My Five Word TL:DR Review : This Wasn’t Really For Me

I was really looking forward to The Mercy of Gods, it’s my first experience with this author collaboration and I know how much some of my bookish friends enjoyed the Expanse series.  To be totally fair I think this is very much a case of ‘it’s me not you’ because I’m not a massive reader of sci-fi and it can very much be hit or miss for me, particularly depending on the amount of what I think of as hard sci fi and how much my brain can cope with.  However, before I get carried away with myself, here’s a little more about the book.

This is a futuristic story, humans have long since left planet Earth and are living on planet Anjiin, this transition took place so long ago that there is no longer any recollection of the why’s or how’s. As we start the story we make the acquaintance of a number of academics who have been working, and succeeding on a high level project, only to find out that their findings, highly coveted that they are, is about to suffer a coup, their work taken over by others and the group split up as a result.  This is accompanied by much anger and the discovery of elements of backstabbing, a murder investigation even ensues, however, all this drama becomes irrelevant when alien spaceships enter the atmosphere and it becomes apparent that their intentions are hostile.  Long story short, many people lose their lives and the aliens, the Carryx, round up the cream of the crop to transfer to another planet.  There, the survivors, are set to task on solving a strange puzzle, whilst being attacked by what can only be described as their competition.  Apparently this isn’t only about working on a solution, it’s about staying alive and the race to the top will quite literally involve death along the way.

Now, there is much more to the story than my very over simplified summing up.  I loved the writing style and I really liked some of the ideas but I struggled with this one a little and my feelings were all over the place.

I think to begin with, following a group of scientists was maybe a step too far for me.  I already mentioned that I’m a bit selective about my sci fi reads and this is very much because I sometimes find all the descriptions and explanations simply too much.  So, following this ride with a bunch of ‘more intelligent than your average human’ types, with their constant excited babble about experimentation and what they’ve just discovered, but bluntly, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Not only did I not really understand all their back and forth chat but I glazed over a little, sorry about that but I really couldn’t get excited about it.  And, I struggled as well to connect to any of them, the only character that I enjoyed reading was Jessyn, although The Swarm was very interesting too to be fair.

I also couldn’t really understand some of the choices, such as placing humans on  planet Anjiin, set in the far future, only to have it feel incredibly similar to planet Earth.

Now, to counter that I did enjoy the way the characters were slowly discovering that this wasn’t simply about winning the race but more about their journey getting there and how they adapted along the way.  I also enjoyed the way that one of the central characters was clearly more keen to learn more about their captors.  And, this is all playing out whilst you, the reader, are fully aware that there’s a third party in the mix.  A spy in the camp, and an enemy to the Carryx, hidden in plain sight and both cunning and deadly.

At just over 400 pages this isn’t an over long novel, but, at the same time, the first third of the book immediately became redundant as soon as the Carryx entered the scene, the middle of the book was a slow go for me with all the new information, new lab, new enemies, so many different alien types and coming to terms with the new world and, having concluded this first instalment it feels almost like a set up for what comes next.

In conclusion, there are some really good ideas here and some really beautiful writing but I’m not sure it’s quite the right fit for me.  I would however recommend this to other sci-fi lovers.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 of 5 stars