Recommendations for God/Angels/Demons

[Andrea]

This is earlier than I intended to look for recommendations for my new reading goal next year, but Tor came out with this list of books about gods so thought I'd ask the rest of you for your suggestions as well :)

https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/do-not...

I'm not limiting myself to gods, I'm going the whole range so include your angels and demons too. And I'm not particular about genre, age group, pantheon, non-fiction, ancient classics, etc (who knows if I need one of them to fill a BINGO slot) so anything goes as long as a god, angel or demon figures prominently. And I can be lenient in the definition of what those things are, like a super powerful AI/alien can be a god if written that way.

I don't know how many I'll get to, after all libraries may still be closed but I'll be optimistic, after all it will be my reading theme for all of next year :)

*edit*

Figured I could list the ones already on my list, I own them so I'm near guaranteed to read them, regardless if good or bad, at least I'll get rid of the bad ones afterwards and clear some shelf space. But feel free to point out if something is particularly good or bad, and I can use it to prioritize if I end up with too many to read in one year!

Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis
Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan
Angel Time by Anne Rice
The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce
Circe by Madeline Miller
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Loki's Wolves by K.L. Armstrong
The Sundering by Jacqueline Carey
The Bartimaeus Trilogy Boxed Set by Jonathan Stroud
Conversations with the Devil by Jeff Rovin
Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed ed. John Skipp
Bloodring by Faith Hunter
The Complete Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen
Dante Valentine: The Complete Series by Lilith Saintcrow
Scar Night by Alan Campbell
Angel by Garry Kilworth
The Godmakers by Frank Herbert

And some others where I don't own the full series, so those are lower priority

... more to come

[Jim]

Zelazny's take on gods & demons in Lord of Light & Creatures of Light and Darkness were interesting. They're blends of SF & fantasy. He has a few other books that have gods in them, too.

Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore is fun & so is The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror.

On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony starts out with Death personified & ends up with a god. I think there are 8 books in the series.

I didn't finish Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie, but it might have just been me. I really enjoyed Agnes and the Hitman, so I read a couple of others. D&G was overloading my ability to read chick-lit, I think.

The Second Coming by David H. Burton was incredibly good.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: "Zelazny's take on gods & demons in Lord of Light & Creatures of Light and Darkness were interesting. They're blends of SF & fantasy...."

Those would be my first two selections as well.

I liked last year's Ann Leckie novel The Raven Tower, narrated by a god whose manifestation is a large rock. I thought it was fun.

Terry Pratchett's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a funny comedy.

[Andrea]

Jim wrote: "Zelazny's take on gods & demons in Lord of Light & Creatures of Light and Darkness were interesting. They're blends of SF & fantasy. He has a few other books that have go..."

Zelazny does like to dabble with gods or god-like beings. We read Lord of Light as part of the group (very good book) and Creatures of Light and Darkness is on my list. I had another one too, something about Loki which he wrote with another author.

Those Moore ones will come in handy if I need to fill a humour slot in the BINGO card, I saw someone else in the group read the Stupidest Angel one so that's been on my mind for a while :)

Those others look intriguing too.

[Jim]

It's been a long time since I read The Mask of Loki. I don't really remember it. I was thinking of Isle of the Dead & To Die in Italbar, the two Francis Sandow books. He merges with an alien god & can terraform planets, but that's not what the stories are about. As interesting as that is, it's only incidental. There's also This Immortal which can be read in a couple of ways. Conrad might just be Pan.

Nothing about Zelazny's work is ever certain. We're reading A Night in the Lonesome October in another group one chapter a day. I've got over 20 pages of notes about the book, have read it over a dozen times, & group discussions still find things I've missed or new interpretations to make me doubt what I thought I knew.

[Andrea]

Jim wrote: "He merges with an alien god & can terraform planets, but that's not what the stories are about. As interesting as that is, it's only incidental."

Giant terraforming superpowers is merely incidental? "Oh by the way, I'm a creator of planets, but that's just a hobby, nothing really. Should see what I do for my day job."

