The KeyForge titles published by Aconyte Books are an incredibly timely and hugely important reminder that science-fiction stories can be fun, light-hearted escapism instead of following the current trend of incredibly serious, almost grim-dark style of writing that seems to be dominating the genre at this time. While the latter fiction can be extremely enjoyable and engaging (see Tim Pratt’s utterly superb The Fractured Void, also recently published by Aconyte, as a great example) I think the past 18 months have demonstrated that there is a real need for fiction that is brighter and more upbeat: stories that can be a positive form of escapism to counteract the incredibly depressing events that have taken place across the globe. As such, I was incredibly excited to get an advanced review copy of The Qubit Zirconium, the latest KeyForge novel from Aconyte Books and penned by award-winning sci-fi author M Darusha Wehm. I first encountered Wehm in the Tales from the Crucible anthology, the first KeyForge book published by Aconyte, and was utterly delighted by their contribution, Wibble and Pplimz, Investigators for Hire which blended the colourful and chaotic KeyForge setting with a hard-boiled detective story, featuring two delightfully eccentric and quietly hilarious protagonists in the form of the worryingly enthusiastic shapeshifter Wibble, and the taciturn android Pplimz.

I found the story to be evocatively written, cunningly plotted and the most unusual tale in the anthology, and fell in love with the two detectives. They seemed like the most obvious characters in the anthology to deserve their own spinoff story, and I was therefore delighted when it was announced that they would feature in a full-length novel by Wehm. I grabbed a review copy from NetGalley as soon as I could, and while real-world events conspired to keep me from reading it immediately, I knew that when I was finally able to get around to reading it, it would be just the thing I needed to act as a pick-me-up. The Qubit Zirconium features the usual fantastic cover art I’ve come to expect from Aconyte, illustrator Natalie Russo delivering a striking and upbeat piece of art showing the duo travelling through a desert landscape; and it’s accompanied by an intriguing back-cover blurb that features a former client in need of help, theft, a potential murder, and a sinister secret society aiming to change the very nature of the Crucible itself. It all sounded hugely exciting, and I dived right in and got reading.

We join our intrepid heroes in something of a quiet period, with no clients on the books, resulting in Pplimz sitting at his desk quietly waiting, and Wibble trying to spin cards into a hat. Fortunately for us as readers, their downtime is interrupted by a video-call from a former client, Taupe the Tailor (or possibly Tailor the Taupe), an elf who’s found himself on the run and subsequently looking for help from the duo. Accused of stealing valuable jewellery from the Star Alliance, a newly-arrived faction on the artificial planet, the elf wants the detectives to prove his innocence. But as their investigation unfolds, it proves to be far more complex than a mere missing item of jewellery, and in fact uncovers a plot to fundamentally change the nature of The Crucible and the fate of its inhabitants. It becomes clear as the two detectives investigate that there is more to the Qubit Zirconium than it simply being an attractive piece of jewellery; why do so many beings across the entire Crucible want to possess it so badly that they would resort to theft, and possibly even murder? And what does it have to do with a mysterious group known as the Cult of the Architects, and their plans for the Crucible and every sentient being living on the artificial planet? In order to find out, the two detectives will travel across the Crucible and find themselves visiting a delightfully varied and colourful set of locations, as well as dealing with duplicitous inhabitants – alien and human alike – and getting into more than a few scrapes along the way.

As you read through The Qubit Zirconium, it immediately becomes clear that Wehm knows exactly how to write a compelling and intricate mystery thriller, deftly interweaving surprising events and colourful characters with complex motivations to create an engaging and multi-faceted narrative that is always utterly enthralling and keeps you on the edge of your seat. While the investigation begins with the simple theft of the Qubit Zirconium, like all great mysteries it soon becomes far more intricate and involved for the two detectives, with Wehm delving into the fascinating world of the Crucible and just what it means to live on the artificially-engineered world – and the lengths some people might willingly go to in order to try and fundamentally change it. Wehm obviously has an innate understanding of the setting, because they really get to the very heart of the Crucible, and indeed KeyForge as a whole, while still managing the incredible feat of expertly blending together light-hearted fun and complex moral and even philosophical issues. There were a number of times when Wehm’s narrative posed questions that seemed to have bearings on real-life matters and even my own life, and it was a fascinating – and unique – experience to be laughing on one page, and then frowning in contemplation the next.

