Wow - what a ride! I learned much about Yoruba and orishas in this fantastical tale of Shigidi and Nneoma's adventures.

I like how Talabi's gods weave in elements of culture and faith with commentary on the state of contemporary religious culture. In that sense, this novel is a bit reminiscent of Gaiman's "American Gods" with warring factions and petty bureaucracy.

Those who enjoy serendipity and fable will appreciate this collision of elements which include Yoruba deities, Aleister Crowley and the British Museum.

I'm grateful to the publisher, DAW, and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an ARC, and am eagerly awaiting future publications by Talabi.

In Wole Talabi’s exciting fantasy adventure, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, the spirit world has fallen on hard times. With dwindling followers to make faith offerings, the companies of the gods have to make do with diminished income, and their powers are not quite what they used to be. Shigidi is an ex-god of dream and nightmare who, before his transformation, had been reduced to taking orders of prayers to kill enemies of the faithful. He did this by entering the minds of victims to find their worst nightmares and intensifying them to the point of killing the dreamers. In his small and ugly human form, he felt like the reject of the gods, given the worst assignments, barely able to earn his keep.

That all changed when he met the spirit succubus Nneoma, who transformed him physically into a perfect human form and partnered with him as freelancers of the spirit world.

................
The story gets into high gear when the ruler of the gods demands that Shigidi and Nneoma recover a crucial artifact, the brass head containing a god’s special power, from the British Museum, a place protected by formidable spiritual forces. So there is a heist adventure at the center of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, but this is enriched and deepened by the high stakes for all involved. For Shigidi and Nneoma, it becomes a powerful test of their relationship and Nneoma’s ability to feel love, an emotion she has come to distrust because of deeply buried secrets in her centuries-old history.

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Talabi is especially good at visualizing and giving a tactile sense to all the elements of his story, especially the spiritual places and the passage from human to spiritual realities. When Shigidi, still the nightmare god at that point, embarks on an assignment, he speaks an incantation that suddenly produces a wind that wipes away the room he is in, plunging him into absolute darkness, an ocean of nothingness. When Aleister Crowley describes his own quest to control beings from another world, he imagines an abyss, a formless plane of churning forces filled with all possible forms that can be shaped by human magic into creatures that can create or destroy. When Olorun takes on human form to meet Nneoma and Shigidi in a hotel bar, he dresses in a way to blend in but yet his body flows with electric white spirit particles, as if there was a star burning beneath the surface of his skin. The writing never draws undue attention to itself but always serves to make more vivid and immediate the physical reality of each scene, even when it is taking place in a spiritual realm.

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon blends so well the elements of a fast-paced thriller, the action of mighty gods fighting through different levels of reality and a powerful love story that has to shatter beliefs rooted in thousand year-old trauma. Wole Talabi has made a name for himself recently as a master of shorter works of fiction (like his novelette, A Dream of Electric Mothers) but this debut novel makes clear that the longer form only gives greater scope to his considerable talents.

I found the story compelling. The protagonist was sympathetic as someone with disabilities forced into a situation requiring her to succeed against odds. I would like have more insight into the dragons as personalities. I enjoyed the erotic components of the story except being the love/lust being over the top; sort of bodice ripper mixed in with otherwise YA. I was let down by the abrupt reversals at the end so much so that I'm not waiting for the sequel.

Absolutely wonderful. It has taken me while to get around to reviewing this because I wanted to do it justice, but my thanks to DAW and Netgalley for the ARC - I'll probably buy it anyway, because this is one I'll want to re-read over the years, and I'll be recommending it to everyone!
The story starts in a blaze of action and perfectly woven exposition, and doesn't let up till the very end. While some Western readers may find it a trifle confusing, as the action and timelines jump around a bit, and many of the gods' names sound similar, if you put in a bit of effort, it's well worthwhile.
As the god of nightmares, Shigidi reminds me very much of Tom Holt's gods, so I was sold by the second page (actually, the very first paragraph is pretty nigh a perfect hook), albeit Talabi's corporate gods are not at all as funny as Holt's. But there's still grim humour in the juxtaposing of supposedly supreme beings with the banality of the modern world.
Poor Shigidi is stuck in a soul-destroying job, with no hope of escape, until a routine job lands him in the company of Nneoma, a succubus with issues. The two join forces, but their antics eventually force them into an impossible heist, where even gods can be killed.
I gotta say, this would make a fantastic movie (NOT a wretched Hollywood over-simplification), as it has everything: a wonderful love story, a manic heist, exotic locations, good and evil, demons and sorcerers, dramatic tension and fantastic clothes. (Just PLEASE get a good director!)
It also reminds me of Neil Gaiman, but it's actually better than anything he has written in years (sorry, Neil). The overall tone combines both magic and tension in appropriate measure; the characters are well-drawn and sympathetic; the pacing is excellent, and the ending had me dying to read more tales from this world. I have read a lot of the new African sci-fi, but this author is polished and well-researched, and Shigidi is a brilliant introduction to the Yoruba pantheon (and far, far more digestible than Marlon James' series). As a side note, Talabi even deals practically and very amusingly with the Orishas' relationship with other, more populous, world religions, like Christianity. Very credible.
If I had any tiny quibbles, it would be with the proofreading and stylistic layout. I hope, for the sake of the integrity of the novel, that certain inconsistencies are ironed out before publication. Some are minor spelling or punctuation problems, but some (eg the paragraph repetition on p126, or the confusing of copper with brass) are a bit more discordant. Also, I think better design of the time and place notifications at the start of chapters would help the reader, as things do jump around rather a lot.
There's far more I could say about this book, but really, it all boils down to: buy, hire it, steal it, do whatever you have to do to get your hands on this one!

