Tough Traveling: Dead Gods

“Tough Traveling” is a weekly Thursday feature created by Nathan at Review Barn where participants make a new list each week based on The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. This hilarious little book cheerfully pokes fun at the most prevalent tropes in fantasy. All are welcome to take part, and there is a link up over at his site. Join in any time!

This week’s trope is DEAD GODS

Fantasyland had gods, right?  And now they are dead.  Dead Gods are not forgotten though, often they are still just influential to the land as they were when living.

A surprisingly good show for urban fantasy this week, but overall a shorter list than usual. For some reason the list mojo just wasn’t flowing. I know that there are gods in the Kate Daniels series…but are they dead?! Someone remind me in the comments. But I digress. The gods are dead – long live the gods!

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone God is dead! God’s not dead! Wait, who’s dead again?! Kind of hard to keep track in this series. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the legendary God Wars resulted in the deaths of countless gods and goddesses, so the few remaining are especially precious. So what’s a dedicate to do when the spark of the fire god he’s pledged his life to suddenly dies out?

Hounded by Kevin Hearne The gods and goddesses are very much alive in the Iron Druid Chronicles, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stay that way. There are quite a few who have ahem…died…even in the first two books in the series. When they aren’t terrorizing each other or picking the corpses off of battlefields, the lady deities are most likely found in the boudoir of one Atticus O’Sullivan. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman Spoilers!God (aka “the authority”) bites the big one in the series finale, after it’s revealed that he was the first angel who declared himself a deity; it was only after that that he was ultimately viewed as the creator god in many worlds. Kinda makes you wonder what Pullman’s saying there…wink wink. Whatever you think of Pullman’s perspective on religion, you gotta appreciate his willingness to go there.