We start with a pair of sisters, Hakara and Rasha. They have only each other, eking out life in a bay in a devastated land. The elder, Hakara, dives for pearls for the thin living the sisters are eking out in the wake of their parents' death. This precarious existence ends when the black wall comes. The god Kluehnn is remaking, renewing the tired world - a world devastated, according to accounts, by man’s greed and the horrors of the other gods, gods that must be hunted and destroyed. But that remaking of the world necessarily transforms or kills half of the population as an area is remade is a harsh way to remake a world. As the black wall comes for the Bay area, our sisters are separated. Rasha is transformed, and Hakara, still ever professing to try and find her younger sister, finds employment diving not into the ocean, but rather into the earth itself in search of magical gems that could change the world themselves.
And so we are off and running in Andrea Stewart's The Gods Below, first in a new series for her, following her Bone Shard Daughter trilogy.
The story of the two sisters, as they find lives apart and on opposite sides of the Wall, as it were, is where we get the main backbone of the novel. The separate lives of the two sisters slowly converge (after a ten year time jump), as they find themselves not only on opposite sides of a barrier, but also ideologically and theologically on opposite sides as well. It is a slow burn as they struggle through their own lives, growing and changing, and becoming people who are definitely not the close sisters they once were.
In addition to the two sisters, we get three other points of view as well. One pair are a set of characters who are related but have rather different paths. Mullayne is an inventor, a creator, and an adventurer. He is determined to penetrate the depths of the earth to find the realm of the other, lost Gods, in an effort to find a cure for his terminally ill beloved, Imeah. Love drives Mullayne to follow his research, even when it is a path no one has gone in centuries, and may kill him and his entire team in the process.
And then there is Sheuan. Mull is her cousin, but while Mull and his companions are descending into the depths of the earth like Arne Saknusseum, Sheuan is trying to keep her family with some semblance of power and strength. Her clan is ready to slip and fall from the ranks of the nobles, and that would be a disaster. Her mother has put all of her efforts into trying to put Sheuan into a position to be a savior for the clan. With such pressure, Sheuan soon finds herself borrowing ideas and equipment from her absent cousin in order to try and keep her family afloat. While Mull might want to use his masking technology to delve into the earth, Sheuan has other ideas in mind.
The last point of view, used sparingly, is hundreds of years in the past of all of these otherwise contemporaneous points of view. And it is a god, Nioanen. By the time we get our first point of view for Nioanen, we’ve already had a number of chapters setting up the theological setup of the novel - man despoiled the earth, one god, Kluehnn rose to fight the avaricious fellow deities who were oppressing humanity in the bargain. It is Kluehnn who protects and helps humanity, all other deities are evil and to be opposed and fought. So Nionaen’s point of view, when it first appears, is our first in text direct opposition to this narrative, and gives us concrete information that the story Kluehnn has been putting out may be only one side of the story. Or worse, that he is fact, been lying to humanity for centuries.
In addition to the plotting and characters, we get a rich world to explore and develop here. Using the various points of view immerses into a world where the world broke... and now is slowly being rejuvenated, but at a cost and by methods that are not clear. Although the novel isn’t a mystery per se, there are plenty of questions that are slowly revealed for the reader about the true nature of the world, how and why it broke, and what is happening now. This is a world rich in magic, a world of competing clans, grasping nobles, devotees of the god, and much more.
There is some lovely language, Stewart’s talent for word choice and phrasing I noticed in the Bone Shard Daughter series is in full effect here as well. Her word choice and phrases are evocative, emotive and often pluck at the heart. Even more than the plotting, worldbuilding and strong characters that the novel offers, the way that this novel evokes emotion, and feeling with her word choice, as well as describing and evoking all of the above, really stands out. There are painful choices and hard bargains throughout the novel, and Stewart’s writing puts a light on the difficult choices the characters are faced with, and makes the reader really feel the pressure and consequences of those decisions.
The novel that comes to mind that pairs with The Gods Below is Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller. Like that novel, this novel explores theological frameworks, and internecine politics on a human level that have origins and reflects with the gods and their concerns. There are in fact, Godkillers in The Gods Below, and how those conflicts play out in both novels help distinguish them together in epic fantasy. Godkiller is significantly darker in tone and content, much more in the grimdark mold of fantasy than, ultimately, The Gods Below is.
Overall, this is the first novel in the story, and the stopping point here has some reveals, there really isn’t a resolution for readers who want to get off here. I am invested enough, particularly in the story of Hakara and Rasha, to see where Stewart intends to go with the next novel in the series. I do note, though, that this is a case where the series name, The Hollow Covenant, does in fact constitute as a bit of a spoiler. While it is easy to guess that Kluehnn is not all they're cracked up to be as a protector of humanity and restorer of the world, it does tip the hand even before one opens the book.
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The Math
Highlights:
- Strong pair of primary characters with a excellent story and characterization
- Excellent and vividly evocative writing
- Interesting and well developed worldbuilding
- Really strong cover art by Lauren Panepinto
Reference: Stewart, Andrea, The Gods Below [Orbit, 2024].
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
