Cover Image: David Mogo Godhunter

David Mogo Godhunter

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Member Reviews

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

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Though I finished this book ages ago, I never reviewed it, because it was one of the first ARCs I'd gotten that I flat out disliked and I didn't want to leave a bad review....

But it's still affecting my ratio, so here we go:

This book had SO MUCH POTENTIAL, and it started out so good, but it nose-dived so fast! This story was dragged out so many times. There were so many points in the book that could have been a better end point, and it just kept going, and going, and going, and truthfully, I DNFed it several times before finally making myself sit down and read it cover to cover. I wish the Yoruba terms had been translated within the book, though you can make the argument that Google is only a click away. There's WAY TOO MUCH exposition in this book, too. You aren't really allowed to draw your own conclusions because the author is already telling you what to feel/where to look next. The antagonist was roll-your-eyes level at the end. I think the world needs more fantasy and Sci-Fi set in non-European/Western countries, but this one just didn't do it for me.

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I though this book was okay. I liked the characters and I liked the plot. The book was a little slow at times and hard to follow but other then that I thought it was okay. It didn't really capture me and have me wanting more but I still enjoyed the ride.

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This book was a fun read, I liked Mogo's writing style and world-building, the story was exciting and unique with good character development. I love the cover art and the cultural elements. I did not know I was a fan of the "Nigerian God-Punk" genre but this book convinced me!

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Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an e-arc. I also purchased a physical copy for myself.

I really wanted to love this but the writing style really did not work for me, I found it to be quite disjointed and was left feeling confused because of the slang used that isn't really explained.

I also didn't realise that this is a collection of 3 novellas and not one whole story - each novella also spends a while recapping what happened in the story you have just finished. While this would work if you were reading each story separately, I would have thought that these sections would have been edited out when they were reformatted into one book.

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A new take on classic Urban Fantasy—Godpunk set in Nigeria.

Gods have rained down on Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We enter the story some time later, into the dystopian society that has developed here in the aftermath. David Mogo, our 1st person narrator, is a demi-god working as an illegal godhunter. An old wizard with dubious morals sends David Mogo off to catch two high gods, Taiwo and Kehinde. David is in need of money to fix his roof, so off he goes, despite his misgivings about this wizard. Obviously things don’t go as expected. 

This was the first part in a book that reads like three novellas collected in one volume, with a red thread running through them and each connected closely in terms of time, location and characters. Enjoyable, even though I never really connected with David Mogo on an emotional level.

I looked up a lot about Nigeria, the orishas, Nigerian Pidgin, a lot of vocabulary, food items, clothing styles, etc. Then I was looking up info about Lagos, Victoria Island, Makoko, and, and, and… all this kept slowing down my reading speed, as I kept going off on tangents and looking something up almost constantly… My kind of fun!

I struggled a bit with the Nigerian Pidgin used in some of the dialogues, but decided to just go with it — I hope I managed to get the gist of the conversations. 

Bottomline: I had fun, my imagination got engaged, I learned a lot of new things, I enjoyed the writing. I would read more by this author.

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I've been looking to get into an exploration of African Mythology and Spirituality and DAVID MOGO GODHUNTER is an excellent jumping-off point. Our snarky, always uncertain, feckless-hero protagonist David Mogo is a half-orisha, half-human, in a wildly Apocalyptic Lagos, Nigeria, one in which the gods have fallen to earth after war, and plague humans. But the Apocalypse is far from finished, and David and his compatriots must face war, aggression, tragedy.

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I loved this book! Really just everything about it. I'd read it again and again! Great plots and characters, and I enjoyed discovering the world. I was so entranced and felt that the pacing wasn't too slow. Not only that, but I'm a fan of mythology, so this book was perfect.

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this was so much fun! it was action packed, fast paced, and filled with mythology. however, i found myself not emotionally invested in the characters due to the focus of plot and worldbuilding. overall, a solid read and i cannot wait to read more of suyi davies okungbowa's works in the future.

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A fantastic entry into the ever-emerging shelf of African inspired fantasy, a subgenre that I am overjoyed to see on the rise in speculative fiction.

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David Mogo is a demigod and he works as a freelance godhunter in Lagos, Nigeria. After the Orisha wars, deities invaded Lagos and disturbed the lives of the inhabitants who are now in needs of people like David. He usually does small jobs like hunting godlings, spirits created by the gods, however, he’s not going to repair his old house by only capturing small spirits. David needs something that will pay more. And that something is as follows: he needs to capture two high gods and bring them to an old and renowned wizard that made him an offer he cannot refuse. Even if that might trigger a new war.

