Godfall – Van Jensen
Brought up in Little Springs, population just north of seven thousand and going down every year as folks drift away, on its way to becoming another Nebraska ghost town, David Blunt has had an eventful life, going on thirty years, three as sheriff, knowing everyone left on account of having grown up with them, though that cuts little slack when it comes to laying down the law when there’s trouble.
Orphaned when a tornado took his parents, raised by his aunt and uncle but closer with his grandfather whom he still visits in the nursing home, everything changed when the impaled giant crashed down in the prairielands, three miles long and, miraculously and inexplicably, a soft landing, the alien object intact.
Little Springs ground zero, in two years media, scientists, the military and the cult arrived, and now a murderer, three killings with the same modus operandi, the first dismissed as random until the pattern emerged, David shut out of the investigation because of the secrecy surrounding Gulliver and the Spire, even though his own cousin was the latest victim.
A thriller wearing the clothes of science fiction, a conspiracy of denials and distractions, though with no carpet large enough to sweep Gulliver under all that can be done is to build a wall around its prone stone form, Godfall is the debut novel of comic writer Van Jensen, already optioned by Ron Howard who will presumably smooth substantial filler in the cracks.
Gulliver obviously a constructed artifact, evidence of extra-terrestrial life and intelligence, the question of its origin and significance is never raised, a gimmick literally dropped from the sky to propel the narrative with its massive yet inert presence, the cult prime suspects in the murders though the only scientific enquiry seems to be into mineral content rather than what its very existence implies about the cosmos.
Some believing Gulliver was once alive, killed by the Spire and tumbling through space for eternity locked together, the possibility creeps into conversation without ever being explored, detail which might add depth to the situation sidelined in favour of an investigation hindered by the military who actively conceal information, a disdain which only makes sense in terms of adding chapters to the book by slowing progress.
The military warning David his suspect is off limits without explaining why, a red flag in an investigation, rather than intervening they allow them to attack the sheriff twice, and it is presumably from being repeatedly knocked about the head that David thinks it is a good idea to allow the town’s Crane Dance festival to go ahead despite the danger and directed threats – the killer would never try anything in a crowd, would they?
The parallel mysteries unresolved or trite, David’s grandfather’s episodes of lucidity and the dark secret of a homecoming reporter getting her big break, there is a sense a stronger hand would have been able to shape something smarter rather than pitching spectacle geared towards the adaptation; as it is Godfall reads as promising but disconnected ideas rather than the polished final draft, though infinitely better than The Feed, similarly published as a stepping stone to television rather than an end to itself.
Godfall is available now from Bantam
