(10) JAMES LOVEGROVE –

PANTHEON (2009 – 2019)

“Watch closely, everyone. I’m going to show you how to kill a god”

That’s not from James Lovegrove’s Pantheon series – it’s from the film Princess Mononoke – but it captures much of the same spirit (heh).

This is also a departure from the usual rule for my wildcard tenth place entry as the best entry from the present or previous year – that’s because I’ve only recently gotten into James Lovegrove’s Pantheon series and want to follow it through to the end of the series of nine books.

The premise of his Pantheon series is straightforward – each is a standalone story with a human military or paramilitary protagonist reacting to or resisting one of the titular pantheons of gods (and goddesses) literally returning to the modern world to rule it. Note that standalone as each story features only one pantheon at a time – they don’t return in combination or all at once, although that would make an interesting premise of competing pantheons. Obviously the titular pantheon in the first book The Age of Ra is the Egyptian one – the series continues through The Age of Zeus, The Age of Odin, and so on.

The premise of these series particularly resonates with me because it reflects my own unwritten – and let’s face it, only partly baked – story ideas involving the same premise, both for single pantheons and multiple pantheons returning in combination. So kudos for Lovegrove for actually baking the cake and icing it – although I suppose there’s still room for competing pantheons.

It’s a similarly dark premise to David Brin’s Thor Meets Captain America (and even more so its sequel The Life Eaters) – hence why I also like those works as well. And it’s a somewhat parallel premise to that of a higher entry on this list.

SF & HORROR

Demonstrating the overlap between the genres, The Pantheon series is also classified as military science fiction – which it definitely overlaps if you see the gods as alien or extradimensional beings or entities. I class it as fantasy because, you know, the antagonists are gods with supernatural powers.

Not much horror – although it wouldn’t take too much tweaking of the premise to adapt it to horror. Heck – a surviving older pantheon or god is the common premise of folk horror.

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)