Highly ambitious and written in intriguing prose, this novel lives and dies with whether or not it hooks you at the start, and that definitely won't be the case for everyone. The general concept, however ambitious, is really just a spin on a tired, overused allegory, yet this feels like a somewhat fresh take on it.

This is Cadwell Turnbull’s long awaiting sophomore novel and he was right, this is nothing like The Lesson . Turnbull has matured in his writing and you will know it once you start reading this book. This book was truly atmospheric, you could feel the fear of the characters leaping off the page. What I love is how Turnbull is able to write characters that while they are flawed, you cannot help but cheer for them. He spends a lot of time building out his character, to the point where you become invested and immerse in their experience.

So, this was a very ambitious book. And while I wasn't a fan, I give kudos to the author for his creativity and voice. I would say that my biggest issue with this story is the sheer amount of characters and the many threads that don't seem to go anywhere. When it starts, I felt like I could see where it was going and then it just went into an entirely different direction. I can see that some people would love this but I would have preferred something more cohesive to keep me engaged. I did like his writing style so for that I will say I'd be interested in reading something else by him in the future.

This book was great! I need more people to read it and fall in love like I did. I enjoyed this story tremendously.

In his debute novel, The Lesson, Cadwell Turnbull tells the story of an alien invasion and colonization of Earth, centered around his native U.S. Virgin Islands.

Rather than aliens from another planet, his second book, No Gods, No Monsters, features monsters who live among us as our friends, neighbors and even relatives. While ostensibly about the fantastical, the novel is grounded in reality with complex characters whose experiences touch on difficult but important issues like police violence, othering, and even fake news.

While the two books have different characters and storylines, Turnbull calls them “sister books.”

Aliens and monsters “are both versions of human fears manifested through these speculative elements,” Turnbull told me when I interviewed him on New Books in Science Fiction. “One is dealing with a threat from without, and one is dealing with a threat from within. And they both have similar thematic concerns.”

Among the topics we discuss in the episode are the human propensity to deny uncomfortable truths; the challenge of those with different beliefs accepting the same version of reality (even when reality is captured on video); how monsters can provide a window on intersectional marginalization; and how writing can be like solving a puzzle.

NO GODS, NO MONSTERS is a thoughtfully provocative look at science fiction and marginalized groups - whether Turnbull is discussing race, gender, sexuality, or monsters, this book makes me want to be more, be better. My only real complaint is that it is sold as a standard standalone, whereas I feel it makes more sense as an anthology of sorts.

I hate to DNF books. Authors put their blood, sweat and tears into them and I respect that. This one was just too confusing for me. I liked the character depth but the POV changes without enough world building in between just left me so confused. I found myself going back over and reading passages trying to figure out where this snippet fit in. I just found I wasn't enjoying the read so I decided to walk away at 30%.

Just because this one didn't work for me, doesn't mean that it won't work for you. If you are able to tie together the threads of multiple POVs that are drastically different and have the patience to wait to see where they go then give this one a chance.

Thanks to Blackstone Publishing for access to this ARC. All opinions above are my own.

Interesting in concept with intricate writing that is elegant and vivid with its expansive descriptions which add to world and character building. Having said that it requires an attentive reader or risk missing plot line details that can lead a reader astray and feel bewildered. This is a book that is best read slowly with patience and a well steeped tea,
Thank you to NetGalley, Caldwell Turnbull and the publishers for the advanced readers copy.

I honestly have to admit that this book left me feeling quite confused.

The first thing that you have to know, and this unfortunately didn't work for me at all, is that this book has dozens of POVs. The POVs change mid chapter, they also go from third person to first person within a paragraph. On top of that, we don't even know who the first person narrator is, at least not at the beginning.

I've never been more confused about POVs. The choice of narration makes it extremely difficult to follow the many plotlines. Since there's no central protagonist, it's really hard to connect to the characters, because one always just gets a glimpse of a character and then the POV changes again.

If this kind of narration is your cup of tea, you might have a different reading experience and I encourage you to check this book out because there were definitely other aspects that I enjoyed about it.

The conversations about racism are important, the parallels of discrimination that the monsters are facing pose an intriguing concept and there's a lot of queer representation including asexual and trans representation (I wasn't happy about the trans character's deadname being mentioned though).

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Published September 7th 2021.

content warnings: death, murder, violence, abuse parent, deadname (mentioned), guns, shooting

It was kind of difficult for me to fully get into this one. I was interested in the premise but I think I've been so mentally drained and it took more brainpower than I had to get past the first 20%.
Overall I think there were a bunch of different storylines and confusion about who the narrator was and how they were all connected (which could have very well been on my end).

DNF at 20%. I thought the premise of this one sounded really interesting but unfortunately it’s not keeping my attention. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free review copy.

