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c_dmckinney's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Abandonment, Kidnapping, Cancer, Grief, Slavery, Xenophobia, Gun violence, and Murder
Minor: Animal death, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Trafficking, Body horror, Death of parent, Murder, Confinement, Gore, Terminal illness, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
howlinglibraries's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
One moment, everything was normal. The next, physics and mathematics were negotiable things, and the supposed laws that had always governed biology were shattered beyond all repair.
This is a story about breaking rules, which is ironic, because it broke one of my rules as a reader. Generally speaking, I don't read a lot of sci-fi, and what I do read is what you'd consider Sci-Fi Lite™️. I like stories set in space, the future, etc., but if you start bringing mathematics and physics and particles and atoms into the writing, I'll usually zone out pretty quickly. (I'm working on it, but it's slow progress.) Leave it to Mira Grant to somehow include those things in a story and still keep me nothing less than 100% engaged from start to finish.
Her masters had created a world where their own citizens couldn't trust them to help without trying to take over, where their primary goal after a world-changing natural disaster was not "how can we use this tragedy to make the world better" but "how can we use this to kill people more effectively?"
What's more, though, is that this is a story about failing government systems, people being forgotten and taken advantage of by the powers that be, and the impossibility of humanity thriving under the fists of capitalism and war. Perhaps that's part of why I loved this book so much, and why it resonated so deeply with me: it's a book written during a pandemic, referencing the pandemic and aftereffects of it, and at times, it points a jaded finger at a government that sat idly by and pursued money while its citizens died and chaos erupted — all while bearing an underlying tone of resentment that I feel in my bones, just like the author (if you follow her tweets as closely as I do, you already know).
No, the monsters weren't coming from Evanston this time. They were in Chicago, they were in the government, they were in tailored suits and boardrooms, making plans about people and profit.
And, at the end of the day, it's a story about monsters, too. From the insidious suit-and-tie wearing ones all the way to the big, otherworldly ones. It's a horrific, infuriating, painful, sometimes heart-warming story, wrapped up in Mira's distinct, beautiful, clever writing, and I loved every single page of it.
✨ Representation: Katherine is autistic; Harris is queer
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Death, Gore, Violence, War, and Kidnapping
schnaucl's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This book is more optimistic about people than I am while still being pretty cynical about government. QAnon is briefly acknowledged, but a conspiracy doesn't grow around the incursions because not enough people believe it. At this point I'm not sure what you couldn't get large segments of the population to believe. Surely some people would be absolutely convinced it was the work of one or more enemy countries (who naturally had false flag operations on their own population so they wouldn't be blamed).
I'm also not sure one or more countries wouldn't take the incursions as an excuse to go to war. Maybe they were too busy cleaning up the aftermath and were afraid there would be more incursions. Or maybe the novella was just too short to get into it.
I do wish we'd spent a little more time with Katharine and Susan before they were separated because I liked their interaction and would have liked to see more of it, but again, novella.
As always, it was very well written. The science seems well thought out (though I'm a lay person so maybe it just sounds convincing). I did think the detail about the creatures having to bring their own physics with them to exist in our world was interesting and I remember the author talking about how an animal that large would collapse under its own weight in reality, hence the laws of physics being rewritten to allow it to happen.
I'm also not sure one or more countries wouldn't take the incursions as an excuse to go to war. Maybe they were too busy cleaning up the aftermath and were afraid there would be more incursions. Or maybe the novella was just too short to get into it.
I do wish we'd spent a little more time with Katharine and Susan before they were separated because I liked their interaction and would have liked to see more of it, but again, novella.
As always, it was very well written. The science seems well thought out (though I'm a lay person so maybe it just sounds convincing). I did think the detail about the creatures having to bring their own physics with them to exist in our world was interesting and I remember the author talking about how an animal that large would collapse under its own weight in reality, hence the laws of physics being rewritten to allow it to happen.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Violence and Blood
Minor: Death, Kidnapping, and Death of parent
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