Really not what I was expecting. I didn’t get what the final message was but the experience is overall very enjoyable. It seemed very cynical of the world were trying to build. It wasn’t for me because I didn’t get it haha

So I really liked this one and how things came together. I wish it had been a little longer and explored some of the ideas a little bit more. There were some interesting conversations to be had around gender, race, and identity that were only scratched at during the course of the novel. And while it's perfectly okay to not have them be the central focus, it felt like the author wanted them to be but was given some pushback about it. But I definitely recommend this one! Such an interesting take on what it means to be human.

I loved Trina as a character. She called people out on their bullshit and knew when she was being the bullshitter as well. It was so amazing to see a trans* character who was also in a loving relationship and treated with such respect! I was so here for it. I loved her attitude, her generosity, and the way she felt so real.

I would have liked this to be about 100-150 pages longer so that we could have explored the world a little bit more. While it was set in our world, it was our world with different rules. I wanted to learn more about the Seep's influence and how it affected all areas - I wanted to explore more of the communes and all that jazz. I think there was another really interesting novel in this that we didn't get to see. But I am hopeful that Porter will write another novel set in the same universe so we can learn more (maybe about Deeba as a baby??).

I am going to start adding this book to every recommendation list I make for Science Fiction novels because I enjoyed it so much. And finished it in like 2 hours. I definitely recommend this if you're looking to expand your speculative fiction to think about benevolent aliens and what it means to have an overseer who just loves you but isn't always quite sure how to express that.

Pick this one up if you haven't already!

This book is incredible. Despite deeply heavy content, it is a quick read. It was so easy to read, and I got pulled deeply into the story. Eventually I wasn’t even consciously seeing the words on the page, but was so into it that it was just a movie in my head, or like I was Trina. Do not pass this up.

Do you want a bit more science fiction with your nature horror?

This lesbian, alien, societal horror is possibly the weirdest book on this list. It is also the most unique concept of an alien invasion I’ve ever come across.

The Seep has invaded Earth and now the human race is living to their “best potential”. But when Treeba’s wife decides she wants to be reborn as an infant, she is set on a path of rediscovering herself in this new world.

This is a book you will need to revisit more than once – even if just to look at the gorgeous social commentary threaded throughout.

This is literally one of the best books I have every read. Its incredibly well written, incredibly queer, and will satiate your itch for a good sci-fi book. I can't wait to give this books to all my sci-fi loving patrons.

This book wasn't what I expected at all, but I liked it immensely. It's billed as alien invasion sci-fi but it's really more allegorical—an exploration of grief and loss, using the alien invasion as a vehicle. The story unexpectedly takes the form of an adventure/quest, and is beautiful and engaging. The introductory chapters are really evocative of the current, mid-2020 mid-pandemic moment—if the author had spent a little more time in that part of the story rather than skipping ahead she might have been accused of prescience. Though secondary, the nature of the aliens is also fascinating, and I wouldn't say no to sequels further exploring the new state of humanity, the effects of the symbiosis established here further into the future, the barely touched on human separatists—there's really a ton of material I'd love to see the author use to further explore the human condition.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

The Seep was one of the first books I read this year. I appreciated the ease of the sci-fi aspect. It was just weird enough, but not so weird that I felt like I needed a degree to understand the underlying science. Like all great sci-fi, it was grounded in the humanity of the characters. It asked questions about what grief looks like when your partner is gone, not dead, just inaccessible to you, and not just in a "we broke up" kind of way, and about what one does with immortality, how does one find meaning and fulfillment without the fear of death. Very well done.

Invasion stories absolutely fascinate me. Soft invasion or benevolent invasions are even more compelling. This kind of speculative fiction is absolutely my wheelhouse, but I think there is much that most readers would appreciate in this thought-provoking book.

This is not an easy book to review. What makes it fascinating is both simple and so integrated that I struggle not to reveal what should come out as you read. Not every reader will appreciate the novel as, though it has action sequences, it’s more a personal and philosophical exploration than most science fiction despite the genre element being crucial.

The Seep explores the concept of utopia, self-identity, and immortality among other questions, but it isn’t a treatise or analytical. Instead, the novel begins with a lesbian couple having friends over to commiserate the beginning of an alien invasion. These hive-mind aliens have contaminated the water supply, already taking root in their human, and other, hosts. It’s the gentlest invasion ever, and no one is sure what this means.

The timeline advances rapidly from that point to another dinner party where Trina, the main character, learns one of her friends has made an ethically questionable decision using the aliens’ ability to manipulate matter into whatever the host desires. Learning this changes how she sees her friend, but it also makes her question what came before The Seep as now reinterpreted through the alien mind.

Then her wife makes an irrevocable decision, and Trina’s life falls apart.