Thank you so much, NetGalley and Blackstone publishing, for the chance to read and review this book!

When Laina gets the news that her brother was killed by cops, she thinks he's another case of police brutality, but nothing is what it seems. Soon enough she will see that monsters are real and, slowly, creatures from myths and legends begin to come out and looking for help. But from what? What is happening? Mysteries start to interwine, when a professor looking for a friend finds a secret society or when werewolves are threatened or when a boy with magical abilities asks for help. As people start to be pro and against monsters, with rallies and hate crimes, but the question is: what brought the monsters out of the shadows?

No gods, no monsters is a brilliant, evocative and really original book! Told by multiple POVs, the story is full of twists, complex and well written characters, while the author explores prejudices, hate, brutality, injustice. In a complex social commentary, Cadwell Turnbull talks about monsters, that are already in our society, mixing supernatural and mundane, using rich voices and brilliant characters. The writing style is immersive, evocative and it's impossible not to be involved in the story, to follow the characters, their journeys, struggles, positive and negative moments and so much more, making the readers wonder who are the real monsters and how to recognize them.

The first book in The Convergence Saga, No Gods, no Monsters is amazing, brilliantly written and unforgettable! I can't wait to know what will happen next!

a fantastic twist on monster lore, Cadwell has incredible voice and knows how to tell a compelling story. I look forward to the next installment in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley for blessing me with a fantastic audio ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This review is going to be fairly long, I have a lot of thoughts. There are A LOT of balls in the air in this book but firstly I want to praise the casual queerness, that always has my heart ❤️

It’s rich with werewolf’s and witches and parallel universes and secrecy societies, but at its core it’s about community. It’s pure social commentary: politics, marginalisation, complicit silence, the importance of unity, what it means to be human and deserve human rights.

The beginning of this book is incredibly intense. You’re thrown right in with no clue what’s happening BUT it works, because the characters have no clue what’s happening either, and that makes the panic and fear more real. The confusion feels completely purposeful and it’s masterfully done.

That being said, I don’t think this is going to be for everyone. It’s a very… different style of storytelling. Kind of Emily St John Mandel (whom I ADORE) meets Neil Gaiman: mosaic, half-character study, multiple seemingly tangential narratives continuously coming together in a “fuck I blinked and missed the point, let me go back” kind of way.

Which is to say, you have to pay attention and give it patience, but it’s worth it because the “point/s” are incredibly impactful once you get them. The writer leads you to most of them slowly (with lovely prose and metaphor) but the biggest messages are not subtle. Nor should they be, honestly.

(For those of you that have read and are moved to action, these websites are a good starting point: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ https://sayevery.name/take-action)

It’s a slow reveal of plot. It’s erratic shifts in tone and all over the place pacing, and some things <I>are</I> tangents (as far as I can tell) but that just makes it even more disarmingly creepy. Tense is a good word for how I felt for most of the first half. You’re purposefully lulled into a false sense of mundanity time and time again, only to realise it’s been sneaking up on you slowly. Sort’ve like that analogy of the frog boiling. After a few instances of that, I was on edge waiting for the next. (Which, now that I think about it, fits with his social commentary points in and of itself 😅. Cadwell you genius.)

One thing I will say is that there are A LOT of characters. And, given it jumps between POV/time/universe and many of them interact with each other briefly or hours down the line, it can get very confusing trying to keep them all straight in your head. Even still, I <i>cared</I> about all of the characters. Even those that were minor were so complex and were moving the story along.

Also, the ending was a little... odd. Don't expect resolution, although there is a climax and you witness the fallout etc., but I'm glad it's a series. I'll be devouring the next ones as soon as humanly possible.

oh my gawd what a wild ride. this book just jumps in & around from the get go. you're introduced to a lot of different characters & situations which can be really confusing but eventually things start to come together. i feel like i never completely knew what was going on or where anything was going but this was a case where i was okay with that. idk it's such a unique & cool story & world i enjoyed being confused lol. the writing is also really cool & pretty so many lines i am obsessed with. def interested in continuing the series

No Gods No Monsters is one of those books that you don't really know what you read, but your brain is saying you liked it. I may not have understood all of it, but it was a wild ride. I think if you try to understand this book and don't just go with the flow you will end up not liking it.

The endless perspectives were a lot to keep up with especially when you don't have alot of warning on when they change and who is who. I did really enjoy this book though. It was just so different than anything I had ever read before.

I love the plot and the characters. I loved the writing style and can't wait for book two.

No Gods, No Monsters is a really interesting, beautifully written book, which has a whole ton of inclusivity and diversity.

I loved the POVs of this novel, I loved how they intertwined with each other and rounded up as you continued reading on.

It’s fast paced, but also doesn’t throw you too deep in & has a wonderful blend of fantasy/supernatural elements. I think my only thing would be that the world building was a little less involved, and was extremely character driven.

