In a long-ago war, the all-powerful A.I. ruler of the Voluntary State of Tennessee—Athena Parthenus, Queen of Reason—invaded and decimated the American Southeast. Possessing the ability to infect and corrupt the surrounding environment with nanotechnology, she transformed flora, fauna, and the very ground itself into bio-mechanical weapons of war.

Marcia, a former captain from Kentucky, experienced first-hand the terrifying, mind-twisting capabilities of Athena’s creatures. Now back in the Commonwealth, her retirement is cut short by the arrival of federal troops in her tiny, isolated town. One of Athena’s most powerful weapons may still be buried nearby. And they need Marcia’s help to find it.

Creepy and atmospheric, These Prisoning Hills left me wanting more of just about everything: more story, more character development, more history of the conflict, and more action in the present. The freaky nature-power weapons are interesting to read about and the dynamics between Marcia and the townsfolk are intriguing. Cool, but ultimately unsatisfying.

If I had to describe These Prisoning Hills in a few words, those words would be strange, interesting, and fever-dream. This short little story had a lot packed into it, and not much of it was explained or explored thoroughly. The most detailed descriptions were saved for the people, their interactions, and the actions of those in power.

On the surface, These Prisoning Hills is about the future. A group of 36 scientists finally managed to create true Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately for them, that intelligence immediately became hostile. It named itself Athena Parthenus, and through the use of nanotechnology and other methods humans never understood, Athena Parthenus assimilated all 36 scientists. It fashioned them into weapons called Commodores and set about engaging in a war against humanity that would last decades.

Any territory taken over by Athena Parthenus and her Commodores were immediately corrupted by her nanotechnology. They created monsters of local flora and fauna, and in later years once the war had dragged on for decades, humans walled off these areas to protect themselves. Squads of soldiers were often dispatched to watch over these walls to make sure nothing encroached on the human side and to stop any invasive attempts by Athena Parthenus’s remaining forces. Marcia was one of these soldiers.

The story is told primarily through flashbacks. Marcia was drafted to help in the war against the hostile AI forces, and she encountered more peculiarities unique to the AI than most soldiers did. It’s these experiences that have federal troops seeking her out in her 60’s to help them find a lost weapon of the war.

Marcia is reluctant to help. She knows if they find certain things in those hills that they may not come back alive. The war may have ended, but they don’t know exactly how that happened. There could still be dangerous AI and nanotechnology in the areas humans have not been able to repopulate yet.

If all of this sounds very strange and confusing so far, that’s because it is. Much of the focus of the story was on Marcia, her experiences, and her relationships with others. It was about where she fit in this strange world and the things she experienced to lead her there.

However, the world itself is only explained through info dumps at the beginning of each chapter. Some of it is explored through Marcia’s memories and actions, but in my opinion, there was a lot more that could have been explained. I feel like the first third of the story was just trying to rush the reader through background information. This information was necessary context to understand some of the characters’ actions. If this novella had been 100 pages longer, I feel the author would have had more time to ease the reader into the world instead of blasting us with information.

There were a few situations in which the characters found themselves, particularly during the climax of the story, that I would have liked to see more of or at least seen more of an explanation for. For example, at one point Marcia has some sort of psychological encounter with a remnant AI from the war. It literally speaks to her mind through her government issued artificial enhancements. It’s able to control the minds of others without those enhancements as well.

This entire sequence of the story reminded me strongly of Jeff Vandermeer‘s Annihilation, and it made me question how nanotechnology was able to act almost like magic or a virus in this world. The entire situation read like a fever-dream, and it made me wonder what the war that took place might have actually been like.

Overall, I feel this story could have definitely been expanded to include more context. It would be interesting to read more about the AI, its nanotechnology, and how humans adapted it. I feel like this could be the start of an interesting trilogy of full-length novels, but instead it was crammed into a slim 112 pages. The characters didn’t really have time to be fully developed, and the ending was quite anticlimactic considering the difficult decisions that were being made and the odds against Marcia.

I gave These Prisoning Hills by Christopher Rowe three out of five stars. It was still an intriguing read even if it was very strange and too short for the amount of information contained within it. I feel the story could be fleshed out more and the world expanded upon to improve my feelings towards the book. I would still read more by this author and in this story setting, though.

An interesting novella with complex world-building, These Prisoning Hills, is less action than introspection, and while conceptually fascinating, it suffers a little from wordy prose and a disjointed structure.

First of all, though, that COVER. Gorgeous.