It’s this point where the story changes from mundane (if alien-introduced horns and wings can be characterized as such) into an alcohol-induced vision quest Trina doesn’t even know she’s on. It can be hard to tell what is metaphor and what is reality, especially with the hive mind capable of transforming anything, but that matters little as Trina’s reactions hold the narrative focus.

The reader is invited to contemplate the theme questions alongside the main character, and I enjoyed that journey. I don’t have any more answers than I had before, but I have a better understanding of the framework behind my answers, and new questions to consider. The book stays near to the troubles of modern day from political and social to economic and environmental.

True to the themes, the cast draws from many races, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Despite this, until Trina revisits the Detroit of her past, the feel is rather middle class to me, odd when at least two of the original group are artists, though hardly starving. It reminds me of a comic I used to read about a lesbian couple living a rather ordinary life in the lesbian community, something as hard to attain as a profitable art career. It’s more the tone of sardonic humor than anything else. The book’s omniscient narrator stays with Trina but speaks from a knowledge greater than Trina can claim.

Though it is not tied to a specific religion or even preachy, the novel serves as a sermon of sorts. The story speaks to the importance of the past as it crafts us into the person we are today. Of how we need to treasure each moment because once it’s gone, we can never return. Either it or we will be different, changing the interaction. The book reads like a drug-addled stream of conscious at times, but one from which we rise a little wiser having asked questions about what is truly important and who we really are.

Besides, on the less philosophical side, the conceptualization of The Seep is fascinating. I enjoyed the personal relationships that revealed Trina as part of a complex community even when she believes herself abandoned. She also breaks into the traditional format with The Seep, revealing more of herself and the hive mind than before.

P.S. I received this Advanced Reader Copy from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

“When the aliens first made contact, Trina and her not-yet-wife, Deeba, threw one of their famous dinner parties for a select group of friends.”

Picture it. Sicily. 1928. JK. Picture a not-so-distant future where aliens invade, giving humans everything they could ever want or need. The Seep is an alien collective that wants physical form in exchange for a cohesive existence among living creatures, and in return, there’s no need for possessions or ownership of anything. Trina and her wife, Deeba, seem happy enough, but when Deeba decides to partake in a sort of rebirth, reverting to infancy to be raised again in this somewhat-utopian world, free of all the inhibitions and toxic behaviors of being raised before The Seep, Trina is lost. Without Deeba, she feels completely lost, until she’s faced with the opportunity to save a young boy. In the process, she might just save herself as well.

What a strange, beautiful, wonderful, little book. Please note, I am a cis, queer, white lady, and my opinions of Trina, a trans lady character are my own. I would love to read more reviews and opinions from members of the trans community, because a lot of the themes explored within the world built by The Seep have a lot to say about our own society’s views on trans folks.

I don’t want to give too much away, but Porter covers a great deal of ground in this work, literally years in about 200 pages, but I was never bored, and I loved that Porter was able to create such a complex and interesting, alien world without hundreds of pages of world-building. The details provided me with enough context to perfectly picture this world Trina and her loved ones inhabit, and I was 100% on board to take that journey with her.

There a bit of everything in this book. A little bit sci-fi, a little bit literary fiction, and full of colorful, whimsical, and lovely characters, It’s out now, so if you like your fiction weird, searching, and heart-warming this winter, give it a go. Also, more trans characters and voices in fiction, please and thank you. Plus, more Indigenous representation would be the bomb.com as the kids said, I dunno, ten years ago or something? Yeah, more of that!

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a survivor of an alien invasion. But The Seep didn't kill everyone—it made them immortal and gave humanity a utopia. A world without poverty. Without war. Without scarcity. And everything is going well, until Trina's wife decides she wants to begin anew. She wants to restart her life as a baby. And everything Trina wanted in life vanished.

so your wife decided to be reborn as a baby...


This was a delightfully weird book that nevertheless was such a beautiful exploration of grief and depression in a world where the gentle overseer only wanted to make everything better and bring happiness, no matter what.

I wasn't prepared to spend half the book crying for no other reason than I was crying and trying to figure out why saltwater was falling from my eyes, but I did.

I also wasn't prepared to love this as much as I did—with comparisons to Annihilation and the weirdness being emphasized in every review, I was leery as hell.

But this book is beautiful, and it is sad. And it is fantastic.

so you've decided to run away from all your problems...


After wallowing for five years, Trina is given a rude wake up call—her house (not hers, per se, since nothing belongs to anyone and everything belongs to everyone) is going to be repossessed if she doesn't get her act together and start giving a damn.

And then Trina sees a child of the Compound alone and unafraid and decides she must save him from this strange new world—she must save him from The Seep, or at least help him adjust to whatever is going on with this world.

And she embarks on a quest that brings her past and future together, with the help of a really unhelpful pamphlet named Pam.

so you're thinking of going on a vengeful quest...


The themes of this book are searing and thoughtful.

