8 Books in Which the Gods Are Having a Very Bad Day

Food of the Gods, by Cassandra Khaw
Khaw’s fix-up novel, collecting two earlier novellas, introduces us to not just one divine pantheon roaming the madcap streets of Kuala Lumpur, but several of them, all wreaking havoc, and all caught in one nose-dive or another. Moreover, they are all ruining Rupert Wong’s karmically challenged life. To pay off spiritual debts, Rupert works two jobs, both supernatural, and both highly disturbing. Rupert splits his time between slicing and dicing as a cannibal chef for gruesome ghouls and keeping a handle on the books for Diyu, the 10-leveled Chinese hell. Almost as plentiful as corpses in Rupert’s lines of work are displeased, feuding, or surly gods, whether of Malaysian, Chinese, or Greek mythology. Have you tried managing client relations when the requestor of your services is Ao Qin, the Dragon King of Chinese lore? It’s not easy, particularly when his beef is with the Greek Furies.

Divine Misfortune, by A. Lee Martinez
If providence is the path you seek, might I suggest you find a god who is not Luka, the raccoon god of prosperity. You can select him as your deity of choice, as poor Teri and Phil did, but what you will wind up with is an omnivorous layabout who is more likely to pal around on the couch with his buddy Quetzalcoatl than do anything useful for you. Unless you like getting in trouble—or admiring Hawaiian shirts.

The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
Stockholm syndrome is real, especially when dealing with otherworldly, all-knowing powers. When her neighborhood was destroyed as a young girl, Carolyn was taken in, along with 11 other displaced children, by Father, a shadowy deity keen on turning these children into a very special breed of Librarian. Now, Father is missing, and his erstwhile orphans, all grown up and gruesomely trained, must find him before it’s too late. Too late for what exactly? Well, it’s not entirely clear, but it is terrifying.

The Prey of Gods, by Nicky Drayden
Drayden’s debut novel features one of the most diverse ensemble casts in recent fictional memory. Among the alternating points of view are a couple of disenfranchised demigoddesses, one just budding into an accidental murder machine and another hell-bent on regaining enough power to cause such mayhem. The stage is set for Nomvula, a young Zulu girl with unexpected and devastating abilities, to challenge Sydney, a down-on-her-luck megalomaniac, for the fate of South Africa, and the world. Along the way, there’s also some hallucinogenics, rogue AI, mind control, and crab-on-dolphin sex, as is custom. 

Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
The most important thing for a god is belief, pure unfettered devotion from hordes of willing followers. This rule of the universe is no different on Pratchett’s Discworld, even if the results are predictably unhinged. The Great God Om was once mighty and proud. Now, he’s been reduced to the corporeal form of a tortoise. How does one recoup some lost dignity from inside a shell? Well, you need to amass some followers, and it all starts with a single acolyte. Even if that acolyte is a simpleton—or, actually, especially if that acolyte is a simpleton.

The Immortals, by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Pretty much since the demise of Ancient Greece, we, as a species, have yearned for the outsized personalities of its mythological figures. The first installment in Brodsky’s Olympus Bound series shows where these gods and goddesses have ended up: the seedy side streets of New York City. Diminished but surviving, Artemis—now calling herself Selene DiSilva—finds herself investigating the gory death of a young woman. What starts as an unsolved murder escalates into a much more dangerous threat, one with divine origins and a familiar face for a one-time goddess. 

Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips
Maybe those fallen Greek gods aren’t living in New York, though. Maybe they’re actually crammed into a crumbling London townhouse, eking out a living with odd jobs and a fair amount of angst. (Apollo is a budding TV psychic and Aphrodite is a phone-sex operator, for starters.) Bored gods, though, make for dangerous gods, particularly when they start meddling with the lives of mortals around them. And you can probably already guess there’s a disarmingly charming trip to the Underworld in your future.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
The funny thing about being a god is that you’re only as good as the people who believe in your, and in Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus of dark Americana, the elder gods are finding good faithful very hard to come by indeed. As such, they find their powers greatly reduced, and their glory next to nonexistent. One eon you’re Czernobog, the black god of Slavic misfortune. The next, you’re living in a dilapidated old building in Chicago, scraping to get by and arguing with your annoying relatives.
What’s you favorite story of unfortunate gods?