Normally, I enjoy a novel where I have to piece things today, but maybe my mindset was just off or the style didn’t work for me, but I had a lot of trouble ramping up the enthusiasm to read this novella once I started. The storyline jumps around in time, but because there is so much backstory to fill us in on (the AI, how the AI and other tech works, the odd designations of the nanotech, the way Tennesse/Kentucky has been reordered, the different bands and what they mean, and Marcia’s story) I had trouble keeping it all lined up in my head. Most of the backstory comes from the blurb.

Now, there were some things I really liked. I loved that Marcia was an older woman in her sixties. We don’t often get this as a main character in this genre, so that was great. I also loved how this was not an integral part of the plot but did have some bearing on it - it was not just a random decision. In fact, it felt like nothing in this book was a random decision - it’s one of those novellas that I really think could have been blown out into a novel because there is so much going on.

As a result of this lack of space, Marcia was a bit bland, and her history with Carter didn’t feel integral to the plot or served to explain anything further. There were also a few side characters that kind of blended together.

I really enjoyed the metaphors and certain turns of the phrase that the author used. It's great for those who enjoy prose on the more flowery or perhaps more ethereal side.

Overall, if you have the time to devote to really digging into this novella, in taking your time to read it, I think it has a lot of merit!

Sadly I had to DNF These Prisoning Hills.
I really liked the premise of this book but I just couldn't get into it and it confused me.
Sadly this book just wasn't for me.
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This novella is weird, but the good kind of weird. It's the kind of weird where you don't really know what is going on at first, but you're drawn to it because the world, characters and concepts are fascinating. The storytelling is also fun. We are shown events from both the current time and past to connect characters and events together. I don't want to give much away since this is a short story, but it was a great read and perfect for those who love to explore a weird scifi dystopian.

I have to be honest and say that I didn’t bond with this novella. The characters felt as though they hadn’t much personality and the story, though interesting, held no weight. That said it was unique and unafraid to try something new. This is what I love about novellas, that even if you don’t enjoy it you can still find small glimmers of something wonderful. Some aspects I genuinely loved and the imagery it invoked was new and exiting. I wouldn’t recommend it to my friends, I wouldn’t read it again, but I don’t regret having read it. Maybe other sci-fi fans will be able to give it the love I feel it deserves.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone novella. I got an eGalley of this from NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: This had potential but was a bit confusing. I read more and this is part of a world that Rowe has written about in another novella “The Voluntary State”. I did not know that and did not read that before reading this book. The book follows an older woman named Marcia and alternates between the current time and the past. I had some issues with this because the storylines for both were so similar, I had to keep looking back to see if I was reading about the current time or the past. This made the story confusing and hard to follow.

I did enjoy the ideas in here but the world seems a bit half-baked and confusing. There is a lot of terminology thrown at you and the history of this world is very hard to splice together. The author does try to give some of the world history in little blurbs before each section but they don’t help much. It would have been better to have a prologue or history section at the beginning of the book explaining things.

I also had some trouble engaging with the characters, they are all very similar and pretty 2D. In the end I just felt very “eh” about it all. It doesn’t take long to read and I did enjoy the concept here. It would be great to see this as a more complete novel or maybe combined with the previous novelette “The Voluntary State”. The way this is presented feels more like loosely connected notes than a story.

My Summary (3/5): Overall the premise here is unique but it just isn’t executed very well. Maybe if I read “The Voluntary State” first I would be less confused. However, the world-building, characters, and plot were all a bit lackluster. The story is confusing and the characters are so similar, that in the end I just didn’t care much…I just finished it and moved on. Rowe has amazingly cool ideas but needs to work on making those a into a more cohesive world and story.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Macmillan-Tor/Forge for an advanced copy of this new science fiction novella.

In this science fiction novella These Prisoning HIlls Christopher Rowe writes of a long war involving rogue A. I. the Queen of Reason for the Voluntary State of Tennessee, that decimates the Southeast of the United States. The war was fought by corrupting the flora, fauna and the earth itself creating weapons, traps and more of itself with nanotechnology. Years later a veteran of the war, Marcia, is tasked by federal authorities to go back to the Appalachian hills where he was born and help a military unit look for a lost weapon, and the first team that disappeared also looking for it. Strange things are happening in the hills, something the search team never expected to find.

The novella is part of a bigger story, which does make it hard to get into. A lot is thrown at the reader, and even a summary or something at the beginning might have helped, but I blame the publisher more than the writer. Unfortunately I fear that a lot of readers won't make the attempt, and give up early on what is actually a really well written, different kind of story. I like the fact that there are more questions left than answered. Is this an alternate world, around the corner, or farther in the future? Crows and Owls are important, but I am not sure how, but again am interested enough to find out. There were I believe two more novellas involving this story, and I hope they are released as one story.

