This book was reviewed for Readers’ Favourite.

 

Fossilised Gods by J Simon has got to be one of the funniest books I’ve read in quite a while! It’s a unique brand of humour full of hidden wisdom and thought-provoking questions, such as- what happens when the worship of a god stops and how are new gods created?

 

This story follows a dormant deity known as ‘Samantha’, as she wakes and re-enters the human world. Along with her come three others, pulled along for the ride- Grock, Zaram, and Echo. They find themselves in a museum of sorts, part of a campus department known as Gods, housing the dormant remains of myriad sleeping deities, collected and curated by Professor Harrington, and his associate Eagleton.

 

Samantha and her companions take up residence in the hall’s of the museum, learning about the modern human world and about themselves. There’s another god waking though, a god more dangerous than any other. Time and again, Sam and her friends thwart this adversary, though the challenges increase.

Simon’s work can be taken as a humorous light-hearted read on one level. If you look deeper, though, you will find a rich bevy of philosophical questions just beneath the surface, as the novel takes a witty look at the nature of deity as human creations, how belief, or lack thereof, can strengthen or weaken ideas, how modern constructs can take on the force of deity, and how ancient beliefs can be reshaped by the priests of modern myth- fiction writers.

 

If you enjoy humour along the lines of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, you are sure to enjoy J Simon’s Fossilized Gods. Go check it out!