What does it really mean when we all are one? When peace rules, and poverty is no more and everyone is supposed to be happy and have literally anything they could ask for?

Does the past still matter? Can change exist with immortality?

What does it mean, to truly die?

What does it mean, to be truly human?

What does it mean, to steal another person's face? Where is the line between cultural appropriation and homage?

And how can you say goodbye to someone you'd thought you'd be with forever?

Anywho, this is weird as fuck and yet easily understandable. There was a depth I wasn't anticipating, and a hope and love that was unexpectedly beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful all at once.

And the rep is fantastic. An #ownvoices book about a Jewish-American Indian trans woman, and so much queer (mostly sapphic) rep that made me so fucking happy to read.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

This book kept freezing up my nook, so I couldn’t read it. Made for a very frustrating night. Never got to read it.

This book is a masterpiece. Combining post-scarcity economics and a (benign?) alien invasion, this book uses those elements to examine some major questions of identity (who are you when you can be anything? is there a core self?); love (what happens after happily ever after? how do you move on from heartache?); community (how long should friends stand with someone who doesn't want help? when do the needs of the community outweigh the needs of the individual? and vice versa?); self-determination (should we try to give people what the want? what they need? should we try to give people anything); and purpose (what should I do when I can do anything?).

This isn't a perfect book (there are a few deux ex machinas and the characters sometimes change their motivations and minds too quickly) but on the whole this is one of the best books I've read all year.

Man, I really really wanted to like this. A short sci-fi novel with a Jewish trans woman main character about an alien invader that takes over everyone's brains and the societal repercussions of a so-called utopia. This has me written all over it.

And it tried, it really did, but I think that was kind of the problem. In a lot of places, it just tried way too hard. The subtlety was missing from a lot of things, and the in-your-face nature felt forced. At the same time, it made the reader take a lot of things for granted - and I love coming into things en media res, but when I have to flip back five, six, seven pages to make sure I didn't miss something (and I inevitably didn't), maybe you need to build the world a little more. I also feel like the Compound was an unintentional McGuffin; it was the plot device that never was, because the plot ended up being something entirely different than the set-up seemed to want it to be.

The best way I can describe this is a mash-up between Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts and Chuck Wendig's Wanderers, but lacking the cohesion and strength of them both.

This book was a weird dream that I didn’t want to wake up from. The Seep is a sentient aliens life form that becomes a part of you, that gives you everything you want, until suffering is a thing of the old world. How are you supposed to deal with grief, in a reality that tells you you’ve transcended above negative emotions?

This is Chana’s debut novel and WOW, I’m already excited for her next one, please. This story will stick with me in that constant need to question everything, even/especially the good things.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this in exchange for an honest review.
***
The Seep follows Trina in the wake of the world’s gentlest alien invasion.

The Seep are here to help and make things easier in exchange for a symbiotic like relationship so they can experience things and learn from their new planet hosts. Trina has lived through the beginning and makes it quite a way through the new world change when her wife decides to make a life altering change that leaves Trina grief stricken and lost in a world that is already so alien. She spirals for years following her wife’s choice and then has an encounter that wakes her up and takes her on an existential experience.

This book is the best kind of “wtf”. It explores the idea of Utopia and what that would look like and mean, it takes and explores what it means to be human when it’s so easy to be anyone/thing now and how it can confuse identity in the process. It’s a bizarre adventure of life and what it means to have choice and utilize it.

This book probably won’t be for everyone, like I said, a little bit “wtf”, but for those that find it I hope they enjoy Trina’s journey as much as I did.

The Seep follows Triana through a new and unrecognisable future, 20 years after first contact. But Aliens are not what we expected. Here it is an ethereal substance known as The Seep, which in exchange for symbiotically experiencing life in a tangible and linear timeline has filled the earth with peace, goodwill and spiritual enlightenment, as well as the knowledge of "essence immortality."
The world is now full of people playing with the concepts of appearance, identity and mortality. But Triana, who transitioned before The Seep, "the old fashioned way" is struggling with what this means for humanity. This is exacerbated when her wife decides to begin a new life, quite literally, plunging Triana into an intense form of grief. So begins an existential quest to work through the stages of grief, for a person, a way of life and herself.
It's a curiosity of a book, which plumbed the depths of weird but remained engaging throughout and never outstayed it's welcome. It's not for everyone, but if you like you philosophical tales with a good dose of sci-fi it's definitely for you.

The writing style of this was gorgeous, but it made it hard for me to connect with the characters or the story. It was incredibly original and unlike any other scifi/alien invasion story I've ever read. I think it just was a bit out of my comfort zone and didn't work for me, but I can tell it's a good book.

We all want a better world .... right? But what happens when the kinder, gentler world arrives? What happens to individuality, idiosyncrasies, relationships, spirituality? Through our heroine's journey, we are given lots to ponder here. Recommended!