This novel is bold and evocative from a distance, but closer inspection reveals snags in the tapestry. Appleseed follows three men in three different timelines, but already from that first, most basic description of the book, I find a snag. Two of the three characters, Chapman and C-433, are fauns, while John is human. While the end of the book reveals something of an explanation for why John isn’t a faun, the question really is, why are two of the characters fauns at all, particularly Chapman? This is another of those moments that look bold and evocative from a distance; the faun as a chimeric and mythological creature presents space for conversations about autonomy, individualism, philosophical and theological divides between human and nature, and many other conversations relevant to the book’s core concerns with environment, ecology, and climate change. But none of those things really emerge. At moments, particularly at the end, some of those elements are taken into consideration, but for me, it was too little, too late. 

Chapman’s entire storyline is baffling to me, particularly in terms of its connection to the other two. I kept waiting the entire book for Chapman’s relevance to appear more concretely (as the connection between John and C-433 did), but that was never offered to the reader. I have a theory, based on some mid-book events, of how all three are linked together (beyond the fact, the stories mostly take place in the same geographic area), but this link is tenuous and based on extrapolation. This would be fine if the connections between John and C-433 were equally extrapolated. Chapman also introduces us to a strange melding of Greek and Christian myths. I’m not at all persuaded by how Bell tried to combine the Eden story and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The former I can understand; the apple motifs, the desire for natural perfection, etc. That all makes sense. But I sat with my knowledge of Orpheus and Eurydice and the information Bell presents in his novel, and I cannot come up with any good reason for how or why those two should be connected to a story about climate change. Eury’s speech explaining why she named her secret project Orpheus did not explain enough; the interaction between Chapman and the witches did not explain enough. 

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I kept asking myself why it was taking me so long to finish, why I found myself reaching for other books instead of this one. I believe my subconscious reasons were the disappointment of seeing a compelling idea executed weakly and growing annoyance at how central ideas seemed to be irrelevant or disconnected from each other. All that to say this isn’t a bad book; part of my issue, as I said, is that this is a compelling idea and Bell is obviously a skilled writer, but, ultimately, all of the elements he presented did not fit together as neatly as they needed to. 

Initially, I had high hopes for this book. The premise is compelling and unique: the Indigenous peoples of present-day United States formed an alliance to contain European colonizers within the original 13 colonies. Today, the colonizers' descendants remain confined to these colonies—now a dystopian hellscape—while the rest of the continent, known as the United West, enjoys a modern, comfortable, quasi-utopian existence. This setup creates rich ground for exploring colonialism, capitalism, systemic oppression, and the moral obligations nations have when confronted with clear evidence of oppression, violence, and exploitation.

This theme is explored effectively through Kaileh, one of the point-of-view characters. As a Warrior in the United West's military force, she patrols the border between the Atlantic States and the United West. Her deep prejudice against Atlanticists leads her to blame the exploited conscripts—factory workers trapped in indentured servitude—for their own oppression. When other citizens of the United West show sympathy for the conscripts' plight, Kaileh dismisses them as traitors. This was the most compelling aspect of the book; unfortunately, the rest fell short of its promising potential.

The book suffers from a lack of clear stakes. Readers are asked to accept plot elements as significant without understanding why they matter. The prime example is a packet of crucial documents—while their importance is repeatedly stressed, their contents and purpose remain frustratingly obscure. Even after these papers reach their destination, we're merely told their significance is "classified" above Kaileh's clearance level. Though characters risk their lives to deliver these documents, readers never receive a compelling reason to care about the mission's outcome. Adding to this problem, the narrative frequently skips over important expository conversations, missing opportunities for vital character development and plot progression. The characters consistently possess more knowledge than readers—a choice that creates distance and ultimately makes them less sympathetic.

Finally, there are seemingly supernatural elements that are never explained yet prove significant to the plot's climax, leaving me with no understanding of how Ruby, the other point-of-view character, escapes from her predicament. While she isn't the only character with mysterious abilities, her moment of taking control loses impact because readers have no insight into what she's actually doing. I'm not usually focused on plot—I'll happily read a book that's all atmosphere and overlook plot holes when the story prioritizes other elements. However, when a book is clearly plot-driven, these significant gaps become increasingly frustrating and steadily diminish my investment in the story.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book (particularly when I discovered this was all set-up for the sequel). I wanted to; there are many compelling elements that could’ve led to something really remarkable. The execution just fell too flat for me with an over-reliance on common dystopian tropes (particularly in characterization) and a lack of cohesion between plot and world.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Based on general genre elitism and what I knew about this book, I assumed this would be a literary dystopian novel but actually was pretty solidly in science fiction—although I doubt Harpman would consider herself a science fiction writer or her book science fiction. People are so resistant to that label for very silly reasons. 

Like all the best science fiction, this book is grounded in thematic questions and concerns. I was immediately taken in by the idea that a girl has to be completely removed from everything about society to have any true concept of herself, a true idea of what a world that doesn’t hate women could look like, but at the loss of literally everything else. The women that she is imprisoned with are focused on the trapping of a patriarchal heteronormative life, thus representing the idea that women's lives are so curtailed that in a world of absolutely nothing the unnamed narrator has more freedom than these women did in their lives before imprisonment. They carry their psychological cages with them, while the narrator, having no reference point for "normal" female socialization, develops an authentic sense of self. This creates an almost tragic irony—she gains what they've lost, but at the cost of everything that makes life recognizable. Of course, this presents the question of if there is such a thing as an “authentic” female identity. Is the narrator truly more “authentic” because she’s removed from interpellation by society or are those social constructions necessary for having identity period? Harpman is asking: what would a woman be if she weren't taught to be a woman? 