[Andrea]

G33z3r wrote: "Terry Pratchett's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a funny comedy."

Read that with the group. Then tried to watch the series which aired on Showcase but my PVR (or the channel) made a mess of it. I got the first episode...then some other show (which I watched a good chunk of until I figured out it was, it was a war show and I knew "War" would be showing up about then, so...)...then a repeat of the first episode. Then it continued along normally, till it skipped two episodes and jumped to the last one :)

I figured even though I missed two episodes it was better to get the last episode in, rather than miss the last two. Oddly, it wasn't very jarring, of course I'd read the book, but it is so meandering and a bit slow moving, that even missing the two the ending made sense.

I do want to read The Raven Tower though, hoping libraries can open up next year! Also to finish the Winternight trilogy.

[Jim]

Andrea wrote: "Giant terraforming superpowers is mere..."

Not quite that bad, but close. Typical of Zelazny's understated & weird sense of humor.

[Andrea]

I've been wondering if Power's The Anubis Gates would be considered to have divine content or not, it's hard to tell from the blurb on my book, it sounded definitively not, but then I read the summary on the Tor blog and it sounded just right.

Also, what about McClellan's second trilogy Gods of Blood and Powder? Especially if I say his Powder Mage trilogy had enough divine intervention to count for me :)

[Mary]

Let's see.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Prospero Lost, Prospero in Hell, and Prospero Regained by L. Jagi Lamplighter

[[deleted user]]

Andrea wrote: "I've been wondering if Power's The Anubis Gates would be considered to have divine content or not, it's hard to tell from the blurb on my book, it sounded definitively not, but then I..."

We actually had a discussion on Anubis Gate back in 2013. It's mostly without Gods (the antagonists are cultists who want to revive the old Egyptian pantheon), but a few deities make a brief appearance in the exciting conclusion. :)

I've only read the first of McClellan's Gods of Blood and Powder; so far, no gods (that have identified themselves as such, at least.) (Note I stopped reading the 2nd trilogy for purely technical rather than enjoyment reasons; I hope to get back to it someday, but at this point I'll have to re-read Sins of Empire to do so.)

[Andrea]

I think I'll use that as enough of an excuse to read Anubis Gates since I've been wanting to read for so long. I was going to use the fact it had Anubis in the title as reason enough :D

I'll probably read Gods of Blood and Powder too since the only thing holding me back was waiting for the final book to be in trade paperback which it is now.

And just you need a re-read, I'm going to re-read the first three books in the Infernal Campaigns by Wexler. Magic is kind of demon based so was a good enough match. I had put it on hold when reading the Powder Mage trilogy, there was enough similarity in setting between the two I didn't want to get them tangled up and Wexler's series was finished at the time, but it's time now to get back and see how it ends!

[Andrea]

Mary wrote: "Let's see.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
[boo..."

Thanks for those! It would actually have been weird not to have any Gaiman given how many gods, angels and demons he's written about but I'd already read most. Now I know to try Neverwhere, pretty sure I have that one in my collection...

Making notes of the other ones too, the Lewis one catches my eye because I'm reading Narnia now.

Turns out, I may not need the library to help me out to fill the year, I have a surprising number of books on this theme (including some non-fiction mythology books). Now gods and demons can come in a lot of forms in fantasy and even SF, so I've got about 70 picked out already!!! And I haven't finished going through all my books yet. At least I'll have a lot of choice, and the variety will help with matching up to BINGO slots

[Jesse]

Well, if you're interested my book deals with all of this but it has more of sci-fi kinda spin on it.

Don't know, figured it'd be worth mentioning.

[David]

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a series of letters from a senior devil to his nephew giving various bits of advice about how his nephew should sway his human to sin.

[Robin]

Michael Moorcock 's Elric of Melnibone books? Plenty of Gods and demons in those?

[Andrea]

Robin wrote: "Michael Moorcock 's Elric of Melnibone books? Plenty of Gods and demons in those?"

I need to read that series sometime soon, it sounds really good, there's just so much other stuff that I really need to read sometime soon too LOL