I've seen people recommending Metal from Heaven as a novel for fans of the Locked Tomb series for a while, and I definitely get the comparison. This book has a lot in common with both Gideon the Ninth in terms of main character and Harrow the Ninth in terms of form. Unfortunately, it is nowhere near as successful as either novel. In fact, I really struggled to get through this one despite some promising and even delightful elements.

First, the good.

I have frequently complained that many fantasy (and some sci-fi) writers can't be bothered to think through how queerness would operate in their world. Either the whole world is homophobic or the whole world is queernormative but without any interrogation of what that would mean for gender roles, inheritances, etc. August Clarke is a delightful exception to this rule. They have created a world that, in addition to different cultures and religions and magical abilities, also contains varied attitudes toward queerness including different terminology and different ways that specifically lesbians operate within different cultural contexts. Would consider reading more books set in this world simply for that reason.

I also really liked the themes that Clarke was exploring here. This is a novel about capitalism and exploitation and labor rights. It's also a novel about a lesbian going to every length possible to avenge people from their past. I've very glad that these elements were present.

Unfortunately, I struggled with pretty much everything else about this book. It's written in a way that was probably meant to be kind of experimental and surrealist but just ended up being confusing most of the time. I regularly had no idea how we got from one scene to the next. Characters also formed relationships with each other instantly and inorganically, and I didn't really care about any of the interpersonal dynamics because none of them were developed. There were some individual scenes that were great, like a very charged sex scene near the middle, but even that was undercut by the total lack of development of that dynamic. This is a long book, but maybe it could have been a duology considering how much is underdeveloped and also how much happens in the last 15% of it.

I did love the climax, but the ending didn't quite work for me. I see what the author was going for. It just wasn't successful for me as a reader.

Also, this isn't an issue with the text itself, but I listened to the audiobook, and the sheer number of words pronounced incorrectly almost made me DNF about ten times. It was the auditory equivalent of having a noticeable typo every 2-3 pages. I don't blame either the author or the narrator for this, but I wish that there had been some sort of editor or director or SOMEONE noticing all of the mispronunciations before this was released. August Clarke needed a better developmental editor for the content of the book, and the audiobook needed better oversight to make sure it was accurately reflecting the words that Clarke had written. I hope they get more publisher support for the next one, because while some aspects of this book were simply not to my taste, there were others that were dripping with potential and just needed some polishing to be a much richer, more enjoyable read.