From the beginning, No Gods, No Monsters has you guessing at what is to come. Laina receives news that her brother has been killed in an instance of police brutality, which becomes more complicated when she receives a copy of the bodycam footage. Her brother was not shot as a Black man in Boston, but as a werewolf. From this reveal, we are introduced to a large cast of monsters and humans as they navigate the revelation of monsters' existence and the complications that rise alongside it.

Turnbull has given us an urban fantasy novel that reads like the most poetic literary fiction. It was literally a pleasure to read his prose. His characters were stark, bold, and brilliant. The amount of representation found in No Gods, No Monsters is amazing, with many BIPOC and LGBTQ+ characters; this goes beyond characterization, as the fantasy world embraces folklore from cultures and groups that have long been ignored in the fantasy realm.

My only complaint is that No Gods, No Monsters felt too much like the first book in a series. I didn't get a strong sense of storyline or plot resolution at the end, so the reading experience felt more like prep for the future. Still, the novel is so beautifully written that it was an enjoyable journey nonetheless.

I'm not bothered by novels that take a while to come together -- which is a good thing, since that's definitely the case here. Turnbull's novel features a large cast of characters, and it moves back and forth between their storylines (which aren't chronological, or possibly even in the same universe/timeline). It takes over half the book for these characters and their storylines to start gelling into something cohesive, and some parts don't click into the place until the literal end of the story.

Normally, I would be okay with that. My problem here -- and it is MY problem, rather than a problem with the novel itself -- is that Turnbull's writing style lacks the extensive description and detail that I am often drawn to in novels. Instead, his prose is straightforward, with an emphasis on dialogue and a focus on action. This kind of narrative pacing holds my attention less and doesn't give me a world and characters that I can imagine and use to ground the plot; I know there are many other readers out there who prefer the opposite and will be happy with Turnbull's work.

4.0
Bill
No Gods, No Monsters
No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull


No Gods No Monsters is one of the books that had me admiring it more than enjoying it. Strongly crafted on a sentence level, built on a structure both complex and deftly handled, and dealing with some seriously weighty themes, the book still left me, despite all that, a bit cold, a bit resistant to its charms. Still, as you’ll see, I’m mostly strongly recommending it, even if it didn’t wholly win me over.

We begin with a scene that seems all too familiar. One of the main characters, Laina, is at the morgue standing over the body of her brother Lincoln, an unarmed black man killed by a policeman as he was “running through the streets as bare as on the day he was born.” High, Laina assumes of her drug-addicted brother, but then rumors of a tape being kept secret by the police crop up, followed by a visit from Rebecca, one of Lincoln’s friends, who tells Laina he had sobered up and was on his way to see her the day he was killed. The same day Rebecca visits, the tape mysteriously shows up in Laina’s place and what it shows turns her world upside down. The cop, his bodycam shaking in fear, is being chased by a massive doglike creature but when he shoots it dead, it transforms into Lincoln. Her brother was a werewolf. Soon after, Laina posts the video to several streaming sights, and though some try to claim it’s a hoax, when a group of werewolves (including Rebecca) block the interstate and transform themselves while cameras shoot, the entire world is awakened to the fact that “monsters” of all sorts (shapeshifters, invisibles, fire-breathers, vampires, etc.) have long existed but have hidden themselves away for safety’s sake. The night of revelation becomes known as “The Fracture.” What still remains unknown to the public is that the monsters are not monolithic in their viewpoints, that there are a number of ancient secret societies, some acting in concert while others are at odds in an uneasy truce that is about to be violently broken.

This is the world of No Gods No Monsters. Along with Laina and Rebecca (who eventually enter into a relationship), the wide-ranging and highly diverse cast of characters also includes:

• Ridley: Laina’s asexual, trans husband who owns a co-op bookstore
• Harry: recently divorced, in an attempt to distract himself he goes down internet secret society rabbit holes, becoming more obsessed after The Fracture
• “Dragon”: a young monster seen as a tool by others
• a woman who can become invisible
• Sondra: a senator from St. Thomas who is also a were-dog
• a semi-omniscient narrator who remains a mystery until the end.

The settings too are diverse, shifting all over the place, as does the quasi-linear narrative, and this combination creates a mosaic novel, a kaleidoscopic reading experience as individuals weave in and out and groups begin to form. Or maybe a jigsaw puzzle is a better analogy, as Turnbull often withholds information so that the reader is always trying to put the pieces together while having to re-evaluate what they had thought the picture was supposed to be. While all this shifting is mostly handled adroitly — if the reader is unsure about things, it’s because we’re meant to be — I do think the structure sometimes causes some pacing issues.