In addition to the complex, interweaving narrative and the questions it poses, Wehm makes superb use of the varied locations and climates found on the Crucible to liven up the plot and even help it to progress. They populate the story with some fantastical locations for Wibble and Pplimz to visit in the course of their investigation – from the delightful-sounding Floating Pines Resort, populated with levitating trees, to the militaristic environs of a Martian outpost, and even Quantum City, an entire city built around the ruins of a starship that recently crash-landed on the Crucible. There are times when the novel is as much a tour of the Crucible and its inhabitants as it is a detective story: or perhaps its more accurate to say both are expertly blended together. Every location is engaging and memorable, and half the fun of reading the novel is anticipating just what strange and bizarre locale Wehm has dreamt up for us next. Quantum City is particularly fascinating, not just for the artful way in which Wehm brings it to life, but also for the potential that the city and its inhabitants – a Federation-like organisation known as the Star Alliance – have to shake up the Crucible and its population. It’s an intriguing setting, and one that I’d like to see explored in more detail by Wehm in later KeyForge titles.

Of course, I can hardly finish the review without mentioning the fantastic and varied cast of characters that Wehm populates the novel with, where even bit-part characters are described with such energy and detail that they feel like protagonists in their own stories. Wibble and Pplimz continue to be a delightfully dynamic and memorable pair of protagonists to follow along with as the narrative unfolds. Their gentle bickering and the unusual nature of their partnership creates a relationship that comes across as entirely organic and unforced, and each has a distinct basis for their character – from Pplimz’s quietly cynical humour and fastidioudness, to Wibble’s relentless cheerfulness and unwavering sense of adventure. And Wehm deftly gets across the alien nature of both detectives through clever use of pronouns and descriptions of the ever-changing nature of their physical forms, whilst still retaining that innate humanity that makes them truly engaging and unique as protagonists. The narrative even provides Wehm with some opportunities to really expand their characters beyond their fun and vibrant exteriors, posing both of them some questions as the plot advances that make both Wibble and Pplimz more sympathetic and three-dimensional to the reader.

Hugely imaginative, powerfully written and imbued with an innate sense of fun and enjoyment that makes everything sparkle with energy, and with an incredibly surprising ending that I didn’t even come close to predicting, The Qubit Zirconium is one of the best books yet published by Aconyte Books, and also one of the most enjoyable and engaging science-fiction novels that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It’s an absolute joy to read, almost every page making me laugh or smirking due to Wehm’s infectious sense of humour and wit, and Wehm making spectacular use of the KeyForge setting and propelling it to even greater heights of fun and vibrancy. Reading The Qubit Zirconium has recharged my enthusiasm and passion for the science-fiction genre, and I’m absolutely certain it will do the same for anyone else who reads it. I cannot wait to see what Wibble and Pplimz will investigate next time, and I can be certain that I will be right alongside them and Wehm when they do so.

The Cubit Zirconium is the first novel – although not the first publication – from Aconyte Books, set in the world of The Crucible. For anyone not familiar with the setting, The Crucible is the creation of Fantasy Flight Games, and the home for their Unique Card Game, Keyforge. A strange mash-up of deliberately diverse and contrasting cultures and races, the games sees various factions pit their might against each other in a battle for a substance called Aember. In fact, about the only thing you won’t find in The Crucible is a collection of Snooker players!