Another one for the 'really wanted to like this but...' shelf, I'm afraid. It sounded as though it would work for me but in the end, it left me wanting.

The basic premise of the book is that it's urban fantasy involving a heist sub-plot, where our protagonists are charged with retrieving the eponymous statue of Obulafon from the British Museum. Shigidi was a god of nightmares, physically hideous but given a new, more aesthetically-pleasing body and face for this mission, while his partner Nneoma is a succubus. Both have worked within a structure where prayers equals power and this is Shigidi's first experience of going it alone to try and complete a mission.

The overall world-building and the heist itself are done well, but sadly the characterisation of our protagonists just didn't feel solid enough for my liking. Likewise, their relationship didn't convince me and the author didn't manage to make me want to get past how essentially unlikeable Nneoma is - I'd like to have seen at least something that evidenced the idea that their relationship wasn't just physical rather than being told this was the case. Decisions about non-linear storytelling also made this book seem like just a little more effort was required than I was sometimes willing to give.

All in all, not a bad first novel and it's quite possible this author will turn out something that really grabs me in the future. Just not this time around.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest review of the book in question.

Sadly, this was not a book that worked for me.

Shigidi used to be a god of nightmares; Nneoma is a succubus. The story of their partnering up is part of the backstory that's slowly revealed across the novel. So too is the reality of how the business of being a god works in this version of our world - and it is a business. A bit like Max Gladstone's view of deities and magic in the Craft sequence, where it's all a matter of law and contracts, here prayers are currency that engage a deity's attention and action. Shigidi had previously worked for what was basically a corporation, with all the attendant evils of middle-management and top-down bonus structures inherent in that. Until, that is, he decided to chuck it all over; and then discovers that freelancing isn't necessarily a great idea either.

All of this is, in theory, a fantastic set-up for a novel. So too is a magical heist: I love a heist, and when it involves magical protection as well as ordinary (and the British Museum too), I am THERE.

The problem, then? It's mostly about the characters of Shigidi and Nneoma. At the start, in particular, I found their descriptions heavy-handed: he has a "heavily muscled chest", and a "perfectly smooth bald head"; she has "perfectly manicured, long and slender fingers like artisanal knives", and "radiant ebony skin like polished midnight, and the edges of her frizzy afro refined the stray bits of light from the array of hanging bulbs to an eldritch fringe, like a halo." The side of things got a bit tiresome. I also found their relationship lacking in reality, although I can't put my finger on why. I think it probably comes down to their dialogue - it simply didn't work for me.

i'm disappointed, to be honest. It's a debut, so it doesn't put me off the idea of reading of Talabi's work - the ideas are definitely there, and dialogue is something that can be worked on. Then again, maybe other people will love this book - I really hope they do, and that it finds its audience.

This really reminded me of the Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. That author is Sri Lankan and this author is Nigerian, but it had a similar cerebral narrative style, and it was set in the spirit plane with ancient, forgotten gods and rooted in the real world. If you liked that book you’ll like this one.

This story just fascinated me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first but it grew on me by the end of it, kind of an acquired taste that may not be for everyone. Inspired by Nigerian folklore, this is a globetrotting story taking place in Nigeria, Laos, Malaysia, London and parts in between. It’s the story of the nightmare god Shigidi and his star-crossed business partner and lover, a succubus who steals spirits using sex magic, and their latest freelance assignment to steal a sacred Nigerian headdress from the British Museum, which was in turn stolen from its rightful owners.

Where I vacillated on this book was I was expecting more of a heist thriller, but the heist was only a small part of the plot which was built on interlocking back stories that constantly jumped countries and points in time. But this lent to the cerebral quality of the narrative style which gave it a dreamlike quality that I grew into.