The worldbuilding as we tend to think of it in fantasy (where do these gods come from, what sort of powers do the monsters have, when and where did these societies form) is somewhat thin, but again (I’m assuming) not due to a lack of writing skill but because, at least in this first book of a projected trilogy, Turnbull is more focused on character than plot, on people rather than backstory. What’s important is what motivates characters here — what traumas, what outside events, what inner demons, what goals and desires — and while all that takes place against this semi-mythical backdrop of gods and monsters and secret societies that is vitally important, it is still backdrop. At least for now. And then, more prosaically in terms of character and plot, many of these characters have their own reasons for keeping information close to their chests, and so we as the reader aren’t privy to a lot because the characters, as opposed to the author, aren’t willing/ready to share. They can lead to some potential frustration, especially for a certain type of reader (you know who you are). For me, it wasn’t so much leading to frustration as creating distance between me and the story.

The themes are plentiful and weighty: power, race, class, bigotry, capitalism, collectivity, trauma effects, colonialism, the burden and joy of family. Some of the metaphors are obvious. Monsters have long stood in for the more mundane “others” long terrorized and marginalized in our world. A comparison made explicit in a passage summarizing one of the reactions to The Fracture:

a Latino man was pulled from his home, doused with gasoline, and set ablaze.. . An Indian woman carrying groceries was hit over the head . . . The man standing over her brough down the bat several more times . . . A Black teenage boy was found, his throat cut. These things happened before, had always happened, but now the reasons for them had changed.
Those who have been othered always make great scapegoats, and people are often rarely concerned about whether or not they’re actually any kind of threat beyond their mere existence. And that last line is devastating in its understatement and in the way it raises the obvious question of just who are the “monsters” here.

Another clear analogy in the novel relates to the question as to whether those others who can “pass” should “come out” to the world and risk the potential (and potentially fatal) backlash or hide who they are for the sake of safety and a kind of (tortured) ease. The “monsters” are not monolithic on this at all, and the unveiling protest undertaken by the werewolves at the start ignites a conflict amongst the various societies. Because the monsters are a stand-in for marginalized groups, Turnbull can further complicate things (and shed yet another light on current society) by showing us how those groups already scorned by much of society react to a “new” such group. In an ideal world, of course, it would be with immediate solidarity. But we don’t live in that world. As we see in this passage when one member of a cooperative reveals himself to be a monster and decides to bring the question of what to do out in the open:

Our collective’s mission is to support the solidarity movement. Often, that has meant supporting marginalized people. Some of you are people of color, and some of you are part of the queer and trans community, like me. Many of the most vulnerable monsters are also a part of these communities, which is why redefining solidarity to include them is so important. In that spirit, I think we should extend our support to monsters since it’s likely that they’re already in the movement but have chosen to remain silent.’
Ridley feels the reflexive terror move through the room.
Nick speaks first. ‘When you say ‘monsters,’ who do you mean?’
Melku: ‘Vulnerable ones.’
Nick: ‘And what does that mean?’
Frankie, glancing at Cassie: ‘Do you know any monsters? I’ve never met one. I’m not sure they actually exist.’
Melku: ‘Yes. I am a monster. So is Cassie.’
Frankie, turning red: ‘Oh.’
Nick makes a face anyone can recognize, somewhere between shock and rage.

While sometimes the metaphor can be a bit on the nose, I did appreciate the layered, nuanced approach Turnbull takes toward the subject. As for other topics, given the precipitating event, the shooting of an unarmed black man by a cop (a black man seen as an animal by the cop), it’s obvious at the start that Turnbull is interested in what is going on (and, sadly, has been going) in society, as well as what might spark a change or what has prevented it. To the latter, we see a world after the Fracture where a large number of people just refuse to believe it or are indifferent to whether it is true or not, which is not all that dissimilar to how many in our world treat any of a host of social ills: racism, misogyny, poverty, even climate change. While I get what Turnbull is going for here (I think), I confess I had a hard time buying into this part, as the whole “monsters exist” seemed of a different class. I could much more easily buy into that first, more violent type of reaction noted earlier. That said, while it nagged, I could go along because, again, I liked what he’s saying with it.

There’s a lot more here to unpack, the effect of trauma, how one deals with one’s otherness not in the semi-removed world of “society” but in the painfully close emotional world of one’s own family, the manipulation of power and its use, references to Le Guin, the ways in which the world is simply a mystery to us, the idea that some questions — even vitally important ones — may not have answers (certainly not easy ones). No Gods, No Monsters is not, therefore, a “zip-through” kind of book. Plan to spend some time, plan to do some work. Does it pay off? Well, as I said above, it did leave me a bit cold, a bit at a remove. But it deals with so much that’s so important, the craftsmanship is so strong, the little bits and moments of characterization so sharp, the book as whole so thoughtful, that I’m still recommending it. Highly if not enthusiastically, if that makes sense. And if it doesn’t, well, that’s more than fitting for this title.