I remember reading some of FFG’s web-fiction for their new world when Keyforge was first announced in the summer of 2019, but with no space in my life for a 2-player duelling card-game, I’d let my attention slip, and not really kept up with this strange new world. With a recent announcement from FFG that Keyforge would be expanding to cover the solo and c-operative audience, I decided to give this novel a closer look, and I’m really glad I did. M Darusha Wehm has penned an instant classic here, a novel which provides an accessible introduction to this wonderfully absurd world, a mystery that keeps twisting and turning as fast as you can guess what might be coming next, and some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments from the witty dialogue and engaging interaction between the main characters.

Our heroes for the story are a pair of Private Detectives, Wibble and Pplimz – already introduced in the short story “Wibble and Pplimz. Investigators For Hire” in the Tales From The Crucible anthology, the pair are now given their own full-length story in which to flex their comedic muscles. I hadn’t read the short-story before jumping in to this one, and it certainly isn’t required background, but I’d still recommend it, simply because any opportunity to read a Wibble and Pplimz story is one that you should make a point of taking! (a large part of why this review is so late is that I went back and read the whole previous anthology before publishing this!)

Pplimz is a cyborg – part mechanical, part organic, and which came first, or what they might have been before is an excessively nosey question that the reader is cautioned not to ask: immaculately turned out in a range of finely tailored suits, and hats which seem to defy gravity in order to remain affixed to their head, Pplimz is the sensible member of the duo, the one generally concerned with the practicalities involved in getting through the day, solving the case, and hopefully ensuring that they get paid enough to stay afloat. Speaking of afloat, Wibble is definitely not a floating light fixture, although even within this unusual setting, exactly what she is seems to be a mystery to most: translucent, vaguely fish-shaped, and fond of floating like a balloon. In contrast to her partner, Wibble is all frivolity and jokes, constantly yearning for more excitement and adventure, and chiding anyone else who doesn’t approach life with the giddy excitement of a small child: don’t let her manner deceive you though, Wibble still has a very sharp mind and an iron grip when she needs to. Wehm does a great job of portraying the deep care and respect that Wibble and Pplimz have for each other, despite spending much of their time bickering like an old married couple, and their relationship is definitely the heart of the story, reason alone to read it.

Wibble and Pplimz’ initial client for this story is Tailor the Taupe, a former acquaintance who finds themselves in a spot of bother when a group of Star Alliance decide that they are responsible for the disappearance of a unique gemstone. As Tailor disappears, it’s up to Wibble and Pplimz to learn what they can about how the item was acquired in the first place, and where it might have gone, a pair of seemingly simple questions that turn out to be far more complex than anyone could have imagined.

The story that follows is an entertaining mixture of mystery and simply an enjoyable romp as the two detectives go hunting for leads on what exactly might have happened: in the process, we’re given a nice insight into some of the Crucible’s major factions, most notably the Star Alliance and the Martians.

Rather than spoil any of The Cubit Zirconium’s entertaining plot, I’ll offer a very brief primer on The Crucible itself: The Crucible is a world that was artificially constructed by an ancient and mysterious group known only as “The Architects” most of the creatures here were brought (or their ancestors were brought) from their original homes: this might be a large chunk of Mars transported en masse to its new home, or it might be something like the Star Alliance – the crew of an exploration-focused Spaceship that suddenly found itself stranded in a strange new location. Another important thing to learn about The Crucible is that you can’t leave, which is a source of consternation for some members of the Star Alliance, whose whole reason for being on board the ship in the first place was to go wandering the cosmos and be constantly visiting new places!

The Star Alliance form a sharp counterpoint with the Martians of the Crucible: aesthetically, Mars has a slightly tongue-in-cheek aesthetic, leaning heavily into the “little green men in flying saucers” vibe of the 1950s, but the Martians of the Crucible are not to be mocked: xenophobic to the point of paranoia, militaristic and expansionist. For a non-Martian, any need to interact with them is going to involve a significant element of risk, so obviously at some point, Wibble and Pplimz are going to need to be asking a few questions in Martian territory.