I know that some readers will be annoyed by the fact we don't "find out what happened" but that’s entirely missing the true point of the book. The refusal to explain the imprisonment supports this thematic focus completely. Any explanation would shift attention to plot and world-building, when the real subject is the interior landscape of identity formation, particularly for women. The mystery isn't what happened to them - it's what happens to female consciousness when it's allowed to develop without patriarchal interference. 

The theming and resistance to world-building and plot development are reinforced by the sparse almost clinical prose. Harpman doesn’t waste a single word, honing her narrative focus to the narrator’s interiority and observation at the expense of everything else—just like the narrator’s sense of self is focused on her interiority and observations at the expense of everything else. The setting reflects this too: the bare, unending, repetitive landscape is a blank space for the narrator to inscribe any meaning on to, but also provides absolutely nothing for the narrator engage with or build herself against or within. 

I could delve into critiques about the 90s-style feminism present here, one that resists direct engagement with queerness and wanders into some biological essentialism at times, but I think those elements can be bypassed to focus on the more fundamental thematic questions and the artful coalescing of character, writing style, and setting to support those themes in a holistic and affecting way. This book definitely won’t be for everyone; if you’re something who values plot over everything else then you will be perpetually annoyed by the book’s resistance to anything resembling answers, but if nuanced explorations of unanswerable questions interests you, I’d definitely give this one a try. 

I’m sure Ling Ma gets this all the time now, but this book has nothing to do with the TV show. Based on what I know about the show, I suspect some similarities in setting or theme, but the show is not based on the book. 

This is one of those books that I can objectively see all of the elements of the story and how they fit together to make a strong piece of writing, but the elements, in the configuration they were presented, just didn’t work for me, which is a real shame because all of these elements seem like they are things I could very much enjoy. The biggest problem for me (and this is something I’ve recently learned about myself) is that heavy-handed theming detracts a lot from a book for me. I want things to be subtle, light, and nuanced; I want characters to never settle, I want plots that aren’t propulsive, I want themes that have to be carefully picked out and can only be seen from the corner of your eye. This book is not that. Themes are delivered with a sledgehammer. I liked the set-up of this woman managing the production of Bibles—honestly, I’d read a dark comedy about that because the are layers there—but the author didn’t let the symbolism stand; instead, she spelled out exactly what she was trying to say. 

This is not to say these themes are bad, on the contrary, they are very important and in a post-2020 world, the book confronts very pressing questions about what the future could and should look like, but I just wish the questions had been presented with some more subtlety and nuance. 

Stalenhag's work is inspired by a love of the 1990s and questions about what could've been if our recent past went in a different direction; if things we've forgotten about in the 2020s actually happened, and what the ramifications might've been. His strength is definitely in world-building and artwork; his skills as a writer are not as strong, unfortunately, as the writing at times distracted from the rest of the experience of the book. 

Murder By Memory by Olivia Waite felt like it was trying to capture some of the charm of the Mossa and Pleiti books by Malka Older: the gender-bent Sherlock-Holmesian mystery in space and the future. This is a positive and negative attribute; on the one hand, the book was charming and fit into this niche sub-sub-genre well, but on the other hand, I could not stop comparing the book to Older's series. While the comparison was favorable, I don't like it when a book just makes me think so strongly of another book that I can't appreciate the current book for what its unique qualities. And Murder By Memory definitely had some unique and interesting qualities; I particularly thought the explanation of the world and technology was well-executed. I'm curious to know more about how these technologies and the enforced locked room mystery of a spaceship setting. But all that said, Older's books are better executed with deeper characters and mysteries and with a more cohesive narrative. If you liked Older's books and you're impatiently waiting for the third one, I would check these out (or if you're otherwise looking for a science fiction cozy mystery), but I would not start your exploration of the genre here.  

This book is no simple haunted hotel story; this is a stylistically masterful book with compelling characters that had me laughing and crying at turns, grieving, suspecting, hating, and loving everyone by turns.

The narration style of the book reminded me of a game like Stanley Parable or Portal 2 in that the narrator is an aggressively present character who demands you believe their interpretation of the story, almost to the point of dictating what the characters (and the reader) are doing, believing, and feeling. This style definitely won't be for everyone because it is intentionally focused on telling over showing, but I absolutely loved it. Ryan can also just write. As just one example, the experience of entering a room with a bad smell is described as "It came through the nose, smelling burning hair, and stabbed the tastebuds in the back of the throat." Stabbed the tastebuds? That's incredibly evocative and specific.

I have read a lot of books in my time, and I find myself generally not very emotionally invested or impacted most of the time, but here, I could not look away, even as I wanted to hide my eyes from the looming dread over the hotel. My voracious reading habit has also led to generally having a sense for how books will go, but I was continually second-guessing who was alive, who was dead, who had killed someone, who had been killed in the hotel, or before arriving. My theories ranged everywhere, and the further I got in the book, the more convoluted they got and the more believable the insane became, mirroring the journey many of the characters, especially Lawrence, went on. I felt like one of the beleaguered staff of the hotel, screaming about the end times in the flooding cellar with Joel.

Would I stay at The Hotel Genovie? Probably not. Will I read Shane Ryan's future books? Absolutely.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.