Review by Zachary Forbes
August 29, 2024
These posts are just our opinions of the books we read, and don't yet reflect the decision of our judging team or the progression of the book in the SFINCS competition.
Summary:
Mute, the brother of a king, arrives at a familiar brothel with a mission. He is there to kill someone. But in what appears to be an ironic twist, he finds his uncle fooling around with his favorite woman, Dorothy.
Mute is disgusted, and in the way his voice is written, the reader can clearly tell he has a certain madness to him. Dorothy is his woman, and therefore could not possibly enjoy being with another man. Mute is also blessed (or in his mind, cursed) with magical abilities from a deity known as The Silent God. By whispering "hush" he is able to silence all noise within a certain vicinity.
Avoiding spoilers, I will only say that Mute makes a decision on how to use his powers here, and it ultimately results in his kidnapping by a rival ruler to his brother. He is beaten on the way there, but ultimately welcomed by the other ruler, who makes a deal with him to overthrow his brother in exchange for a 'friendship' between them, and the promise that Dorothy will serve as his queen.
The ensuing journey brings him back to his own kingdom, where he faces a decision about what to do with his family, his kingdom, and the rest of his life.
The Good:
I cannot give enough praise to the author's voice in this story. Told in first person by an unreliable narrator, this novella will have you right in Mute's head the entire time. He has delusions and opinions that become hardwired into how we read the story, despite us as readers knowing when they aren't true. And despite the often despicable nature of the main character, I couldn't help but feel his emotions along the way. He is deeply flawed. He is out of his league and out of his element. The characters around him all seem to despise him, yet I still empathize. It really is a marvelous portrayal of a flawed protagonist on a doomed path towards nothing.
As with most novellas, it's difficult to get too deep into the world building, but I can at least say for this story that everything does fall into place. This isn't about warring kingdoms or journeys to distant lands. This is a snapshot of a world that this character inhabits. And he is familiar enough with it, from the gods to the kingdoms to the rules, for us as the reader to accept the setting and immerse ourselves in this little tidbit we've been given.
The plot is appropriately tight. Once again, this is a novella in a novella competition, so massive sprawling epics are not really fit for it. Instead, this story follows a personal journey through (arguably) the most transformative few days in this character's life. What precedes and what follows are suggested as times of melancholic monotony, despite the vast change in the character's circumstances.
The Bad:
To my surprise, I don't have much to say here. I write mostly sci-fi and thrillers, so fantasy is not always my cup of tea. But a good story is a good story in any genre, and this novella fits that bill.
The only mark I can genuinely give against it is sometimes the humor doesn't work for me 100%. Mute, in his own fantasy spin, reminds me a lot of a Deadpool archetype. He sees the world in a very particular way and is thus driven to make some strange choices/observations. He's also, to some extent, aware of the nature of the story that he's in. Mute's 'look at the camera' moments come in the form of in-universe references to Amazon and Goodreads, which he refers to as the monopolies of our (the reader's) realm.
This humor isn't a turn-off for everyone, and it isn't done poorly at all. Actually, I would say it fits very well with the supernatural nature of Mute. But sometimes references to real-world elements like this, especially those involving literature itself, can take you just a little bit out of the story.
Overall:
The Whisper That Replaced God is an excellent novella.
Even as I write my gripes, I find myself complimenting the author's unique choices and consistency with his protagonist. Perhaps the greatest sin this story has committed is being the first one from our batch that my brother and I picked out to read, as it sets the bar quite high.
But then again, maybe that is my own fault for choosing it.
Four and a half stars out of five.
Be sure to tune in to our Twitter/X @ZachForbesBro for new blog posts about the novellas we read for the SFINCS competition! And click through to our website if you want to see other projects my brother and I have been working on!
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