There are also plenty of humans on The Crucible, helping to ensure that the setting remains comprehensible to the reader, but it’s the countless other groups who provide the place with so much of its delightful character. In some ways, I’m finding The Cubit Zirconium a little bit difficult to talk about, because the way that the mystery unfolds is a large part of the joy of reading it. What I will say though, is that it’s an absolutely brilliant read: The Crucible has an incredibly colourful and diverse cast, and Wehm captures so many of them so well. The central duo are always the highlight, but there are plenty of supporting figures who could easily sustain whole stories of their own (and maybe they will, given time…)

If you’re a Keyforge fan, or have some other interest in The Crucible, then why haven’t you read these books already? Even if you’re not, if you’re looking for some fresh sci-fi that offers a fascinating, fleshed-out world, without taking itself too seriously, then this is a great place to go. I’d probably recommend reading Tales from the Crucible first, and then The Cubit Zirconium, but it’s perfectly possible to read this by itself and have a great time even before enjoying the anthology.

I would highly recommend this book.
It is a fun & easy read and if you are like me and love your epic fantasy series, this would be a great palette cleanser between books. I will be following this author M Darusha Wehm and auto-buying their books.

The relationship between our two main characters Pplimz and Wibble was the highlight of this book for me. “The story was very entertaining. Sometimes feeling like a comedic road trip / buddy movie.” said Reviewer Rachel B and I couldn't put it better myself.

I am not a Keyforge player but I never once felt lost reading The Qubit Zirconium. This was a great first novel in this world of the planet Crucible. I enjoyed exploring the vastly different environments in this world as much as I did its characters.

The use of gender pronouns was written smoothly. It feels quite obvious that we might need to find out someone’s preferred pronoun in advance when dealing with so many other species. Well done to M Darusha Wehm!

- The blurb from the publisher, as they do it best -

Alien detectives stumble across a mystery that could tear apart their patchwork planet, the Crucible, in this riotous science fantasy novel from the smash hit game, KeyForge

Wibble & Pplimz, the Crucible’s most unusual private investigators, must set off from their office in Hub City to clear the name of a former client. Along the way, their investigation broadens from a simple accusation of theft to include a missing person, a potential murder, and a highly unusual gem. Four interlinking incidents take them across the Crucible, as they attempt to solve the case. But there’s something more sinister lurking underneath: evidence of a secret society that aims to discover the power of the Architects, and forever change the nature of the Crucible itself.

- Keyforge World -

Explore a world of infinite variety – wild science fantasy adventures on an impossible patchwork world of everything known (and unknown) in the universe.

In the center of the universe hangs the Crucible, an artificial world built from the pieces of countless planets. Over millions of years of new environments and societies being added to the world, cultures have expanded, creatures explore: adventuring, surviving, and even thriving. Meanwhile, Godlike Archons use the other inhabitants to compete in battle and unlock the secrets of the Crucible, gathering the mystical substance Æmber to enter Vaults hidden by the planet’s legendary creators.

KeyForge is the phenomenally successful multiple award-winning, multi-million selling collectible card game, created by Richard Garfield, designer of Magic: The Gathering. – The Crucible is a unique creation, containing a little of everything in the universe; a canvas for every kind of tale for all fans of science fiction and fantasy, with a wild and often comic twist. – Wibble & Pplimz debuted in the Tales from the Crucible anthology to great acclaim, and now have an adventure all of their own. M DARUSHA WEHM is the Nebula Award-nominated and Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning author of the interactive fiction game The Martian Job, several SF and YA novels, and the Andersson Dexter cyberpunk detective series. Originally from Canada, Darusha now lives in New Zealand after spending several years sailing the Pacific. They use the pronouns They/Them


Thank you to NetGalley & Aconyte Books for an advance copy.
Amazon Review has been sent, awaiting approval.

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Keyforge book The Qubit Zirconium by M. Darusha Wehm, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Keyforge
The Crucible is a giant word larger than the sun, an artificial planet that is constantly under construction by the the Architects.

