldly but then there was reference at the end of the story the North Pole.
Lando has the ability to reset things after each battle so there is an easy way to explain how all the humans of the world didn’t notice titans toppling buildings. One of the resets causes a trajectory shift and the world is not the Judeo-Christian-Islamic dominant one we start off with and know in our real world. The parallel world is Indo-Egyptian. Boatman does a beautiful job not deriding the Biblical based paradigm when this shift happens. Some of it comes down to prosaic mythos like someone who appears beautiful turns “ugly” and menacing when their evil side comes out; but then it’s not really them because The Devil made them do those terrible things.
Every single politician of newsworthiness has been called the Antichrist during my own lifetime, parties matter not. The Devil is never just some average Joe. He’s always handsome beyond words unless he shows his true pan-like form. I got that same feeling here. Even when Archangel Gabriel is up to no good, his form becomes disfigured and blackened. If it were that easy to spot evil in the real world, voting and job interviewing would be a whole lot easier.
I have no doubt at all that my fellow comic nerds who pick up books without pictures would speed through LAST GOD STANDING in a week, maybe less if you habitually have reading time. (It took me two weeks as I’m always apologizing for being a slow reader). It’s a fun read and God is relatable for the first time. He’s a young man in love, wanting to follow his dream and just once make his parents proud.
If you’re brave, you know to look up Boatman’s horror works. I, however, am not. I’ll stick with the comedies.
Are we at that point where we can add “-punk” to anything and people understand what it is? It started with cyberpunk, dieselpunk, steampunk. Now there’s cornpunk, splatterpunk and I’m inventing comicpunk right here, right now. My followers and I tend to be heavily invested in the comic book scene so it compels me to inform you that I would call LAST GOD STANDING either godpunk or comicpunk. It’s a multi-pantheon whirlwind of religious figures taking sides in a modern Armageddon but there’s so much reference to comic books, one can instantly tell Boatman is a big ol’ nerd just like us. “ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US!” Point of fact: his human embodiment for the once Judeo-Christian God Almighty is named Lando Calrissian Darnell Cooper, an African-American stand up comedian who works part-time in his father’s automotive business with the wanderlust of a dreamer rather than a blue collar worker.
The book moved along so well bringing a multiple god battles. The gods had agreed to be retired through a Covenant when it was deemed that humans were perfectly fine having free will and no longer needed personal interference. Not all the gods were happy sitting around finding new worlds to rule and old realm competition reared up. This rather perfectly describes most retired humans I know. The Greek gods popped up for an uprising. Boatman portrays Zeus more off the wall than any of the other gods. "Cloud Snorter and Hymen Smasher" are among the monikers. The Celtic Morrigan, whose human persona is a romance writer in Boston, pitched in to help Lando run a good defense at the Vatican when Hannibal, not even a god but a figure so legendary he wielded non-human powers on stolen divinity. And even inside young Lando, the Navajo’s Changing Woman was obligated to act as his conscience until the human man learned how to handle his true origin. Lando was born embodied with God but wasn’t aware of it until it was revealed to him. He lived a life with mentally ill symptoms like talking to this Changing Woman he called Connie, talking with animals, and suffering migraines when other gods were misbehaving. His human parents had no idea and thought they had a rather directionless son.
My only criticism is that the battle scenes were hard to follow not only in movement but in location. These are immortals for all intents and purposes though some could “die” - who could transport between countries and planets and multiverses except for Lando who required assistance of other Aspects and Angels. Only a few of the former gods chose to take human forms. Buddha, by the way, is an overweight comic shop owner filled with joyful philosophies and gas both of which he shares openly. I wasn’t sure if the locations were really on Earth unless it was especially clear like the Vatican scene. The epic snowy showdown at the end seemed to be otherworldly but then there was reference at the end of the story the North Pole.
Lando has the ability to reset things after each battle so there is an easy way to explain how all the humans of the world didn’t notice titans toppling buildings. One of the resets causes a trajectory shift and the world is not the Judeo-Christian-Islamic dominant one we start off with and know in our real world. The parallel world is Indo-Egyptian. Boatman does a beautiful job not deriding the Biblical based paradigm when this shift happens. Some of it comes down to prosaic mythos like someone who appears beautiful turns “ugly” and menacing when their evil side comes out; but then it’s not really them because The Devil made them do those terrible things.
Every single politician of newsworthiness has been called the Antichrist during my own lifetime, parties matter not. The Devil is never just some average Joe. He’s always handsome beyond words unless he shows his true pan-like form. I got that same feeling here. Even when Archangel Gabriel is up to no good, his form becomes disfigured and blackened. If it were that easy to spot evil in the real world, voting and job interviewing would be a whole lot easier.
I have no doubt at all that my fellow comic nerds who pick up books without pictures would speed through LAST GOD STANDING in a week, maybe less if you habitually have reading time. (It took me two weeks as I’m always apologizing for being a slow reader). It’s a fun read and God is relatable for the first time. He’s a young man in love, wanting to follow his dream and just once make his parents proud.
If you’re brave, you know to look up Boatman’s horror works. I, however, am not. I’ll stick with the comedies.