- Title: Necessarily Evil: Subversion (Divine Sitcom #5)
- Author: Shad Nemo Freud
- Publisher: Independently Published on July 23, 2021
- Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
- Pages: Unknown
- Formats Available: Digital
- Rating: 5/5
Trigger Warnings: Graphic Violence, Gore
Many thanks to Shad Freud for providing me with a copy of Necessarily Evil: Subversion with a request for an honest review.
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About Necessarily Evil: Subversion
Weary is the brow that wears the crown. Pope Cenere Brown cursed that old saw in the first year he was Pope, especially when friends of his went to their deaths while he sat in safety behind a desk. And now, the very snake men that murdered his sons’ darkfather threaten the Vatican, an insidious cult striving to raise their dead god Typhon.
As if that weren’t enough, the dark god Malakali seeks to conquer Heaven, and destroy everything Jehovah has worked for millennia to create. The spiteful former Archangel’s assistant, Loki Odinson, assists from the shadows, seeking the remaining keys to free Tiamat from her imprisonment in the Abyss.
To further complicate matters, Engels McGillicutty seeks to resurrect his company from the ashes. What will the last Scion of McG unearth in pursuit of his ultimate goal?
Provided by the Author for Review Use
My Review
Once again, readers journey through the Divine Sitcom with Necessarily Evil: Subversion. Shad Freud delivers this fifth volume of the series with the gloves off. Long-time favorites suffer while the bad guys run amok. Some of the characters we barely got to know.
Cenere is the Pope, but he hates every minute of it. All he wants is to head down to the sewers to wipe out the snake vermin that control the Vatican. Cenere has to sit there while Camilla and his friends all go about their business of clearing the city. However, far from Vatican City, Malikali tries to rule the Heavenly plane. What happens to Heaven is awful, and the outcome even worse thanks to Engels McGillicutty. Engles busies himself with making weapons of mass destruction in his lab. His desire to help Malikali in his destruction makes everyone around him lethal.
This series started with Necessarily Evil: Prophecy, and it was like nothing I’ve ever read. We have Satanists running Missions on behalf of Lucifer. Those characters got up to some major hijinks that made me laugh through the gore. I swear it was the funniest book I had read in a long time. But, Shad went a completely different way with the next four novels. These novels are dark and not that funny. I admit that I felt a bit let down that the comedy didn’t follow. What I got instead was a set of stories with my favorite characters but in an unrecognizable format. Even though I didn’t like the lost humor, I found myself enjoying these stories as a different series. I recommend reading the books in order as they do not work well as stand-alone novels.
Anyway, I’ve verged off-topic here. Let’s get back to my review of Subversion.
I loved this book as much as I loved the four that preceded it. But, I found this one to be the darkest of all the books so far. So many people I loved endure tragedy, including Cenere and his new wife, Camilla. I’m afraid of what will come of Cenere in the next novel. New friends don’t get a chance to flourish. But, the dastardly Malikali has no repercussions, which annoys me to no end. I made my dissatisfaction with this well-known to the illustrious author.
There were a lot of tears shed while reading this book. My anger reached new thresholds. I seriously considered telling Shad where he could put his novel, and it wasn’t pretty. But, for me, this means that the author did something that not a lot of authors can do. Shad made me feel an intensity that I didn’t expect. The simple fact that I was on an emotional roller coaster lets me know that this book is something special.
I am happy to award Necessarily Evil: Subversion a full 5 out of 5 stars. I will warn you this series is not for everyone. I thought I would hate it for sure when Shad approached me with Prophecy, but I found myself surprised to love it. So, even if this doesn’t sound like your thing, I beg of you to give it a try. You may find that you love it too.
See My Reviews for Necessarily Evil: Prophecy (Book 1) and Infection (Book 4)
I don’t know if this series is for me, but I appreciate that they are so well written that they invoke such an emotional response from you. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to try these!
They are like nothing I’ve ever read before. That’s for sure. ?