This book isn’t for everyone but if you like non-Western supernatural tales like I do, this book is a solid take on the genre.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

4.5/5

Have you ever dreamed of being a god? Almighty and without worries? Well, things aren’t as rosy as you might think. With the faith being in short supply, gods had to take a corporate route (trading in belief and supplications). Shigidi, the god of nightmares and a demotivated employee of the Orisha Spirit Company, lives mainly for the next drink. He hates his existence and his appearance, but has no plan to change anything. Then he meets Nneoma, a succubus, and falls in love with her. They go freelance, but life as freelancers is hard; soon they find themselves in debt to a powerful and scheming deity.

But there is a way to pay off all the debts. A heist. Across two worlds and two planes of existence. The story follows Shigidi and Nneoma as they journey through the vibrant streets of Lagos, the rooftop bars of Singapore, and the hidden enclaves of London. Mayhem ensues, but that’s a given. I loved the deep dive into occult lore and African mythology. A risky heist mixed with a unique love story was also fun.

The story jumps in time and geography and builds toward an exciting ending. It spans centuries and continents and there is hardly a dull moment. Although the title suggests Shigidi is the main character, that’s not entirely true. Nneoma gets a lot of attention and while I enjoyed my time with both of them and their perspectives, Nneoma is much more interesting and complex than Shigidi.

I’m not a romance reader, but I loved their complex relationship. It struck the perfect balance between alien and relatable (they’re immortal, after all) and offered no cheap thrills. I found it clever and realistic (given their supernatural circumstances :)).

While I liked the structure of the novel and the frequent time jumps, I must mention that they might be confusing for some readers. However, if you pay attention to the places and dates mentioned at the beginning of each chapter, you’ll be fine.

Overall, Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon is an exciting and imaginative supernatural thriller with strong twists and excellent pacing. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon.
It was a lot of fun and I couldn't put the book down.
I really enjoyed the world and the different characters.
I highly recommend this book!
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Heist of the Gods

Most of the characters of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon are gods or godlike. They are diminished gods -- they have corporations and board meetings and quarterly targets, and some of them are wage slaves. Shigidi, when our story begins, is a minor god in the Orisha spirit company. He brings nightmares and death to those whose enemies pray to him, for which service he receives inadequate compensation from the company. On one such assignment he finds himself in conflict with succubus Nneoma, who has a prior claim on the man he is about to kill. Nneoma corrupts or uplifts (depending on ones point of view) Shigidi, and they become partners. Despite not being named in the title, Nnemoa is as much a protagonist of the novel as Shigidi.

Shigidi amd Nneoma are hired by Olorun, chairman of the board of the Orisha Spirit Company, to retrieve an artifact that was that was stolen from Africa by the English and is now on exhibit in the British Museum. Olorun needs the the brass head of Obalufon for his corporate power plays.

There are two main stories here: the heist, and the story of Shigidi and Nneoma. The heist story is the most fun. Near the end of the book one of the characters aptly sums up what just happened

"I’m not sure I even understand what happened tonight. Weirdest heist I’ve ever seen or heard of."*

But Shigidi and Nneoma's love story is the one that will remain with you after you finish the book.

Although the narrative wanders all over the world, it takes place mostly in London and Lagos. I enjoyed the exposure to Nigerian culture. Stylistically, I was taken aback by Wole Talabi's many detailed technical descriptions of apparel. Almost every time he described what someone was wearing, I found myself compelled to do a web search for the terms he used. For instance, I had never before heard the term "pocket square" -- I had to look that one up. In the circles in which I move pens are de rigueur in men's breast pockets. (In days of yore my father used to carry a slide rule there. It is, alas, no longer practical to accessorize with a slide rule.) In contrast to his careful technical descriptions of clothing, Talabi seems unsure about the material of the titular head of Obalufon. Usually it is brass, but on at least two occasions it is transmuted to bronze. One suspects that Talabi may not be fully aware that brass and bronze are distinct. In my imagination Talabi is a snappy dresser, but no metallurgist.

Advice to readers: the story jumps around a lot. Each chapter begins with a location and date. Pay attention to these, especially the dates. Knowing when you are will make the story easier to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for an advance reader copy of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon. This review expresses my honest opinions. To be released 8-Aug-2023.

*Quotes are from an advance reader copy and may change before publication. All quotes will be corrected as necessary up on release of the book.

"Disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds - this book had me hooked from the very beginning. The author does an excellent job of weaving together complex characters and intricate plotlines to create a captivating story. The world-building is fantastic, and the blend of mythology and modern themes is seamless. The heist itself is brilliantly executed, and the tension builds steadily throughout the book. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that I felt some of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. Overall, though, this is a fantastic read for anyone who loves a good mythic tale with a twist."