Godheads by Emily Devenport

Eight people attended the discussion of Godheads. This is a far future science fiction novel with elements of suspense and mystery. The basic plot follows a young woman sent by a human intelligence organization to infiltrate an alien computer network. Before joining the intelligence organization, the protagonist had been a convicted criminal who was punished by having her mind wiped and being sentenced to several hundred years of cryogenic slumber. Supposedly rehabilitated and retrained, during the course of her mission she begins to have strange dreams and flashes of memory from her pre-wiped self. Ultimately she starts to question everything she knows. The story involves interplanetary travel, psychedelic drugs, lots of sex with aliens, and shopping at a futuristic mall. The fast-paced story never lets up.

All of us finished the novel, except for one who hadn’t had a chance to start it. Only one person had read Devenport before, but that didn’t hinder our enjoyment. We all enjoyed the book quite a bit. The author dealt with complicated material and a complex story structure, yet her writing was always clear. The story’s focus was not its spy elements, which we expected from the cover. Instead, the main story is the protagonist’s identity crisis, which is fascinating.

We noticed that several books we’ve read recently have had protagonists with faulty memories. For the record, the others were The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson, The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter, and Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey. We liked most of these books quite a bit, so we have no problem with this trend. It seems like a new sub-genre of SF may be emerging.

We recommend that you check out Eggheads. We enjoyed it a lot, and we’re planning to check out Devenport’s other books.

— A. T. Campbell, III