God is dead - Ron Currie

God - or Sora, as she's called - has come to earth to experience its conflicts first hand, but adopting a human form also means assuming human frailty and mortality, and when Sora's death - and her true identity - is discovered, the world is immediately and irrevocably changed. Waves of panic, civil unrest and mass suicide sweep the globe; young men take the future into their own hands, armies go to war over fate versus free will, and parents - in the absence of an alternative, and with nothing else to do on a Sunday - turn their children into objects of worship.

On the surface, this is a world that is utterly transformed. Yet as protective parents clash with wilful teenagers, seemingly mis-matched couples conduct clandestine affairs, and small-town gossips thrive on rumour and innuendo, certain things remain unchanged. In fact, perhaps the biggest surprise for those who survive the initial shock is that - even without God - life goes on.

In God is Dead, Ron Currie combines the satirical prescience of Jonathan Swift, the dark appeal of Chuck Palaniuk and the provocative enquiry of Kurt Vonnegut. At the same time, God is Dead is truly - and terrifyingly - original; blasphemous and heretical, it's an exceptional debut and a remarkable read.