Review: Gods & Monsters: Mythbreaker

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Steak and potatoes. These two foods comprise the epitome of a hearty American dinner. So if I wanted to make an apropos comparison of such an eating experience to reading a book, then that reading experience would be: full of goodness, tender and tasty, and most of all filling. At the end of such a read, I would expect to be satisfied, and if not necessarily ready to dive into the next book, at least ready to move on to something new. One could easily make other such comparisons between food and reading. And if I had to make a food-based comparison to reading this book, it’d be a bowl full of popcorn: easy to keep reading, exciting enough to keep my interest, and regardless of how it ends, finding that I have a bit of a belly-ache afterward. As with reading many of these kinds of books, once in a while they can be fun, but too many in a row? No thank you, sir. But it had been a while since I’d read a popcorn novel. So.

GODS & MONSTERS: MYTHBREAKER (Amazon) is the second book in a multi-author series organized by Abaddon Books, and up until the time of this writing, I was completely unaware of such. Apparently this is what Abaddon books does. In fact, I looked them up just now, and apparently nearly every part of my opinion about this book (which I’ll tell you about in a bit) is exactly what this company specializes in. Nifty.

Louie “Fitz” Fitzsimmons is a schizophrenic, homeless, gay man close to a psychotic break. He has a day job of cooking the books for a gangster type, but spends most of the rest of his life stoned out of his gourd because he frequently gets visions that mess him up something royal. Then, one day, after a really bad bender that lands him in the hospital, he’s attacked by a massive Lithuanian goddess, and he quickly comes to realize that there’s more to the world, and himself, than he realized.

As the title of the book suggests, this is a world of gods and goddesses. They’re the old school deities too. The selfish, arrogant, nearly childish versions of the immortals we’ve all heard of. And quite a few more that we haven’t. That is unless you’ve just recently polished up on your obscure mythological history. As the story progresses, we see more and more of these gods and goddesses that are apparently very interested in our main character.

From the very first chapter, this story gets moving. And it doesn’t slow down for anything. Even the safe house the guy ends up at mid-book is in gang-central and a gun fight breaks out shortly after they get there. Action-driven stories. If there were an entry in the dictionary for such a term, this book would be listed as part of the definition. And fast can be fun. But it can also be frustrating at times if you’re not fed enough about the characters and why things are happening. At least, that’s the way it is for me. So unless the story trickles some of that stuff in along the way, or it’s really short, I tend to lose interest fairly fast. Thankfully, this story gave me enough character and direction to keep my eyes from glazing over. Just enough though. Kind of rode the line at times. Mostly during the beginning sequence when Fitz is flying through the air in the bucket of a utility truck while a rabid angel is trying to slash him to pieces. Exciting, yes. Elucidating, not necessarily.

In many ways, this book reminded me of the angel series by Robert Brockway. Very similar tones and make-up. Although, I must admit to liking this one quite a bit more than the last Brockway I read. As this book had a very directed way of storytelling, per the publisher, I was also curious how the author might write when not given such strictures. So, I grabbed another one of his (newer) out of my TBR pile and gave it a try. Twenty pages or so in, and I was done. Info dump and loads of backstory and no forward movement at all. Something in-between that one and this by way of story-telling technique, I think, would be pretty awesome. Maybe he’ll get there some day.

If you’re looking for fast, profane, action-driven stories with horrifically fantastic elements, this is the book for you. Hey. This is the publisher for you, sounds like. Otherwise, if you’re in the mood for a quick popcorn novel that you can read while sitting in a sun chair at the pool, or on a towel at the beach, pick this up. Pretty decent, not overly special, but enough for a good, quick read.