For international reading, this was great. I’m not sure if I’ve ever read a Māori author before. But there there’s still the unavoidable fact that this is a fantasy, a genre that just doesn’t work for me, no matter how much I try.
I’m not sure how to explain this outside of the fact that it just isn’t the right kind of remove from reality for me. And so, despite the clever world building (organic with biotech elements) and some fun characters, overall for me the novel read frantically busy in the wrong sort of way (you often see it with debut novels where the author tries to cram too many things into it at once) and therefore failed to engage properly.
It’s very hip and very queer, which alone is sure to find it an audience, but that audience would probably still have to be fantasy fans. Which is to say this wasn’t the book to convert me to fantasy genre, not did it leave me with any interest in continuing with the story. It read fine and even entertained in a way, it's competent and well done for its genre, which earns it a rounded-up rating. Thanks Netgalley.

**Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and the author for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I received The Dawnhounds as an ARC for the new 2022 edition and am clearly a little late to the party. This is one that I picked up and read a few pages of on my kindle, before getting distracted and losing focus. I picked this back up on a quick weekend trip and finished it in no time! Once I got into the world building and immersed myself farther into the universe I was hooked.

I have always loved steampunk vibes in books, especially when there is a bustling port city involved. Add in some magic, fantasy, and even a touch of scifi - and I'm sold!

For fans of epic adventures, and strong, badass female characters - check this one out!

This one was... fine! Not the most innovative/interesting sci-fi novel I've read in recent years, but I found the characters to be enjoyable even if the story was a little slower and uneventful.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

3.5 stars

I picked up The Dawnhounds having heard that it was quite weird, possibly chaotic, with really awesome worldbuilding. I'd say that's exactly what I got. Biotech, mushroom houses, magic from the gods, teleportation, ancient beings, acab, it's all here. I'm not sure if I'd call it a cohesive package, perhaps more of a bewildering rollick, but with everything that was going on, the characters are what really held it together for me, and also why I'd happily come back and give the sequel a go.

That being said, I think there still are a few places in this book where the burden of explanation was placed too heavily on the reader. I'm used to being confused in books. I enjoy it. (Yes, the Locked Tomb is a favorite of mine, and for the record I find the confusion and perhaps some snark to be the only real overlaps between The Dawnhounds and Gideon the Ninth. The settings, subgenres, plot direction, and even tone differ dramatically.) But as I was saying, I prefer authors to trust my ability to put things together, and I'm okay with not receiving explanations upfront. Yet there are still places in The Dawnhounds where I stumbled; between one sentence in the next it felt like I missed something vital. Honestly, I'd tend to blame these hiccups on the editor, and I understand that this novel has been through some major revisions since first being published, so perhaps it's understandable.

Barring those troubles, this was really a fun read and truly unlike what I've read before. As I said, I'm not yet certain that all the various elements fuse together perfectly or that Stronach's prose is a great fit for me, but I'm willing to be convinced.

The Dawnhounds is a dystopian fantasy noir story and series opener by Sascha Stronach. Originally released in 2019, this reformat, re-write/re-release from 2022 from Simon & Schuster on their Gallery imprint is 352 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

The marketing blurb for this book says it's: "Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Māori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it", and that's a perfectly apt description.

Much like Gideon the Ninth and Black Sun, I spent a lot of time not being sure what was going on and having only the most tenuous grasp of where the narrative was headed. Just as in those books, the writing was so superlative that I was willing to go along for the ride. This is a beautifully, lyrically written book which is often disturbing and quite melancholy. It wasn't often a comfortable read, by any means.

Four stars. Although it's not in any way derivative, it recalls to memory Arkady Martine's excellent Teixcalaan series. Fans of Tamsyn Muir and Rebecca Roanhorse would do well to seek this series out as well.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Honesty I did not love the book. The concept intrigued me but the writing style felt very slow and the world building was not great in my option. I would love to read more by this author though, but I don’t think this book was for me.

The Dawnhounds has the scent of dystopia, the feel of an impending apocalypse. Set in a fantasy world with problems both familiar and foreign, the story follows a police constable in a downward spiral. Yat is not entirely to blame for the way her life is going. Family-less, penniless, and utterly convinced of the heroic lawfulness of her profession, she's been punished with the night shift since her so-called deviance came to light. In other words, she's a bi woman who defies definition and religious expectation in one fell swoop. When she dies on the job, things only get weirder from there, but perhaps less unfortunate. Her city is under attack by confusing and powerful forces, and Yat must team up with lawless pirates, most also queer and beyond death, to get to the bottom of things and save her home.

