05 Sep 2012 00:45:48
The opening quotes set the tone perfectly: Nietzsche's "If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god?" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". What follows is a novel that treads a sometimes precarious line between scenes of gruesome horror and deft comic touches. The horror is a disturbing vision of the abuses humans can and do inflict upon each other, as might be expected from an author with a long record of human rights activism. Kaveney's background as critic, poet, literary commentator and editor are also evident in this, her first novel, which turns out to be a fast-paced and well-informed romp through settings including Sicily, London, Tenochtitlan and Atlantis, with an eclectic cast. At times the story struggles under this burden until we learn what's actually at stake, but as in any decent epic fantasy novel all the strands come together neatly and everything turns out to be at risk as two women, one young and one ancient, do battle against those willing to commit atrocity in order to become gods.