They gather their materials by transporting them from other planets and worlds, often bringing that worlds inhabitants along for the ride.

The world contains every environment imaginable, from bustling urban sprawls, to deserts, to jungles, to meadows and everything in between.

The Architects communicate through the ethereal Archons who themselves are completely in the dark about the purpose behind the Crucible.

And so they gather bands of followers, to gather Æmber, a psychic substance that can be forged into keys that unlock the vaults if they architects.

Keyforge itself is a unique deck card game, developed by Richard Garfield, the developer best know for Magic: The Gathering and King of Tokyo.

It’s a really good game, you should go check it out, but I am not reviewing the game here, but I will soon.

The Story
The story sees alien detectives, Wibble and Pplimz, a team consisting of a floating fish and a snappy dressed cyborg, look to clear the name of a former client who has been accused of theft.

The case quickly gets complicated, and the pair find themselves embroiled in a race to find a missing gem that potentially has the capability of utilising the power of the architects and endanger everyone on the Crucible.

The story starts off slow as the detectives, who very much have an odd couple vibe going on, with Wibble being a thrill seeking extrovert and Pplimz being a lot more formal and cautious, travel to a crashed Star Alliance ship to do some basic PI work, and they are doing it more out of boredom than anything else, knowing the client is unlikely to be able to pay them.

The story gradually begins to pick up steam as the pair find a lot of dead ends, which have the advantage of introducing us to more aspects of the Keyforge setting, and soon they find out the item their client is accused of stealing could potentially have the power to destroy the Crucible.

The book picks up pace as they travel to other parts of the Crucible desperate to find the Qubit Zirconium, and whilst it lacks any real action, or overt danger, there is a bit of tension as they conduct the investigation.

Conclusion
The book is ponderous, and that’s not necessarily a bad, thing. I think its set out to give a good introducing to the setting, to really explore the world, and to show us the craziness of life on the Crucible.

I really enjoyed the characters, there were some obvious tropes being introduced, the Star Alliance are a thinly veiled Federation after all, and the Martians are the very picture of the little green men we joke about, but again, the card game is very much about taking obvious tropes and twisting them ever so slightly.

I very much enjoyed the story, but the conclusion did fall a bit flat, it just kinda played out and it didn’t really feel that interesting, it just happened, and the urgency of the situation sort of just fizzed out.

A big thing I like was the normalisation of characters introducing their pronouns, something you rarely see, but I can imagine would be vital somewhere like the Crucible, and there was also an acknowledgment that non-binary people exist, and indeed Pplimz is non-binary themselves.

I do want to see more work around this pair, but I would hope the end is a bit more interesting, as I said, it works, but there is little to make you feel any sense of urgency in those closing chapters.

I am gonna give this book 3 out of 5 stars, I would have given it a 4, but then ending just didn’t excite me anywhere near the way the rest of the book did.

The eBook is released on the 13th April and the paperback hits the shelves on 24th June.

Thank you Netgalley and Aconyte Books for access to this arc.


What is the Crucible? Actually no one is quite sure. It might have been made. Or it could be a product of physics. Perhaps it’s due to an immense gravitational field and being too close to a wormhole. It’s huge – as large as Earth’s sun – with endless variations in geography and the beings who inhabit it are as diverse as the universe allows. Once beings – or in the case of Mars, part of its planet – get there, no one can leave. But that hasn’t stopped beings from dreaming of doing that and being drawn to those who are newly arrived in order to ask questions and seek answers about the outside world. Two of its best private investigators – if they do say so themselves – are Wibble and Pplimz and now they’re trying to discover who stole a tiara that an elven acquaintance of theirs has been accused of taking. Soon, however, the case has broadened to far more than that.

I want to be more like Wibble. She’s delightful with a wide open attitude that allows her to embrace everything and view potential problems and disasters as exciting events to be relished. Her ability to bobble along and zoom up high for aerial views lets her see things her partner can’t while her zest for new adventures sometimes means they have to gently rein her in – just a little.

