James Lovegrove's latest volume in the bestselling Pantheon series - which brings the gods to Earth and pitches them against secular, hi-tech forces - rings the changes with an ingenious conceit. This time the gods are manmade and fighting for their lives as they attempt to outwit their creators and save the planet. The novel hits the ground running when comics artist Zachary Bramwell is abducted by a quartet of thugs and spirited to the tropical island redoubt of the Trinity, ruthless businessmen whose greed threatens the planet with nuclear Armageddon. Through the process of "theogenesis" the Trinity has transformed men into superheroes - the 10 avatars of Vishnu from the Hindu mythos - whom they plan to hire out as mercenaries. Laddish, wisecracking Bramwell finds himself in the thick of things, and we watch him mature and develop as he takes on the mantle of Hanuman, the monkey god, and confronts the Trinity in a wonderfully ambiguous set-piece denouement. --The Guardian