steverobbo
December 28th, 2008, 06:54 AM
God's Behaving badly was a book that I came across while browsing another forum, it is a debut novel from Marie Phillips and I wondered if any body else has read it, and their thoughts?
First off I loved this book, it was a breath of fresh air in my reading list that I started to feel was all together becoming a bit too similar in the type's and style's of Fantasy that I was reading.
It is a story based around 2 "Mortals" entering into, and being manipulated by, all of the Greek god's, who now live in modern day London, in a rundown house, with their powers dwindling. The god's themselves are always waring with each other and trying to humiliate and upstage one another.
Phillips does an excellent job of fitting the god's powers and responsibilities into todays world, with some laugh out loud moments added for good measure, for example Aphrodite is a sex chat line worker, Artemis is a dog walker and Apollo is a failing TV psychic!
The main story of the book is two fold, firstly, a mortal, Neil, must battle Apollo for the love of another mortal, Alice, Apollo having been shot by Eros with his arrow to fall madly in love with the next woman that he lay's his eye's upon, which unfortunatly for Alice, happens to be her.
Secondly, it is the story of old god's battling against the newer "cooler" god and the battle to conserve and renew their rapidly failing powers.
The book,for me delivers some great moments of whit, humour, and intelligence, it is clearly well researched and then adapted to fit the time and place. The gods take responsibility for things like the Great Plague, in order to drive down house price's so that they can afford to buy a property in London, and then The Great Fire of London, in an attempt to drive them up again.
It is a novel that I would highly recommend, and at 277 pages, you can get through it quickly, I found that I couldn't put it down once I had started, the only downside for me was the ending which I found to be far too predictable but not enough to spoil my overall impression of the book, I will certainly be looking out for Marie Phillips in the future.
Steve.
First off I loved this book, it was a breath of fresh air in my reading list that I started to feel was all together becoming a bit too similar in the type's and style's of Fantasy that I was reading.
It is a story based around 2 "Mortals" entering into, and being manipulated by, all of the Greek god's, who now live in modern day London, in a rundown house, with their powers dwindling. The god's themselves are always waring with each other and trying to humiliate and upstage one another.
Phillips does an excellent job of fitting the god's powers and responsibilities into todays world, with some laugh out loud moments added for good measure, for example Aphrodite is a sex chat line worker, Artemis is a dog walker and Apollo is a failing TV psychic!
The main story of the book is two fold, firstly, a mortal, Neil, must battle Apollo for the love of another mortal, Alice, Apollo having been shot by Eros with his arrow to fall madly in love with the next woman that he lay's his eye's upon, which unfortunatly for Alice, happens to be her.
Secondly, it is the story of old god's battling against the newer "cooler" god and the battle to conserve and renew their rapidly failing powers.
The book,for me delivers some great moments of whit, humour, and intelligence, it is clearly well researched and then adapted to fit the time and place. The gods take responsibility for things like the Great Plague, in order to drive down house price's so that they can afford to buy a property in London, and then The Great Fire of London, in an attempt to drive them up again.
It is a novel that I would highly recommend, and at 277 pages, you can get through it quickly, I found that I couldn't put it down once I had started, the only downside for me was the ending which I found to be far too predictable but not enough to spoil my overall impression of the book, I will certainly be looking out for Marie Phillips in the future.
Steve.