Pplimz is the calmer, more methodical partner who favors custom made pinstripe suits and prefers less adventurous means of travel than the rickety airship that Wibble finds irresistible. Pplimz is a bit more … prim and proper are good words to use. But they are just as meticulous and ready to follow up on clues as bouncy Wibble plus they have an understanding of and wild idea about quantum physics.

While the investigation is well done with Pplimz and Wibble carefully checking clues, following up on leads, and concerned for the elf they’re trying to clear, I’ll be honest and say that this part of the book is fairly standard stuff. Find the witness, interview the witness, sift through new information, revisit and revise how the case is viewed then approach from a new angle – it is the stuff of private investigation. What attracted me and kept me enchanted is the world that has been embroidered on here. The Crucible is big, diverse, full of different lifeforms, and ways to be. It’s endlessly varied yet the descriptions allowed me to vicariously visit it without the risk of getting trapped there. Wibble and Pplimz exist fully formed and a part of the world and their interactions, comments, and thoughts about it allow it to exist for the reader without feeling overwhelmed or as if we’re being subjected to a boring info world-dump.


There are some “suddenly we’re told about” aspects regarding locations or things but then this planet is wild and weird and wonderful and anything could happen. As one character says, it’s “wonderfully preposterous.” Plus there are marvelous things there like “matter discombobulator-recombinattors.” Correct pronouns are offered and always used, consent requested and given, care given to AIs who are viewed as sentient beings, and both investigators are horrified at the idea of eavesdropping or spying on characters who have an expectation of privacy. Humans are there on the Crucible but aren’t the saviors of the situation or the cause of any disaster. Whew, that’s a relief.

The world is huge, probably artificially constructed (though no one really knows), has myriad populations, languages, customs, religions, food, gender identification, affiliations – well, basically anything you could name. I had so much fun diving into this place and, through the action and plot, imagining exploring it. But Wibble and Pplimz make the story. Their relationship is obviously one of platonic friends and close colleagues who care for each other which just made my day to read about. The book ends with them being approached by a potential client. Dare I hope that we’ll see more of them? B

A mystery set in the wacky world of a CCG, featuring private detectives with a difference. Actually, a lot of differences.

The PIs - a female alien who floats, and a nattily-dressed nonbinary cyborg - are not even a little bit noir; they don't get beaten up while pursuing their investigation, they're rigidly ethical in their methods, and they're not desperate for money. In fact, they spend quite a bit of their own money on behalf of a client who they know can't reimburse them, at first because they're bored and want a mystery to solve and someone they vaguely know appears to be in trouble, and later because they come to believe that the world is at risk.

For the first third - while the stakes were low - I wasn't engaged. It's clear that the PIs are fond of each other, even though they have a mild mutual irritation/odd couple thing going because Wibble, the floater, is a thrill-seeking extraverted optimist and Pplimz is very buttoned-down. But their banter is in a formal cadence, and there's not a lot of emotional drive or action. The investigation is a slow series of try-fail cycles which show off the setting, but the details are mostly decorative rather than functional. Neither the main characters nor the various secondary characters they encounter are shown to us particularly deeply, and none of them became interesting to me; they're odd, sure, but there's such a relentless tone of respecting difference (which, certainly, is a good thing in itself) that their oddity becomes flattened and doesn't lead to much conflict. We're told that this is a world in which there's a lot of danger and in which many factions are battling; we're shown a comfortable, fairly safe world in which nothing really bad actually happens.

This continues to be the case throughout the book, but at least things pick up a bit when the fate of the world seems to be at stake <spoiler>(even though this eventually turns out not to have been the case)</spoiler>. There's no more clarity, and not much more danger, but there is at least a plot question to drive things forward. <spoiler>By the end, though, any apparent risk has been drained away by the detectives' discoveries; the supposedly dead client is alive, the supposedly dangerous device is harmless, the antagonists haven't committed any actual crimes and get off lightly.</spoiler>

My previous experience with Darusha Wehm's books is that they do tend to be slow-moving and lacking in action, tension, and strong emotion, and this is not an exception, despite the opportunities offered by the setting. There are definitely people who will enjoy following the likeable protagonists through the interesting setting as they gradually unpick the puzzle, but for me it didn't have enough zing to it.

