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24th Mar '13 8:58:27 PM Xtifr

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[[quoteright:273:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/godswarcover_2091.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:273:The cover of the first book, featuring our favorite BackToBackBadasses.]]

A ScienceFiction trilogy by Kameron Hurley.

On the plague-ridden planet of Umayma, a holy war has been raging for as long as anyone can remember. Nyxnissa so Dasheem, a [[ProfessionalKiller Bel Dame]] who cuts off heads for the government, could end the war with the head she's bringing home this time--but at what cost?

The first two books are ''God's War'' and ''Infidel''. The third book, ''Rapture,'' is due out October 23, 2012.
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!!These books contain examples of:
* TheAlcoholic: Nyx. Her substances of choice seem to be whiskey, sen and sometimes morphine, but at the beginning of the second book she's "sworn off whiskey" and we see her down ''[[CompletelyMissingThePoint a fifth of vodka]].'' For ''breakfast.''
* AdultFear: In the second book, [[spoiler:Rhys loses his children. Khos thinks he has lost his.]]
* AlienSky: With BinarySuns--one big orange one and one little blue one--and multiple moons that take ''twenty years'' to complete their orbit.
* AntiHero: Nyx is a solid Type IV.
* ArcWords: "We're all trying to cure the war."
* TheAtoner: Rhys, to a significant extent.
** Nyx is this, too, as we find out more about what really happened at the front.
* AxCrazy: Rasheeda loves her some ColdBloodedTorture. She doesn't need weapons, either: Nyx notes that she has seen her ''claw out other people's eyes'' ''[[ImAHumanitarian and eat them]]''.
* {{Badass}}: Nyx, ''of course''. Rhys. Khos. Inaya [[TookALevelInBadass levels up in a major way]] at the end of the first book.
* BavarianFireDrill: This is how Nyx, Anneke and Khos get into Nikodem's residence in the first book.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Nyx to Rhys.
* BerserkButton: Do ''not'' do anything to hurt Rhys. Nyx will trounce you.
* BioPunk: Kind of, but more specific. Kameron Hurley invented her own form of [[PunkPunk punk]]: Bug Punk.
* BlackAndGreyMorality
* BodyHorror: SO MANY instances: [[spoiler:We know that Nyx cut off Raine's cock, inducing his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against her. Later in the first book Nyx loses two fingers to ColdBloodedTorture by Rashida, as well as almost losing her legs to bloodworms as part of the torture. In the second book her chest ''explodes'' from a magical disease, leaving her with almost no breast tissue.]] But the most horrifying example thus far is in the second book: [[spoiler: Rhys not only loses his hands, but ''has to have them replaced with someone else's.'' They're ugly and stubby and ''not his.'' Nyx hates them almost as much as he does.]]
* BookDumb: Nyx is pretty obviously (to the reader, anyway) dyslexic. When she was growing up, her teachers all thought she was just stupid.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Nyx gets a nice one in at Yah Tayyib at the end of the first book.
** In the same book we learn that Rhys [[spoiler: tried to do this with his father. It didn't end well.]]
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: With ''actual, literal guns'' which Anneke leaves in the trunk of Nyx's bakkie]] in the first book.
* CombatPragmatist: Nyx. In addition to not fighting fair, she is pretty much always armed to the teeth: a sword, knives, more knives, a pistol, [[MoreDakka bullets sewn into her clothing]], [[WhipItGood a whip]], garroting wire (which she uses as sandal laces and clothing drawstrings), razor blades tucked into the soles of her sandals, and ''[[CrazyPrepared poison needles in her hair]].'' And we see her use ''[[ChekhovsArmoury all of them]]'' throughout the series.
* CrapsackWorld: And ''how!'' In addition to the holy war that's been raging for generations, the whole planet is an ecological mess. [[{{Terraform}} Terraforming]] somehow [[GoneHorriblyWrong went awry]], so Umayma is plagued by giant insects, blisteringly hot climates and deadly diseases. Skin cancer is as common as, well, the common cold, due to the twin suns in the sky. (Don't worry--I know a good magician who can [[{{Squick}} scrape you for cancers]].)
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Just about ''everyone'' on Nyx's team.
* DeadGuyJunior: In the second book, we learn that Inaya's son is called [[spoiler:Tatie.]]
* DeathIsCheap: It is if you're a bel dame with access to a good magician.
* {{Determinator}}: Nyx, full stop. Khos's narration sums it up beautifully:
-->Her eyes were hard and black, and she looked at him the way she looked at everything else in her life--with cold determination, a willingness to part with whatever she knew, she saw, she had, to accomplish whatever she set herself to. [...] The world could burn around her, the cities turn to dust, the cries of a hundred thousand fill the air, and she would get up after the fire died and walk barefoot and burned over the charred soil in search of clean water, a weapon, a purpose. She would rebuild.
* EveryoneIsBi: Nasheenian society is run by women because all their men get shipped off to the front at age 16. As a result, plenty of women sleep with other women.
