No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

(Titan Books, 2022)

Reviewed by John Dodd

Monsters are real, and they’re here, and they’re living amongst us. This is the line that draws us into the book, the promise of something different and strange, of a place and time where the supernatural exists hand-in-hand with the ordinary world.

This starts with a killing, a killing that won’t be explained till much later in the book, but at its heart, something that should have been clear from the beginning. Laina’s brother Lincoln is shot by the police, the reason is not given, and it’s not till a sixth of the book in that we find out that there was more to it than just a random act of police brutality. It was because he was a monster, and not even that, just a shape shifter, and it raises the question for those reading of whether or not there was more to the killing than just him being different.

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Review from BSFA Review 20 - Download your copy here.