Godfall by Van Jensen

Van Jensen’s Godfall is a fascinating amalgam of small town detective story and big idea science fiction. Set in the formerly small town of Little Springs, Nebraska, Godfall looks at what happens to that town and its inhabitants when the unthinkable occurs. That is the sudden arrival of a three-mile-long alien figure, pierced through the chest. While most thought the arrival of the figure would bring the end of the world, it landed softly outside of the town but since that time has been inert.

The story of Godfall centres around Sherriff David Blunt, who until the arrival of the giant had to police a small town in which nothing much happened. Three years after the arrival of the giant the town has exploded, the site is controlled by the military and land sales are making people wealthy but ripping apart the fabric of the once small town. A series of strange murders piques David’s interest but he is shut out by the FBI. It is not until his brother becomes one of the victims and it seems that the murderer has weird abilities that he gets involved. The FBI reluctantly bring David into the investigation which all starts to revolve around the giant and the uses that people want to put it to.

Jensen delivers a fast paced crime novel with some interesting reveals and tense moments. But he leaves more questions than he answers. The giant is used a catalyst for a number of plot strands – the cult like Tonys, corruption in the military, the shredding of a small town’s identity – but at the end of the book remains a complete mystery, not only its origin and the worrying detail that it seems to have been killed by the lance through its chest, but what its arrival might mean for humanity.

In the end Godfall feels like the start of the type of puzzlebox tv series that JJ Abrams excels at delivering. It uses the familiar tropes of a crime procedural but embeds them in a much broader mystery. Unfortunately, much like Abrams, Jensen leaves his puzzlebox mostly unopened. While this feels like a standalone novel, if Jensen does have some answers up his sleeve it may be the set up for another, very different book which could be even more interesting.

Godfall by Van Jensen

7.5

7.5/10