This is an example of a book I wanted desperately to love, but it was a miss. With a queer protagonist and supporting cast, Maori influences, and an eye on corruption in the police and the halls of power in general, it should have been an easy win. The prose, pacing, and relationship-building fell short and dragged me down with it. While the author excelled at some hard-hitting, thoughtful one-liners ruminating on society, the rollout of the plot and world-building was convoluted and bland in comparison. Many of the characters had a lot of potential with messy backgrounds and goals or methods at odds with one another. I didn't feel that it was fully explored, however, and relationships between characters were mostly already established or proceeding in montage fashion. Without that level of connection, I drifted rather than plugging into the characters and their emotions. Add the lack of clear, purposeful action to give the story momentum and direction, and I wasn't very engaged. Plus, the world-building isn't overly complex or hard to grasp, but there were a few key gaps in explanation that itched at me the longer they went unresolved (for the whole book).

The Dawnhounds makes some strong statements about queer pride, found family, and defying discriminatory power-mongering. I think its execution as a story and as fantasy are on shakier ground. The characters and their relationships in particular needed more careful attention and development for me to feel connected to them.

I say this lovingly, but The Dawnhounds is a big gay mess. I wanted to love this book--Māori, queer, weird worldbuilding, murder, mushrooms, pirates, biohacking. And my rating is primarily for the worldbuilding. The concept of city where most tech has been replaced with organic materials and everyone lives in mushrooms is pretty quirky cool. But unfortunately, there was A LOT about the writing and plot that just doesn't come together. I was confused straight through to the end (and beyond). There were lots of interesting pieces and each time I tried to put them together into a bigger picture, there was just too much missing information or distracting extraneous details. Lots of distracting extraneous details. There are so many interesting things happening--a corrupt police force in the pocket of a homophobic religious sect, chemically lobotomized "criminals" (read: poor people) that do the city's grunt work, a pirate queen who is maybe also a goddess, a bioweapon that consumes organic materials and makes weird zombie mutant creatures, etc. The list goes on and on. If you want to read some cool, unique worldbuilding, The Dawnhounds has something to offer you. Just don't expect the pieces to add up to a coherent, satisfying whole. Honestly, this book is kind of like one of the mutant zombie creatures in it.

Many thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

3.5

This was pitched as Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in a queer Māori inspired fantasy noir and honestly this is a rare example of marketing pitching a book nearly perfectly.

This has a lot of the "I'm not 100% sure what's happening" vibes of Gideon with a lot of the unique indigenous centric world building of Black Sun and it's a different take on noir because while our detective is still jaded with an addiction, she's also a queer woman. Also there are pirates, some squick worthy bio horror, and also meddling gods? To say this was a wild ride would be an understatement, but I was very much here for it.

The narrative and the pacing were a little messy in places but it was still pretty easy to follow and quite entertaining. This seems to be the start of a series and I would be interested in continuing, though I think the book does a good job of tying up this specific plot while leaving world related questions that can be expanded upon. For example, while the prologue is really compelling, I am a bit confused about how it fits and the ending throws open a lot of questions.

Representation: Queer MC and multiple supporting characters, diverse racial make-up

We’re transported to Hainak, a city that’s alive in more ways than one. Metal is taboo, and everything in Hainak is built with biotech. The buildings, fashion, weapons, are all created from plants and plant-adjacent things. Houses are giant mushrooms, guns shoot grubs that bore and chew through things, prosthetics are grown or limbs are regrown. We follow Yat Jyn-Hok, a former thief turned cop, and she patrols the streets at night. She was recently demoted because she was caught at a gay club, and the conservative government doesn’t approve of those “lifestyle choices.” Yat is struggling, stuck in a position she doesn’t enjoy, she’s haunted by memories of a gone lover, and she hears voices from time to time. And to top it off, just as she finds a dead body, she’s murdered and dumped in the harbor. But bizarrely, she wakes up. Yat discovers she’s come back changed, with the ability to manipulate life force. She stumbles her way through figuring out her new abilities while completely reevaluating her life choices and what she should do moving forward. Yat gets picked up by a pirate crew that happens to have some people who have similar abilities to her, and she learns more about them and the ancient power they come from. They also uncover a plot to destroy Hainak, and now it’s a race against time to stop a plague from wiping out the whole city.

Rating: 4.5/5 I absolutely loved this. There is SO much that goes on in this, there’s so many layers and details. The worldbuilding in this is incredible, and I wanted to really dive into the nerdy details of how the city ran on all this biotech. I really liked that we didn’t necessarily learn about what exactly happened to make Hainak turn to biotech, but we did learn the broad strokes, which is enough honestly. Humans have gone through enough similar horrors for us to be able to guess at the events. This is very queer, and there is a sapphic love story kind of woven throughout. It was interesting to read this because it’s a city where the politics lean conservative because of a small, but very powerful, religious group that had above average influence. This group also is trying to push down any opposition from people who believe in other deities, and the history that Stronach created around these deities and their lore is so good. The strange abilities that Yat and the others have were given to them by some of the gods. I know I’m jumping around a little with my thoughts, but this book also jumps around a bit. I also don’t want to spoil any twists or good surprises, so I think I’ll end here. It’s difficult to describe this book without getting lost in detail, because SO much happens. I do feel like it was almost too much, like the author was trying to fit in all of the ideas he had into this one book. However, this is intended to be the first of a series, so I feel like he had the ability to spread out the info a little. Regardless, I really enjoyed this very much and would absolutely recommend to people who like sci-fi, fantasy, pirates, conspiracies.

