This was great. My only complaint is that I guessed the killer with their first appearance (and enjoy being surprised so I typically try pretty hard to not let myself try to guess an ending), so the whole time I was just irritated with every character for not guessing what was going on. Thank you to University of Nebraska Press for the complimentary digital copy

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on audiobook from NetGalley for review.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this. It ended up being less science fiction and more thriller/mystery in theme than I expected. It is well written and moves at a good pace. I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was well done and pleasant to listen to.

Little Springs, Nebraska is a boring small town, and sheriff David Blunt likes it that way. Then, a three mile tall alien body crashes down outside of Little Springs and everything changes. While it isn't the life-ending event the world thought it would be originally, Little Springs is no longer a small town...but now a home to tourists, cultists, and townies alike. When a strange series of murders starts, Blunt is originally okay with letting the feds handle it However, when part of his family gets involved and he decides he needs to take an active roll. Blunt is let in on some of the secrets surrounding the alien object, and things get pretty weird.

I enjoyed a lot of the characters here. Sheriff Blunt loves his town and is struggling to cope with what it's become, but he IS coping even with limited staff and funding. Watching him struggle to unravel a serial killer mystery that is originally blamed on the "outsiders" but circles back to the townies is intriguing.

There is a decent amount of action and I really enjoyed the pace of the story. At its heart this is a "who dun it" mystery with some unique sci-fi twists. The science fiction elements are definitely more subtle than I was expecting, but I enjoyed them all the same.

The story does feel a bit unfinished. The serial killer mystery is dealt with but the larger mystery around the fallen alien is largely left that, just a mystery. I was curious to learn more about that object. However, in a way it felt right to leave the story where it ended.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this story, it's a fast-paced thriller with a who-dun-it mystery type feel to it and some intriguing subtle sci-fi elements. I enjoyed the main characters here and enjoyed the premise. The audiobook was well done, so I would recommend listening to this on audiobook if you enjoy audiobooks. I will definitely keep an eye out for future books by Jensen.

Actual Rating 3.5

This work didn't do what I expected it to. I was assuming it would be much more sci-fi, but instead it's a murder mystery with some very light sci-fi thrown in (really only as a plot point and backdrop). While the book concludes the mystery satisfactorily, be prepared for most other questions to remain unanswered. I did enjoy the smalltown (then suddenly not so small town) mystery and thought the author did a great job with it and incorporating several interesting elements into it.

The characters were also well written. The work is told from two POVs, and they both added much to the story. The Sherriff made some dumb choices, but unlike in most books, they were well justified in this one. A small town sheriff suddenly thrown into FBI and military investigations and thousands of more people living in the area is bound to make bad decisions or uninformed choices.

If you're interested in a murder mystery with a smalltown feel, themes of outsiders versus rural residents, and light science fiction elements, then you should check this out. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator did a great job. My thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Not my favorite book. Maybe the slow pace, maybe the narrators voice, maybe the subpar characters. I don't know. It just wasn't my cup of tea.
Read it and decide for yourself.

Godfall by Van Jensen and narrated by Scott Merriman is a glorious genre-busting mashup that is a non-stop pageturner from start to finish (or listen as I did to the fantastic audiobook)

There is so much to this book that I was left utterly bewildered by the end, but what cannot be denied, is the outstanding originality of the story and just how well written it is

Humanity is bracing for armageddon, a giant asteroid is hurtling toward the earth, complete obliteration is on the cards. Some people carry on as normal, some go in the other direction with extreme enthusiasm, but all is reassessed when a 3 mile tall giant drops to the ground in Little Springs, Nebraska. A tiny little one-horse town that is upended by the tourists (out-of towners), an elaborate, anonymous cult of Tiger mask wearing devotees, and a serial killer of the most brutal persuasion

The Sherriff, David Blunt, is not only dealing with a serial killer, but a community divided and how it is all connected to the giant

Scott Merriman is a great narrator, the perfect voice for this novel, from the humour, to the horror, to the cast of characters. Utterly brilliant

I was utterly gripped by this audiobook. At times horriffic, at all times compelling, I cannot recommend it enough

Thank you to Netgalley, Brilliance Publishing | Brilliance Audio the author Van Jensen and narrator Jonathan Keeble for this ALC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

An enjoyable and interesting novel about a small town suddenly inundated with “others” (ie city folk) because a giant alien had fallen from the sky, seemingly dead and impaled on a stake. Top-secret government officials, military police, and a cult worshipping the giant have all taken up residence.

When one resident then another turns up dead under mysterious circumstances, the sheriff, a local, does all he can to protect the town. But that means moving outside his comfort zone in several respects.
While some threads were unresolved (a sequel in the works?), the novel was engaging, well-written and well-narrated.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and #NetGalley for the review copy.

Actual Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Sleeping Giants meets a Blake-Crouch-style mystery in this gripping blend of science fiction and murder-mystery.

Years ago, a mysterious, unpredicted asteroid crash-lands on the outskirts of a remote Nebraskan town. Except once the smoke clears, it reveals itself not to be an asteroid at all, but a strange crystalline spire, containing the remains of what appears to be a three-mile-tall dead alien. This event soon turns Little Springs into a hotbed for scientists, government-workers, military and alien-enthusiasts an ritualistic conspiracy-theorists, upending life for the isolated townsfolks for good.
Some time later, we follow David Blunt, seasoned sheriff of Little Springs as he’s confronted with a series of gruesome murders, seemingly linked to The Alien Giant’s appearance. He soon finds himself in a cat-and-mouse-game with a killer, except the mice are the family, friends and town-folk he grew up with all his life.

