Hurley’s characters are pleasantly diverse, and I liked the imbalance towards more female characters. They embody everything about each other’s culture that they don’t like, and yet they are drawn to each other nevertheless, and have created a mutually beneficial arrangement that seems to suit them both. Rhys, her pet magician (and the second ‘main’ character), is long-suffering, but they have a really interesting dynamic. She’s reckless, cavalier, and self-destructive.

(This is why the term “bugpunk” has been coined, and you’ll quickly see how suitable it is.) Nyx can be brutal (emotionally and physically) to those close to her. The two sides are constantly experimenting with new and innovative ways of causing mass-murder, often utilising the novel’s greatest creating: the bug-related bio-tech. The two main nations featured are at war with each other, and have been for quite some time. Then we jump forward about seven years, and Nyx has moved on from her bel dame past and is working as a bounty hunter with a motley crew of violent and eccentric misfits. We get a few hints of her past, but not too many until very near the end. She’s been doing work on the side, which she really shouldn’t, and her sisters do not take kindly to this. She is a somewhat troublesome, sometime rogue “bel dame” (a sanctioned bounty hunter and enforcer, I suppose). The short Part One is a rapid-fire, near-riotous introduction to Nasheenian society and our main protagonist, Nyx. It also has one of the greatest, make-you-sit-up-and-take-note first sentences: “Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.” It’s not going to be to everyone’s taste, but it’s tightly written, well-constructed (for the most part), and… well, bonkers. I took my sweet time getting to it, for reasons I cannot fathom, but since its release in 2010 it’s received a lot of positive coverage from around the blogosphere. This is an unconventional, highly original and enjoyable debut sci-fi novel. The head they want her to bring home could end the war – but at what price? But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx’s ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. There’s not a chance in hell of ending it. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there's one thing everybody agrees on.

On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers.

One prayer more or less wouldn’t make any difference. The start of a new, unconventional SF trilogy

God's War by Kameron Hurley