Such novels tend to explore the consequences of the gods’ return, or their departure: what happens if the gods come back? What happens if they leave? How will humanity cope with them or without them? Fantasy has done this too, in its own way, but I have not encountered very many novels that play around with this idea.įantasy has, of course, played with this concept as well, perhaps for longer than even urban fantasy ever has, since there are many, many novels that hinge on the idea of the gods returning to the world, or the gods leaving the world. The concept has even filtered down into young-adult novels, with Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson novels being a prime example. Since that time I have, of course, read about the mythologies of other countries, and have also had access to other novels that explore this concept – American Gods is the first one I read that explores this idea, and since then there have been a lot of urban fantasy novels that have tried to look at the idea of not just gods, but all kinds of mythological entities, living side-by-side with humans. When I first got into mythology, one of the questions I asked myself was: what if the gods still walked amongst us? At the time I was only nine or ten, and the scope of my knowledge of any kind of mythology was limited to the Greek pantheon, and hence when I considered the question it mostly had to do with the possibility of Athena showing up on my doorstep and asking me to go on a quest on her behalf.

The broken kingdoms by nk jemisin