Thursday, November 10, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Godslayers by Zoe Hana Mikuta

 



Godslayers is the conclusion to the story that began in Zoe Hana Mikuta's YA dystopian and mecha-based SciFi novel Gearbreakers (My review of Gearbreakers is here).  Gearbreakers was a novel that I really liked - a dark novel featuring a pair of teen girls trying to fight back against an evil Empire using mecha to control the populace, which featured the two girls falling for each other even as they came from very very different backgrounds....and which featured some really dark plot turns as they each had to sacrifice so so much in their efforts at revolution...and not just things, but people.  I know that was a run on sentence, but well, it gets the point of how much Gearbreakers dealt with, and it worked really well in everything - in its themes, in its romance/characters, and even in its mecha action.  And it ended with a hell of a cliffhanger, which I'll discuss after the jump to avoid spoilers.  

Godslayers meanwhile manages to really nail its themes and atmosphere, as it deals with themes of how war and Empire chews up children on all sides, whether they be those pressed into service in support of the Empire, those who rise up to rebel against it, and even those forced to lead it and keep its bloody operations going and going.  It does a really good job with these stories, especially as it portrays the dark end results of an Empire possibly on its deathbed, the actions of people who have been raised and essentially brainwashed by propaganda and worse to treat the Empire's symbols - its mecha - as gods, and how this all affects even those who have tried to fight the Empire at great cost.  It does a bit lesser of a job at developing its characters individually and the main characters' romance, where the book really relies upon the work from its predecessor to make events happening to the characters, and the separation of its main duo, to have meaning.  The result is a really solid conclusion, especially if you reread Gearbreakers first (which I did not), but not quite one that may fully live up to the expectations set by book 1.  

MAJOR SPOILERS for book 1 after the jump:  
--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
The Gearbreakers - really Sona and Eris - struck a massive blow to Godolia on Heavensday: using their cobbled together Archangel to rain hell on Godolia's forces, killing seemingly all of their Zeniths - their ruling class - and killing most if not all of their best pilots.  Except they failed to kill one Zenith, a boy named Enyo, and thus Godolia still lived as an Empire, if one in shambles.  Even worse: Eris was captured and Sona was taken back by Godolia and treated to their cybernetic brainwashing process known as "Corruption"...and made to believe that the Gearbreakers were the ones who had corrupted her and that her real mission is to protect Enyo at all cost as he takes dire actions to secure Godolia's power.  

So when Eris escapes back to the remaining Gearbreakers, she and her sister Jenny and their allies find themselves on the opposite side of Sona, as they watch Enyo attempt to rebuild the evil of Godolia once more....and to draft a new set of children into Godolia's Windup Pilot forces.  And so Eric and Jenny go on a desperate mission - to stop this rebuild and eliminate the Zenith...and if possible, to retake Sona and remind her of the love Eris and Sona shared, and who they really ought to be fighting.  

But Sona's love for Enzo, a boy who truly seems to care for her, may be more than just programming, and the people of the Badlands terrorized by Godolia still see the giant mecha Windups as Gods....Gods to be served and worshipped, even as the rebels hope to free them from their oppression.  To really create a better future, Eris will need to find a way to reunite with Sona in both mind, body and soul......
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Godslayers is a book that's not interested in catching up readers who might not remember or have time to reread Gearbreakers - the story features no recap, nor any parts in which characters helpfully re-explain or re-prompt the reader to remember ideas from the last book.  So for example, what each of the various type of Godolia Windups (the mecha) do is left to the reader to remember, who each of the various side characters are is as well, etc. etc.  And to be honest, this lack of interest in explaining things again also applies to the book's seeming lack of interest in re-developing characters who were developed last book, even when that would be logical to do so, like with Sona and Eris' relationship:  you would think that a book that featured one character being brainwashed to seemingly hate the other who she loved would feature the some form of new romance, even a dark one, as the other one reminded the brainwashed one of what drew them together, but really that doesn't happen here: Sona-Eris' love just is there at this point, and its existence pokes at Sona's brainwashing without there being major scenes of reminder to break it.  

And yet, Godslayers still manages to work really well thanks to the book's dark tone and really strong themes, mainly about the impact on war and the children caught up in it.  There's one point in the novel where an ally yells at Eris and her team that she and the rest of the gearbreakers aren't better than the children drafted into Godolia's armies, being child soldiers themselves....and Eris and her team's response is basically: "yes, that's right."  For they realize that yes, their lives have been warped by their fight to the point where they have seemingly nothing left in them but the fight and the few moments of pleasure they get with each other, and they're fighting only matters so that no one else will have to go through that like them...whether that be in fighting Godolia or in being drafted by Godolia for its own forces.  

And that goes beyond just them too, especially with the book's major new character: Enyo, the boy put in charge of Godolia as the last surviving Zenith.  Enyo is in some ways evil - he's willing to do horrible things for his people, and he's fully complicit in Sona's brainwashing.  At the same time, he's a child, raised up to be this way, and he genuinely likes Sona and genuinely hates all that he feels he "has" to do as the last Zenith of the empire....especially as someone the rest of the Empire looks to for leadership to keep things as they are hooked on the status quo, who they literally won't allow to leave.  And this is compounded by those who literally believe in the Windups as actual Deities for Godolia to control, who are willing to do horrifying acts of terrorism in support of them, even as those same gods were used to repress them.  

There's also some good mecha action here, and a lot more serious themes about the lines of humanity and machines, as well as the ways to possibly dissemble empires and what it means to really love someone, even someone who may have betrayed that trust.  I wish the character work and the romantic parts were more developed here, but the darkness and themes work pretty well.  So well worth your time to finish off this duology, and if you haven't started book 1 and somehow read this spoilery review, it's definitely worth your time.

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