Three stars reads are always hard to review, aren’t they? I really enjoyed some parts of this story but other elements prevented me from enjoying the book. Let’s start with the good part: I really liked the world created by Davies Okungbowa. I love reading stories set in Nigeria because they always have a very unique feel to them and they feature myths and folklores I know nothing about. I read several books set in Nigeria that I really liked such as Rosewater, The Fishermen and Lagoon. I love it when books open my eyes to new cultures and countries and make me want to travel. Successfully depicting a country’s feel and culture through writing is difficult and I appreciate it a lot when it’s done well. I think Okungbowa did a fantastic job in this book.

However, while I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the mythology, I had issues that prevented me from connecting with the story. My main issue was with the structure of the story.

I expected David Mogo, Godhunter to be a regular novel following a simple “beginning, middle and end” structure. However, I got a 3 for 1 offer because this book isn’t a regular novel but a trilogy of novellas marketed as a novel. Which means that I got three beginnings, three middles and three ends… As you may know, I love reading shorter works so, I didn’t have an issue with the fact that it was a collection of novellas. What bothered me was the fact that 1) I didn’t know that beforehand 2) I really dislike binge-reading book-series (I love binge-watching TV shows however, I don’t why I’m not the same with book series). Indeed, when I read books from the same series back to back, I tend to really notice “writing formula” of the authors. It means that I detect a lot more the repetitions and flaws of the stories than I would have if I had taken my time with the series.

What showed me that this was a trilogy of novellas, and not a novel with three distinct story-arcs, is the fact that each part started with a recap of the previous one. I completely understand the use of recaps when you are writing sequels but, in this case, it felt very weird. The author spends paragraphs and paragraphs explaining what happened in the part of the story the reader just finished. It felt very awkward and I don’t know why those passages weren’t edited out when the book was published as a good old novel. Also, this structure highlighted how similar the story-arcs were to each-other. David gets himself into a new adventure he doesn’t want to do but is forced to complete, things don’t go as planned, he has to travel, people get killed because of him, he feels guilty and useless and right at the moment he feels like he’s going to lose, something happens and boom, he destroy the bad guy. Do that 3 times and you have this book.

To be honest, I almost DNF this book a couple of times but, I always have a hard time dropping books that I received for review so I ended up finishing it. However, even if I had my issues with the book, some parts were very interesting so I would be willing to read other stories by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. I will just check the reviews beforehand to see if I’m getting into a novel or a collection of shorter works.

Three stars.



I received an ARC copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the publisher. All opinions are my own.

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Extremely fun and engaging. It kept me up late a couple of nights because I wanted to find out what would happen next.
The writing style mixes English and Nigerian, which could make it more difficult for non-native speakers of English, but also gave the story a well-suited flair.
The narrative was quite choppy, there were significant time jumps. I found this distracting at worst and mildly inconvenient at best. This is also the reason I won't be giving the full five stars.

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4/5 stars! What a fantastic book! I found every word enjoyable. Give me a story with gods from any mythos, and I will love it!

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This starts off very interesting but the writing style didn't really work fo rme. I think a shorter version of this story would have been better.

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This was a nice change of pace from common Fantasy reads, both for the storyline and the setting, so if Fantasy is your go to then I suggest picking this up for a bit of a change of scenery as it were.
I enjoyed the story, which was fun and engaging, although initially a little bit confusing purely because the story starts very quickly, that being said this isn’t precisely a bad thing and the confusion doesn’t last long. It’s almost like being surprised for a short while because you’re suddenly in the story rather than being eased into it. You’re just THERE. As I say, not a bad thing at all just not what I was used to.
The scenery is wonderful and I had guessed before reading up on the Author that this is the place they had at the very least been to, and probably more than once with a keen love of it. The descriptions really are gorgeous, and left me feeling both as if I had already been there and leaving me wanting to go ASAP.
The story is very unique, and I loved getting to know the new world and Characters, although it feels like this could be part of a series? Of course, that could just be because I enjoyed it and want to read more!
The writing style is quite individual, but engaging from start to very end. I personally enjoy a book more when there is something different about the Authors ‘voice’, something that makes them unique.
I’m also a sucker for Gods and Mythology. It’s a thing, I’ve always loved reading about them and seeing how people put their own spin on the very traditional stories is something I really enjoy diving into. This was certainly everything I love in one book, Characters that are far from perfect, lots of moment to make me snigger for one reason or another, action and twists and turns.
This is well worth adding to your TBR and giving a go! Having read many of the previous reviews, all I can assume is that those not liking the style/story would general stick within the same general ‘type’ of story, but if you like something that will stand out and be a bit different, you will LOVE this!

