Gods No Longer
Does anyone here still remember Percy Jackson? Yeah. Fifth grade was a while back, but Percy Jackson was the Greek mythology elective we never had.
Anyway, even though I am now all grown-up and by extension a sophisticated reader, I still remember most of the Olympians, the funny chapter titles, and the thrill of reading characters traveling the country and scavenging for resources in the modern world. Actually Before I found Antigoddess, I was actually going through the Percy Jackson wiki once again, reminiscing…and trying to remember an age where terrors like sine and cosine were but a vague myth.
When I did find Antigoddess, I was pretty shocked. A modern adventure about the Greek gods? That’s been done before, surely this can’t be as good. What is it, a cheap rip-off of Percy Jackson?
I opened the book and I think my eyeballs dropped out of my head.
While Antigoddess does revolve around the concept of the old Greek myths, very similar to the aforementioned book series, it puts its own unique spin on it. Instead of the protagonist being a mere mortal or even a demigod, our perspective is from one of the Greek Olympians themselves.
Actually, my favorite thing about Antigoddess goes even deeper than that. I once watched a Curious Archive video concerning the power of rot in worldbuilding (It was very good, watch it), and how it makes worlds like those from Elden Ring so powerful.
Antigoddess focuses on the Twilight of the Gods, a mysterious force that’s turning all the major and minor Gods into mortals and also tacking on something that’s slowly killing them, let it be slowly turning to stone or going insane. To survive for even longer after losing their immortality, some Gods attempt to consume other Greek mythical creatures to live.
Our protagonist, Athena (Goddess of Wisdom), is traveling with her fellow God and brother Hermes (God of…a lot of things, but we’ll say travel) in an attempt to stop dying. Athena is slowly being consumed from the inside by feathers, which sprout from her skin like hairs. She’s able to pull them out, but is aware that soon they’ll take over most of her major organs and leave her dead. Hermes is sick with a fever that’s eating away at his flesh slowly.
They discover from the goddess of crops,Demeter (who, by the way, has turned into a huge patch of desert land with a face on it) that there is one way to kill the other gods that are hunting them in order to elongate their shortened lifespan. These gods consist of Hera (Queen of Heaven), Aphrodite (Goddess of Love), and Poseidon (God of the Oceans). Our story continues from there.
As I’ve said, one of my favorite things about Antigoddess is how Kendare Blake created a world about the fall of the Greek myths. We see them as divine beings in the Percy Jackson books, but here they’re just as mortal as the rest of us…if imbued with super strength, super speed, and also a lot of durability.
Worldbuilding aside, I also thoroughly enjoyed the representation of the God’s in the book. The specific curses for each of them were neat, and watching the Gods desperately result in cannibalism after losing their immortality was strangely satisfying. Even living for eons wasn’t enough for these guys.
Recommended for nostalgic Percy Jackson fans.