--> '''Eshe:''' ''(about a girl to whom he was talking)'' "She has a girlfriend."
--> '''Nyx:''' "This is Nasheen. Everybody has a girlfriend."
** Chenjans, who are quite puritanical, view Nasheenians as [[DepravedBisexual godless and depraved]].
* FantasticRacism: There is serious societal discrimination against [[{{Shapeshifting}} shifters]] in Ras Tieg and Tirhan.
** Good old-fashioned racism abounds, too. During Rhys's time in Nasheen, practically every Nasheenian woman on the street hurls slurs at him, "black man" being the mildest.
* ForeverWar: Between Nasheen and Chenja, who have been fighting for over three hundred years. Also a HopelessWar at the start of the trilogy.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Taite]] in the first book. Subverted with [[spoiler:Nyx--she tells Rhys the truth about her time at the front near the end of the first book. Turns out she's not a war hero at all--she got her boys killed, then [[TheAtoner lit herself on fire in an attempt to punish herself]].]]
* HonorBeforeReason: Rhys. He ''is'' TheAtoner, after all.
* IneptMage: Rhys, quite a bit. He's not terribly good at controlling bugs--a skill which is at the heart of all magic in this 'verse--at the ''best'' of times, let alone under pressure. And Nyx and her team are ''always'' under pressure.
* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler:Averted with Rhys's children]] in the second book.
* InternalizedCategorism: Inaya against shifters in the first book.
* {{Islam}} [[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE]]: Along with Future Space Catholics and Future Space Orthodox Jews, among others. It's sort of implied that all the different races and religions came from EarthThatWas, but seeing as 3,000 years have passed between the time the First Families settled Umayma and the time the books take place, the details are very fuzzy indeed.
* MagicPants: Averted. Every time a shifter transforms back into his or her human form, s/he's stark naked, [[{{Squick}} covered in mucus]], and [[BigEater starving for protein]].
* {{Magitek}}: Actually, the life energy of ''bugs'' is magic as technology. Almost every kind of technology on this world--from automobiles to lamps to security cameras to [[LockDown quarantine]] [[SomeKindOfForceField filters]]--runs on bugs.
* MandatoryUnretirement: The Queen forces Nyx to work for her again in the second book.
* NoPronunciationGuide
* NotSoDifferent: The Queen tries to pull this on Nyx at the end of the first book. Nyx doesn't buy it.
-->'''Queen Zaynab''': "We must decide, in the end, whose life matters most and how many can be sacrificed to preserve those few."
-->'''Nyx''': "Who decides who the best few are?"
-->'''Queen Zaynab''': "We do, Nyxnissa. We are not so different, you and I."
-->'''Nyx''': "From where I'm standing, you and me don't have much in common."
* PrettyBoy: Rhys, A LOT. Almost EVERY character comments on how pretty he is. And due to his status as an IneptMage, it may well be the only reason Nyx keeps him on the team in the first book.
* RunningGag: Nyx is a lousy shot. She may be a decent boxer, and an excellent fighter when it comes to swords, knives, and her whip ([[WhipItGood her favorite]])--but she can't shoot worth a [[IncrediblyLamePun damn]].
* ShutUpHannibal: Nyx gives Nikodem an epic one in the first book:
-->'''Nikodem''': "You're just an uneducated bloodletter. What do you know about God's plan, about the salvation of your soul?"
-->'''Nyx''': "No more than a butcher. But a butcher knows how to serve it halal."
* TheSvengali: Raine to Nyx, complete with "I made you!" as they fight [[spoiler:before Nyx kills him]] in the first book.
* TimeSkip: At the end of Part I of the first book, we skip a year (the year Nyx is in prison). Then seven more years pass between Part I and Part II. And between the end of the first book and the start of the second, there is another time skip of six years.
* TranslationConvention: All the dialogue (at least, all the dialogue the characters can understand) is written in English, though they are speaking Nasheenian, Chenjan, etc.
* TrueCompanions: Nyx's team. [[spoiler:That is, until Khos leaves a battered Nyx and a wounded, drugged Rhys for dead in the desert at the end of the first book, taking Inaya and the bakkie with him.]]
* UniversalUniverseTime: Averted. A day on Umayma has 27 hours and a week has 9 days. (It's not really clear how long a year is.)
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Discussed InUniverse, even! Khos asks Nyx if she's fucked Rhys yet. When she says no, he replies with something along the lines of "Just do it, already!"
* UnusualEuphemism[=/=]FutureSlang: "Catshit" is used in place of "bullshit". (Sandcats are large creatures used to pull carts.)
** In the second book, Eshe becomes enamored of the colorful phrases a Tirhani taxi driver hurls at the group: "Did he just call us 'whores of roaches'?"
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Most women, Nyx notes, are "broken old crones" by the time they're 30. It's partly the desert, partly the two suns in the sky, and partly the hard living. The Queen of Nasheen and others of wealth who have lived their lives indoors tend to be OlderThanTheyLook.
** Then again, we're not sure how long a year is on Umayma. It may be longer than an Earth year...
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19th Jan '13 9:21:42 PM Peteman

