Rating: 5 out of 5

Luke Walker’s horror novel The Mirror Of The Nameless was written before his The Day of the New Gods, but in-world it takes place afterward. I read Day first, and I’d recommend doing it that way. It makes the events of that book more surprising.

Dave Anderson, 41, made the mistake of walking down the wrong streets at night. The Children of Naz Yaah, the Worm, chose him as a sacrifice to their god. When he’s rescued by a mysterious young man named Tom who claims to be in love with Dave’s daughter Ashleigh, the two of them head off to hunt her down and save her from an attempt to do something very dangerous. For 30 years now the gods have ruled the earth: Gatur the Green, who drives people so insane that they attack and kill the very people they love. Segoth, the giant zombie who drops burning, rotting flesh that melts people and turns them into his minions. And Naz Yaah, the least understood of the three, the giant worm dripping acid who rules her younger siblings. Ashleigh believes that the writings of an author named Makepeace hold the key to rescuing humanity and freeing them from the rule of the gods, but Tom thinks she’s going to get herself killed–or worse.

Much like Day‘s main character, Brian, Dave spends most of the book fighting tooth and nail to get to and save his daughter. However, Ashleigh is a bit older than Brianna, very much knows her own mind, and has a plan. So the relationship ends up being very different between them. Dave is a bartender who writes on the side (it’s basically heresy to write fiction, so he ghost-writes celebrity books), and he has a lot less practice at being tough than Brian did. He doesn’t have the firepower Brian had, and has to rely on his wits as well as whatever improvised weapons may come to hand. Tom isn’t an amazingly deep character, but it is interesting to watch his somewhat sheltered views get shattered.

What’s really fascinating for me in this book is the opportunity to glimpse civilization several decades after the arrival of the cosmic horrors from beyond. It’s wild to read about–both the ways in which civilization has continued to exist, and the ways in which it falters.

Content note for brutal death and dismemberment, as well as alluded-to offscreen rape.

Usually, sunset came anywhere between nine and midnight. Some nights, it didn’t come at all.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Luke Walker’s horror novel The Day Of The New Gods is original and attention-catching. Brian Jackson and his crew (Buggy/Kev, Andy, John, and Willie) just robbed a bank. They’re commandeering a bus to get them and their loot to their van when something entirely unexpected goes wrong: a rip is opened in the fabric of the universe and three very powerful “gods” start wreaking havoc. One is a giant with living flesh that he sheds and which contaminates all who come into contact with it. One is a green mist that makes people violently insane. The third is… well, mostly just a rumor at this point. People are dying by the thousands. Blood and gore litter the streets. Brian and his crew had planned to pick up Brian’s 12-year-old daughter Brianna and leave Britain for Spain, and now getting to Brianna is the only thing Brian can think about. Unfortunately there’s a lot of pain and death between the two of them.

The process of having to figure out what’s going on largely from looking out the windows of their bus makes the gods’ arrival feel all too real. Fragments of broadcasts from the radio fill in a few gaps, but not by much. Countries are planning on nuking the rip in the sky, and the world holds its breath to see what will happen when they do.

The choice of characters–a group of aging robbers–is fantastic. It’s a random-seeming set of characters to throw into something like this. They have guns, they lack a certain moral sense, and yet they’re bound together very strongly. They don’t want to hurt anyone, and yet rescuing Brianna and themselves trumps everything. The character choice gives this story an unusual tone for cosmic horror.

When the characters come to the attention of one of the gods, their assumptions about what is going on take a tumble. Suddenly they’re fighting for a whole lot more than just their own lives. Things turn into one hell of an action story, with a limited number of bullets, some aging robbers who aren’t as spry as they used to be, and a couple of very sharp knives. I loved this book and look forward to reading more by Walker!

Content note: gore, bad injuries, child death.