SF/F Review – The Devourers

The Devourers, by Indra Das

Synopsis: A trio of vampire-ish/werewolf-ish shapeshifters travels to turn-of-the-century India. One commits a crime that sickens even these monsters, causing the trio to turn on each other, with much collateral mayhem.

Book Review: That synopsis really doesn’t do this novel justice, and I think the synopsis is pretty exciting as it is. This isn’t just a story of vendettas, betrayal, and personal clashes. This is a story about what it means to be human. It is, in my opinion, a statement on human sexual dimorphism and what it means to be a woman in a world were half the population can overpower you and wants to consume you. It’s about what it means to be a man in a world where men are considered predators by everyone, and not for bad reasons. It is about power and honor. It asks if civilization is a glorious thing that lifts mankind up from the wretched natural state we are born into, or if it is the shackles we’ve forged that prevent us from being free and noble and true.

It does all this while telling a great story of a proud person wronged, and of monsters that lurk in the dark to consume us. The plotting is exciting and the visuals are amazing. When one of these shifters goes into its monster form and starts to absolutely destroy the humans trying to oppose it, it was better than most anything I’ve seen on movie screens in ages. It was terrifying and glorious at once. When two such shifters go full-Sayen and attack each other, the prolonged ensuing fight is Akira levels of epic.

The rationalizations of the monsters are seductive, as well. I started to wonder if maybe they were right. Maybe their actions are net positive, and the being devoured is better than the alternative? Das does a great job of getting us to sympathize just enough to waver, even as he exposes us to the horror and violence of this predation.

The one downside to this novel is the framing story it uses. The tale in India is relayed to a young modern-day professor, and the professor is boring AF. The couple chapters with him are OK, but once you get into the meat of the story in India, you don’t want to go back to him. Then the final 25% or the book is JUST him, and that part is a drag. Nothing much happens, the professor has no personality and no motivation, and we’re left wondering “Why does this awesome, powerful, sexy werewolf have any interest in this schmuck?” It’s not terrible though, it’s just kinda dull. And Das has built up so much good will by giving us an absolutely outstanding main story that I didn’t mind coasting through that final part.

If I can speculate for a moment, I think it was required to bring the novel up to an acceptable word-count for a publisher of a first time novelist. Word count is ridiculously important to publishers, even though readers don’t really care. It’s kinda infuriating. Anyway, I think Das did the best he could with what they forced him to do, and the framing story isn’t a total loss, it has a few cool parts.

So, with that small caveat — amazing characters, amazing story, amazing writing, amazing action. Seriously, look back at the first three paragraphs I wrote. This is an absolutely stellar book. Highly Recommended.

Book Club Review: One of the best book club books we’ve had in a long time, and we’ve had some good ones! This is a fast read, and is gripping on its own. But in addition, it raises many interesting and thought-provoking themes, and comments on them via the actions of the characters just enough to really get conversation going. We went on for far longer than usual, and we all loved every minute of it. There were readers who disagreed that this was about sex roles in particular, and said it was more about power imbalances in general. There were readers who saw tones of trans identification in the monsters being able to change their forms over time. There is just so much to talk about, and all of it is on topics were the novel shows you examples of what it’s talking about and how it affects the people in the book but never preaches at you. If your book club reads only one book this year, it should be this one. Highly Recommended.

Coronavirus note: I’ve been a slacker, and I’m behind in my book reviews. Both this review and the next one I’ll be posting were meetings we had before the outbreak.