Disclaimers: I know Darusha Wehm slightly, as we're both members of the Codex writers' forum and of SpecFicNZ. I received a pre-publication copy for review via Netgalley.

So, here I am again – Hi-Jacking my wife’s book blog to bring you another review of KeyForge fiction. KeyForge is a card game where both players use a unique deck of 36 cards and attempt to win the game by forging 3 “keys” more quickly than their opponent. As you’ll know if you saw my first review, I’m a keen board and card gamer, and play competitively across multiple UK venues. I’ve been playing KeyForge since April 2019 around 6 months after the game’s first release.

The Qubit Zirconium is the second KeyForge book from Aconyte publishing and due for release in spring 2021. Their first was an anthology of short stories called Tales from the Crucible released last year. This also introduced us to the protagonists from this book in its eighth story. You can find my review here.

Our heroes are Wibble and Pplimz a duo of Private Investigators working from Hub City on “their patchwork planet, the Crucible”. The Crucible is an alien world comprised of pieces of planets and beings stolen from their home-world or space and thrust into a strange new environment of cultures and beings. They are also all trapped there by the mysterious “Barrier” which prevents anyone or anything from leaving.

Wibble and Pplimz are hired by a former client (who didn’t feature in the previous short story) an elf who contacts them as he is in trouble and once more needs their help. While this may begin as an everyday theft investigation, it soon escalates leading our unique duo around various locations on the Crucible as they try to unravel the mystery in which they’ve become embroiled.

The leads are what bind the story together. Their interactions and banter with each other were a highlight for me. They have very different personalities and even at times differing opinions, but their reactions to each other are very amusing.

Wibble

She is a fun-loving and excitable being. She finds enjoyment in a great many things, and is extremely happy to embrace it! She can change colour and does so throughout the story. Sometimes appearing to do so involuntarily, based on her emotional state. She floats in the air and is roughly the size of a football. She can change her shape in a putty like fashion elongating or flattening somewhat when required. Her body can also exert forces such as lift, grasp and even small electrical charges after absorbing energy around her.

Pplimz

They’re a Dandy looking cyborg who has a much more serious and stoic nature than Wibble. Occasionally finding her antics a tad immature, Pplimz is certainly more serious. They may have begun as a living being who augmented themselves with cybernetic parts or a mechanical being with organic implants. They are capable of changing their appearance and form too, but can usually be found in a well made and well fitting suit.

As a KeyForge player and fan there was loads to love about the story. Some of the names featured were so appropriate to the game I just smiled. I may yet petition FFG (the maker of the game) to add them into it. We hear about creatures, locations and events that we know from the game which only adds to the experience. Plus these don’t feel shoehorned in either. They don’t detract from the book so a none-player isn’t going to feel lost or need that knowledge.

The story was very entertaining. Sometimes feeling like a comedic road trip / buddy movie. Sometimes feeling like a thrilling mystery where you’ll wonder what the next clue will be and where it will take us.
The book seemed pretty fast paced. Each new location or encounter usually revealed a new clue, creature or piece of the puzzle. I was never disinterested with the twists and turns and always felt like the story was actually moving onward toward a conclusion and not meandering nowhere.

It’s a tougher thing to find anything I didn’t like about it. I was happy with the conclusion. I enjoyed the journey. If I were to try and find a small complaint, I possibly would have wanted to know more about the leads. This is not an origin story; but in a world of unknowns and mysteries, I don’t suppose it would fit perfectly to know everything about our heroes either.

In short, a mysterious winding jaunt through a world of wonder, sure to keep you glued to the pages.

I’d give it 5/5