The Guf stands empty.
The last human soul in all of existence has been stolen by the Devil and his children, the Seven Deadly Sins, and humanity’s end is in sight. With no other choice, God enlists Heaven’s hatchet man— an entity called Grey that is neither angel nor demon—to retrieve the soul and save the world.
Dark bleatings, my mysterious tribe. I’m here to talk about a book that’s an absolute hoot today – Grey, by Ian Rogers. For those who like books like John Dies at the End, or Gavin Dillinger’s excellent An Exploration of Existential Indifference in a Void of Confidence, this might be right up your street. It’s not, by any means, in the same bizarro ballpark as John, but it does have that great comedic flair despite the worldly perils, and the humour comes entirely from the protagonist and his attitude towards everything that’s happening.
Grey is brought to Earth by Metatron for the sole purpose of retrieving the last human soul, which was swiped from a jar in Heaven. The human race is facing extinction, since people can’t seem to conceive children anymore, and the status quo has gone all higgildy piggildy. Vegas, where he needs to go, is now run entirely by women, and strange men are not exactly welcome. It’s very “the prostitutes from Sin City“, I think.
Grey’s journey is one of rediscovery because the world as he knew it is gone, and so he’s ambling around trying to figure out what the current circumstances are. This is a lot of fun for us, the reader, since we’re just ambling around with him, piecing it together as he does. The world of this book isn’t completely alien to us either and it spells out a dystopian future, where at least Grey maintains his sassy sense of humour, despite everyone and everything trying to kill him.
We’re dealing with biblical elements and characters and concepts, and so it would have been so easy for this book to slide into the realm of stereotyping and predictable story beats, but the author kept us on our toes and guessing about where the plot would take us. I honestly had no idea where this was going but I was definitely along for the ride, and I was highly amused (even if I was also extremely disturbed) at the end.
Overall, I loved it, and I’d recommend it to people who enjoy their apocalypse with a side of funny. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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