Strong World-Building, Great Characters, and a Fantastic Premise

filled star filled star filled star filled star filled star
hianbai Avatar

By

Does anyone remember the 2016 film Passengers, co-starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt? Where a colonist's cryo-sleep pod malfunctions and he wakes up a century too early on a spaceship? It was such a great concept that, unfortunately, the movie did not live up to. Goddess in the Machine is like the reverse of that, where a girl wakes up a thousands years too late and discovers that all of her family and friends are gone and she is now the only hope for the remaining descendants of those early colonists. Kudos to Lora Beth Johnson for taking a fantastic premise and running with it. Her world-building is incredible, from the post-apocalyptic landscape of "Hellmouth/Holymyth" to the pidgin slang used by the planet's current inhabitants. After reading the first five chapters, I can tell that this story is going to deliver. I'm very much looking forward to this one!