What I liked:
Jensen knocked it out of the park with this indie novel-debut! Suspenseful, original and tightly paced: Godfall had my eyes glued to the page from start to finish. It nails it sense of setting with regards to the small-town dynamics happening in the background and the existential strangeness of the giant alien construction in the forefront. Somehow, it manages to balance these two different genres perfectly in a gradual reveal of intertwining plotlines with a well-earned solution in the end.
What truly exceeded my expectations were the characters. Despite featuring quite a big cast of townsfolks, each of them felt memorable and fleshed out. Special mentions to David, the archetypical police-detective, but with a slight twist, and Charlotte, whom complexity as a character added a deeper layer to the story.
As far as murder-mysteries with a sci-fi twist go: this was a 5-star for me.

Notes on diversity:
This book had a lot more diversity and representation than I was expecting. It makes for simultaneously some of its best and worst moments. As mentioned: I loved Charlottes character and the way her transgender identity was handled. She grew up in Little Springs in the body of a boy, and has since transitioned into a woman, which colours many of her interactions with the townsfolks she knew in her previous life and is now forced to reconnect with. Many of the conversations surrounding the topic of transgender identity were quite powerful, without being preachy or heavy-handed, and I applaud the author for how they handled this.
When it comes to disability/illness; there is some representation I was less thrilled about. Although it didn’t detract from my personal enjoyment of the book too much, I know these tropes are dealbreakers for some. HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW, so proceed with caution.
- There is a form of the magical healing-trope [ in which a character with dementia is suddenly “cured” of their affliction by the alien influence for 2 minutes each night. Just enough to provide essential plot-information and heartwarming closure to our characters.
- There is also a part that could be considered vilification of a character with disability [ the killer turns out to be an amputee, who’s “convinced to do the aliens bidding” at the promise of the restoration of his lost arm. There’s quite a powerful parallel made between the loss of this characters arm, and Charlottes transition into a woman; both being traumatic but necessary for survival. It’s sad to see that this character isn’t given the same chance to overcome his trauma in the same way Charlotte has, and is shown as “ruined by his disability/trauma”.

Many thanks to the author and Brilliance Audio for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was loving this book, until I wasn't. It really lost me around the halfway point, and there was no coming back. I think I would have liked it more had it leaned into the scifi and not the crime side, which was zzzz.
Thanks to netgalley for the arc

This is a murder mystery much more than a sci-fi story, which was a bit disappointing. A small-town sheriff searches for a killer, basically.

The book was well-written and the characters developed. The mystery was diverting and it never lost my interest. The narration of the audiobook by Scott Merrimen was very good.

However, there’s a giant alien body lying next to town and a new city of scientists and soldiers. I felt the author missed the opportunity to take much more of an advantage of those possibilities. Yes, it means there are more suspects, but my questions about that alien body were not answered by the end of the book. Maybe there should be a sequel!

Small-town murder mystery with space conspiracy and aliens and cults thrown in for flavor. It leaned more toward the "normal people dealing with an insane situation" angle than scifi, which I liked. Quite fun (if you can say that about something this tragic and gory).

Unimpressive, pedestrian prose, especially given the purported subject matter. Dialogue that sounds like it came straight out of a broadcast TV police procedural. And admittedly this is my own bias speaking here but I am supremely uninterested in the "small town cop who is the only person holding the town together" set-up.

Godfall is a well-written scifi novel centered around David, a small-town sherrif who sees life suddenly change when an "asteroid" heading to Earth ends up being a gigantic (miles-long) dead alien. Naturally, when the alien crashes into his town, so, too, does the curious world, with reporters and the government racing to investigate this new development. This leaves David with a job more complicated than ever, doing his best to protect the "insiders" of the town from the changing culture as "outsiders" rush in.

There’s a lot going on in this book — a lone wolf small town cop, a religious end-of-times cult, a drug ring, murders, and of course let's not forget the alien body — and I was relieved that Van Jensen more or less pulls it all together in the end. I really appreciated David as a main character. He was somehow wholesome and deeply rooted in his community, and yet also a loner searching for his — and the town's — place in the world. His strict adherence to the idea of insiders vs outsiders in his town seemed characteristic of small-town life, as did the inevitable blind spots that rise up as a result. There are quite a few characters in the novel, and I did at times get a bit lost inside of them. I appreciated how this book navigated trans representation and various community reactions to it.

While this is a scifi book, it's heavily grounded in our typical world. I consider it light on the scifi themes and heavy on the character development and murder mystery. It will be a great choice for fans of serial killer thrillers and police procedurals.

This one had such an interesting blurb, and it started out with an engaging series of events. Unfortunately, rather quickly it began to feel like a more standard dystopian tale rather than the unusual spot of sci-fi I was expecting... The narration is very good and does a nice job matching the tone of the story - it just turns out the tone is not one that particularly resonated with me. I don't enjoy dystopian tales very often, and if I'd realized it was more in that nature, I would probably have passed. This one wasn't a good fit for me.