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You cannot avert things hard.

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10th Nov '12 10:26:26 AM countrymatters

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* BodyHorror: SO MANY instances: [[spoiler:We know that Nyx cut off Raine's cock, inducing his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against her. Later in the first book Nyx loses an ear to ColdBloodedTorture by Rashida. In the second book her chest ''explodes'' from a magical disease, leaving her with almost no breast tissue.]] But the most horrifying example is probably [[spoiler: Rhys not only losing his hands in the second book, but ''having them replaced with someone else's.'' They're ugly and stubby and ''not his.'' Nyx hates them almost as much as he does.]]
* CombatPragmatist: Nyx. In addition to not fighting fair, she is pretty much always armed to the teeth: swords, knives, more knives, a pistol, [[MoreDakka bullets sewn into her clothing]], garroting wire (which she uses as sandal laces and trouser drawstrings), razor blades tucked into the soles of her sandals, and ''[[CrazyPrepared poison needles in her hair]].'' And we see her use ''[[ChekhovsArmoury all of them]]'' throughout the series.

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* BodyHorror: SO MANY instances: [[spoiler:We know that Nyx cut off Raine's cock, inducing his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against her. Later in the first book Nyx loses two fingers to ColdBloodedTorture by Rashida, as well as almost losing her legs to bloodworms as part of the torture. In the second book her chest ''explodes'' from a magical disease, leaving her with almost no breast tissue.]] But the most horrifying example thus far is in the second book: [[spoiler: Rhys not only loses his hands, but ''has to have them replaced with someone else's.'' They're ugly and stubby and ''not his.'' Nyx hates them almost as much as he does.]]
* BookDumb: Nyx is pretty obviously (to the reader, anyway) dyslexic. When she was growing up, her teachers all thought she was just stupid.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Nyx gets a nice one in at Yah Tayyib at the end of the first book.
** In the same book we learn that Rhys [[spoiler: tried to do this with his father. It didn't end well.]]
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: With ''actual, literal guns'' which Anneke leaves in the trunk of Nyx's bakkie]] in the first book.
* CombatPragmatist: Nyx. In addition to not fighting fair, she is pretty much always armed to the teeth: a sword, knives, more knives, a pistol, [[MoreDakka bullets sewn into her clothing]], [[WhipItGood a whip]], garroting wire (which she uses as sandal laces and clothing drawstrings), razor blades tucked into the soles of her sandals, and ''[[CrazyPrepared poison needles in her hair]].'' And we see her use ''[[ChekhovsArmoury all of them]]'' throughout the series.

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7th Oct '12 11:47:11 AM countrymatters