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I enjoyed this book as a whole. I found the characters believable and humorous. It was completely different from anything else I had read, and though it took me a while to get my head around some of the dialect, the worldbuilding and mythology the author weaves made up for it,.

I loved the idea of Gods in an almost modern world, with a half human/half orisha Godhunter, we see David grow as a character and as he takes on more and more powerful Gods he realises the potential of his power.

My one issue with the book is I felt it could have ended at multiple points. I flew through it at first and thought oh its ending, that was quick but a look down made me realise I was only 30% of the way through. I did enjoy the book overall and loved the chance to delve into the mythology of a different culture. 3.5*

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David Mogo, Godhunter is unique, fun read with really good character development and excellent writing.

I loved seeing the new cultures and mythologies I'm not that much familiar with. I also really liked the fast-paced scenes and that the book jumped right into the action. Also, the use of different languages was amazing.

I am glad I got to read this book, I feel like it gave something new to me.

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I didn't even finish it, it didn't capture my full attention from the start -- well actually the first few pages did, but once I found the narrator too childlike, I put the book down and never picked it up again. Maybe the plot from what I had read on the back-cover wasn't intriguing enough? Not sure, didn't bother to look further into it having other stuff to read. The cover is amazing and is what attracted me to the novel in the first place. I thank you for the opportunity!

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DNF at 21%
I could'nt connect with any of the characters, let alone the MC. I was mostly confused and lost half the time, and because of that i got bored. Things happened, but i felt it happened too fast and the characters didn't have time to grow on me.

The synopsis and the idea was very good! I just got lost and confused, alot.

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David Mogo is a Godhunter - a man hired to hunt down godlings from the afflicted Lagos and make the haunted places less hostile to humans. Except, Mogo himself is not fully human, but the son of a goddess, raised by a wizard. And, as events escalate, the fight to protect humans from horror will ask of David Mogo to move beyond his humanity, into his full divinity. The price he will have to pay, whether he succeeds or doesn’t, will be a heavy one either way.
Mogo, telling his story in the first person, shares his weaknesses with the reader, while describing a derelict, fabulous, apocalyptic environment plagued by the embodiment of the gods of Nigerian folklore. His narrative of life in Lagos is flawed, dismal, yet poignantly yearning for the simplicity of human interaction. His hero’s journey is clear, asking us what we would do in his stead.

Who would enjoy this
This is clearly an adventure story, reminiscent of tales such as Star Wars or The Hunger Games, though not a teen read. It is fast paced, and aggressive, asking for readers with very visual imaginations, able to ‘sense’ the descriptions the narrator shares. It is also quite bloodthirsty, clean in its warrior quest, irrespective of gender. This is purely a read for entertainment purposes, which would give an added bonus to readers interested in other cultures. And if they enjoy doing information searches, and guessing at vernaculars of barely-there English, the more the fun!

Who should give this a pass
This is not for readers who wish for a love story, or an exaltation of love and peace. Also, this is not a window into Nigerian life, despite its setting and use of cultural and linguistic markers. Thus, I would not recommend it to those looking for a book that would ease them into African literature. On the other hand, it would not fit readers who are hoping to be able to follow the story without understanding said markers. Okungbowa seems to expect the reader to be, or become, aware of those elements, therefore it might not be everyone’s definition of an easy blockbuster read.

Conclusions
David Mogo, Godhunter, is an entertaining book. It is particularly interesting in its weaving of authentic Nigerian cultures into the fantasy of Lagos after the Falling. I found it very revealing, in itself, how it counter-mirrors the concept of the Rapture, by presenting the complete opposite scenario: what if the gods of pagan cultures had been expelled and dumped on our planet, rather than have humans lifted from this planet into a divine after-world? More than that, what makes one event more probable than the other?
Okungbowa builds his tale heavily on both the hero’s journey, and the fast pace of an action thriller, yet retaining enough of his own Lagosian roots to be different. However, the work is not a pretentious tale, despite its careful structure and underlying moral; instead, it is clearly a project aimed at international audiences, both enjoyable and an object of wonder (how much more extreme this could be, if allowed to go full ‘Nollywood’). I enjoyed it quite a lot, the pace making sure I was able to go through it swiftly, the better to be swept into its action.

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