Drayden will see your Buffy-style these-are-my-friends Scooby Gang and raise you a cast-of-strangers Scooby Gang. The cleverness here is taking those seemingly random people, most of whom don’t know each other at the beginning of the book-and one, for heaven’s sake, that speaks only binary at the beginning of the book-and constructing a plot that brings these people, with their unique talents, together at the right time to save the world. In many ways, The Prey of Gods is a smart, cleverly structured Scooby Gang book: a group of seemingly random people, meeting purportedly by happenstance, saves the world. And beneath the surface roil surprising challenges: a new hallucinogen, a sentient AI uprising, and a living goddess who wants (what else?) to take over the world. Yet, vast class and identity striations still exist: Rural villages struggle with basic needs, those personal robots certainly aren’t a societal entitlement, and several of the characters struggle with acceptance of their sexuality or gender presentation. We’re in a near-future South Africa: Personal robots abound, the government has scaled renewable energy, genetic engineering is a coveted industry. Nicky Drayden dreamed big and bold and bright, y’all. Nicky Drayden’s first novel is a science-fiction/fantasy mash-up, a living mythology, an AI fever dream, a breakneck romp to the brink of apocalypse that is also-improbably, shockingly-funny. I like people who try to change the world.Īnd what The Prey of Gods is, more than anything, is ambitious.

I like people who think six impossible things before breakfast. I like people who dream big and bold and bright. If you ask me, on any given day, which characteristics I admire in someone (but especially in a woman), ambition will always make my top three.

The prey of gods nicky drayden