The General, one of the last gods of her kind, plots to destroy her parents and die by suicide to stop what her kind have been doing for centuries: enslaving beings on other planets. Global colonialism. Total worship and feeding on the essence of their followers. Just as she destroys her parents and is about to end herself, The General is rescued by a small team of humans whose damaged ship has landed on The General’s colony. The General, who wants no war, no worshippers, no colonies, grows attached to one human, Logan, who is traumatized by a god named Matouk who destroyed his home planet. The General, who sheds her war identity and deems herself Jane Doe, wasn’t aware that just one more god of her kind, aside from herself, is still conquering and forcing people to worship him. Jane agrees to help repair the ship and destroy Matouk.

The Last God by Jean Davis is the book I bought at a local, small-town comic con because the author brought her pet chicken and got it out of it’s carrier just for me. I mean, if someone is willing to wake up their chicken, I should buy a book, right? The Last God is categorized as science fiction/romance. Sure, Logan and Jane develop a relationship that make them both more human, and it’s a tender bond. But most of the novel is using god powers to repair the ship, healing people by transference of energy, and an exploration of the ethics of how gods operate.

For example, the story implies the reason The General was able to see enslavement as wrong yet do her parents’ bidding, conquering worlds for so long, is because she has compartmentalized herself. The warring side she calls Anika; the empathetic side is Jane. Anika wants to meet with people on new planets, woo them with her god powers, and compel them to worship her, which replenishes the well inside her that gathers power and allows her to operate as a god. Jane prefers to replenish herself with food and sleep, but it’s not long before Logan realizes there isn’t enough food and sleep for a god to defeat another god. Should Jane give in to her combative half?

“She could allow Anika out, gather the crew close as worshippers and feed from them. … Did she want to see them every day, drunk on her presence, scurrying to follow her commands?”

Davis has written the classic story of one individual warring with two halves of themselves, and I immediately thought of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Bruce Banner and The Hulk, Jean Grey and the Phoenix. What sets Jane/Anika apart is their abilities to so efficiently enslave people. They use of the resources of the planet and leave it depleted. Jane acknowledges she’s done these things in the name of her father’s wishes, and she can’t take them back, so does it matter now that she wants to live like a human? At the core of it, she’s been evil for centuries.

The novel concludes with a battle between Jane/Anika and Matouk, and Davis makes it clear what Jane/Anika want to do moving forward — is it the end of the gods, or can she be human? I found The Last God easily readable, interesting, and more of a light sci-fi novel for those who don’t want to go too deep into the weeds on science. Given the god powers, one might label this novel sci-fi/fantasy/romance.