The Gods Must Burn by T R Moore
I would like to thank Solaris for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Solaris
Published – Out Now
Price – £18.99 hardback £7.99 ebook
War hero Basuin doesn't know what to believe in anymore. All Basuin knows is life as an army captain and the pain, loss, and disgrace it has brought him. Demoted and humiliated by his legion commander, he is led into the forest for one more mission: capture a god.
But when his commander uses innocent wolf pups as bait, Basuin dies saving them. The Wolf God, impressed by his sacrifice, deifies Basuin to protect the forest and its beautiful, sharp-tongued god from the legion's deforestation.
To the Forest God, Basuin is nothing more than one of the men sent to burn her forest down. Betrayed by humans too many times, she rejects him, working alone to protect the spirits of the forest as her home disappears around her. To save the god he is growing to love, Basuin must untangle the feelings between them.
Otherwise, they'll burn together.
Fantasy has a very long fascination with the concept of the soldier. The epics of the past have them battling monsters, becoming noble kings and as time has passed on we recognise soldiers are human and can very much cross lines from heroics to acts of villainy. In TR Moore’s compelling fantasy novel, The Gods Must Burn we find a soldier at an important crossroads in their life determining who they actually are and the consequences of that decision may save or destroy an entire community.
Basunin was once a feared warrior known as the Black Wolf. But now he is mocked, disliked and feeling like his service to the Queen is nearing an end. Commander Kensy though has some final uses for Basunin and they arrive on a mysterious island already mid-campaign he is told this is place that still has Gods which the Queen will not allow to persist. Kensy and Basunin go on a secret mission into the forest and there a terrible encounter leaves Basunin mortally injured and becomes the vessel for an entity known as the Wolf God. Basunin does not want this, and the island’s own community finds him and a woman named Rem is disturbed that Basunin is required to protect her and the forest from the army ha is part of.
Moore has created a spellbinding tale that works for me because of how delightfully complex Basunin is. We are dropped in the first chapter into a world without much explanation. We find Basunin very much at his lowest ebb full of despair, anger and self-loathing. He is very much not a sympathetic character we know he was once known as the Black Wolf and that is about it. But this story is about what is a soldier and Moore delicately exposes Basunin’s life. Outwardly he is all about the service of his empire, doing what he was told and giving it his all. But slowly e find Basunin is a much more complicated character scarred deeply by his experiences. We find he himself is a member of a conquered land and only joined the army to aid his ailing mother. We see him as someone who finds the family religion outlawed and yet he was still feeling he had to be loyal and even then, the army life he loved ended in blood and the death of the fw people he called friends and even a lover. In this novel that very much works a sa standalone we explore all these facets to him and begin to understand why Basunin hates himself so much that a second chance at life isn’t enough for him and I loved how we get to actually feel deeply for him even when Basunin is not capable of any positive feelings for himself.
Alongside this personal exploration is Basunin’s role as an avatar of the Wolf God. We have this image of a god lying in Basunin’s body snarling and yelling at him and when annoyed eating his organs. It deliciously visceral and yet when Basunin meets the island’s own community we find magical being come in all sorts from those who transform from beasts or terees to the mysterious Rem who is the avatar of the Forest God. A powerful part of the book is these two characters circling around each other. Rem is openly hostile thanks to Basunin’s army destroying her land and yet she starts to see Basunin is more than simply a soldier of the conquerors and offers to explain how magic works. This opens up a bigger story as to what the Gods in this world signify and how the magic work. On one level we have a tale of the almost conquered taking on the coloniser but Moore weaves this with a more epic tale of gods, their birth and their conflicts finally being resolved.
A highlight for me is Moore’s writing. Its poetical, emotional and deliciously crunchy to read. It really immerses you into the world but importantly for this story also the character’s internal battles. As Basunin starts to accept he has a role to play those conflicts as to what a soldier’s role is, really comes to life and Moore is a great storyteller. My only slight issue is I felt the finale ad the final explanations for certain characters’ backstories were being held off a little too long, but I was still very invested in seeing how this ended and the finale pleasingly completes the whole story
I highly recommend The Gods Must Burn and really think Moore’s writing is a delight to read knowing when to be dark, emotional or magical the language weaves a powerful story. I will be very interested to see what future stories Moore has to tell us.