I loved this!! Tamsyn Muir's blurb on the cover sold it for me, and I had such a fun time with the characters and worldbuilding in The Dawnhounds. The story is inventive, dark, and unique, and the queer storyline felt real and gorgeous. This reminded me somewhat of A Memory Called Empire, another favorite of mine, and I'm excited to read the rest of the series and see how the story unfolds.

2.5 stars

This book has so much promise going for it, but I am sorry to say that it didn’t really work for me. The setting and the “magic“ system are very cool. The homes in this world are literally alive, basically fungi that feed off of the life force of their inhabitants. If a house is abandoned, then it also starts to die. Yat’s able to manipulate that life force, in that she can draw life out of something and conversely give something life. Cool, right? But there were so many gaps and holes in the overall story that I was lost half the time. There was some fundamental problem with the continuity— like there were time jumps, but no actual time had passed, if that makes sense. Which of course it doesn’t make sense, and that’s the point I’m trying to make. In addition, the way that Yat treated the pirates was just not fair. They found her when she died, took her in and included her in their family, taught her about her powers, and the first chance she got she jumped ship (literally).

Filled with breathtaking worldbuilding, a unique magic system, gods, and unmistakably queer characters, Sascha Stronach delivers the a gripping blend of scifi and fantasy that you won’t want to miss!

The Dawnhounds took me quite a bit of time to work through! It’s definitely not the easiest to read, especially as you try to ease into the worldbuilding and make sense of what’s happening throughout the story. There were definitely parts that I had to reread in order to properly follow what was happening, and there were times where I was still confused, but overall, I still loved this story. It’s delightfully weird and queer and if you like weird plant tech and spore monsters combined with found family and magic queer pirates, I think this will definitely be worth your time!

Even though I struggled to follow this a bit, the cast of characters is what really kept me going! Stronach introduces the reader to a lovely variety of characters, and I definitely want to hang onto them for as long as I can! I’m eager to see what else is in store for them, as it seems like this isn’t the end of their stories.

The Dawnhounds was like if Harrow the Ninth body slammed into Black Sun and then the combined mass (IYKYK) french kissed The Affair of the Mysterious Letter just for shits and giggles. It’s delightfully weird (and queer and indigenous), but I recommend saving it for a time when you’ve got brainspace.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

On paper, this book sounds like something I would really love: found family pirates, biopunk, queer romance, interesting world-building and history. However, I just can't get past the writing. I think that Stronach has a lot of really interesting ideas, but how he presents them just doesn't work for me. I do think that if you're okay with Muir's writing in Gideon the Ninth, this will work out better for you, but I don't really like her writing either.

For me, it is just too much information, presented in large chunks, and told to you instead of shown. However, I think that if you enjoy the writing you'll find a lot of really fun things to love about this story. I enjoyed the characters, the plot goes interesting places, and I love a lot of the world-building ideas, I just find it borderline unreadable for me.

Overall, the book was a fabulous confusing mess. I was mostly here for it. Every word choice was extremely intentional, and almost all details ended up as part of an overarching theme or plot point. I liked how direct the writing was while still being descriptive and lively, and yet it's all about death and the invasion and the rights of humans. The characters were all very likeable. The actual world building needed more fleshing out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC.

Dawnhounds has a really interesting premise, and is a decent coming of age story. I felt like this was definitely a new adult type book, the main character has some Mary Sue vibes. The magic system is flexible, seems to do whatever the characters need it to do. I loved the biotech that is floating around the world and really could have had more scenes just building that biotech.
I wished the book had more of a show approach to the writing instead of telling me. That was really my main complaint is that the book is too short. I wanted more to flesh out the edges of the world, which hopefully will be coming in the next few books.

This blends so many fantasy/scifi tropes that I was very guarded early on but was quickly swept away by the characters and the possibilities of their lives and struggles. Magic, gods, gritty cops, repressive societies, pirates, and mushrooms!

I could tell it was going to be great… but I just could not will myself to finish. I felt no pull to continue whatever story I could understand. I see these other reviews mention some cool kind of fungi/mushroom tech and I’m all here for that, but I was bored. The chapter felt so long and I just did not understand what was going on.
Thanks for the chance to read this early!