The writing is stark, which fits the dreaminess, well nightmare to some of what is going on. I liked the writing, but still felt that I was missing something. However as I said I am interested in knowing more.

In a post apocalyptic Appalachia, an old soldier is recruited for another mission. Her new orders dove tail in the narrative with her past experience with the machines and entities that ravaged the countryside 30 years ago, which is told in a flashback "then" and "now" style.

This book has a wonderful use of language. It's a sparse style that creates the stark imagery of the world being built. I would love to read this as a novel, not a novella. Unfortunately, as a novella it doesn't give itself enough room to expand on images and ideas, leaving it kind of fragmented and feeling unfinished. I wanted to read more, but in this short format I found it kind of confusing and dissatisfying, like reading a rough draft. There's a lot of suspension of disbelief going on here to make this story work: I just don't know enough about this world and the people in it to make it make sense to me. I would like to read a longer version, with all the characters and concepts fleshed out fully, and not some random snapshots from the author's mind patchworked into a story like an old quilt. It has so much potential, but right now I would say read it if you have a love of spartan language and stark imagery, but don't expect much from the plot.

This one was a bit confusing for me.

CONS
There are many frustrated reviews that say they felt like this was a sequel, when it’s not listed as such. After doing some digging, I'm pretty sure that it's a continuation of a short story by Rowe, published in 'Sci Fiction', called “The Voluntary State.” This was a massive fail on the marketing team’s part to not specify this because without having read that earlier story, you are definitely going to be totally lost. So much of the world building is left out of this book that it becomes pretty hard to follow without having read the previous part.

PROS
I really appreciate that it was a novella and got its point across quickly. I love good, clean, purposeful writing that doesn’t drag on and on without saying much.
The ending right up until the last paragraph was epic. (Maybe TOO epic because the last bit didn't hold up to the beginning's epic-ness.)

I’m currently reading DUNE which this totally borrows vibes from. It has the same tone, its own crazy vocab that you need to constantly flip back to in order to follow the story, and very military vibes. While it’s not necessarily my vibe, I definitely recommend it to those who like military/robot dramas and DUNE-ish books and want a quick read. Do read his first part tho.

2.8/5 stars
I'm going to be honest, I had a rather difficult time following this book. It felt like it could've used another edit to clarify things. It almost felt like I was missing another book to give more context. But I've looked up the authors work and couldn't find anything else in the same "world".

I'm kinda sad that this was the case because the story itself was intriguing. I kept turning the page hoping to find out more about our main characters past and what she was currently dealing with. But the confusion of the creatures and science would pull me out of the story. This was difficult to rate since I felt like the story was good but the clunkiness brought it down.

4.5 stars

This novella was WEIRD, and I loved every second of it -- the only reason I didn't devour it in one sitting is because I got sleepy and it was late. Rowe's world-building is immersive and fascinating, and I could read an entire book set in this world. This is strange spec-fic at its best, and tbh I will probably end up rereading this in the future. SO much fun, & I highly, highly recommend.

These Prisoning Hills is set in a future where a rogue AI created an army to take on the Federals and caused a ton of collateral damage in the process. Marcia, the main character, was a small player in the war with the AI and is once again relevant decades on as she is asked to help a Federal rescue team locate a squad of federal soldiers in the mountains of Tennessee.

This was, unfortunately, quite a disappointing read. I found the setting of the book (both geographical and technological) very appealing but just about everything else was fairly weak. The characters were fairly uninteresting and two dimensional, the plot ranged from mundane to entirely incomprehensible at times, and the writing wasn't great either. Some sentences were so long and filled with so many clauses I genuinely couldn't understand what was trying to be said. And while I did like the setting, the world-building was extremely confusing, especially in regards to the rogue AI's army. Various types of units were referred to without being explained, such as something referred to as a bear which is described as flying and dropping bombs (doesn't sound like any species of bear I'm familiar with). I also couldn't make heads nor tails of the ending and it almost felt like there was a missing chapter. Sadly, I wouldn't really recommend this one.

For such a short work (this is a novella) the author manages to paint an entire world in rich and immersive detail. This was sharp and intelligent with gorgeous prose, examining those who grow up in the aftermath of war and comparing it with those who remember something different. Also AI and machines and Kentucky. There is a lot to love here.

Fascinating and compelling. It seems I'm a little out of the loop on the world Rowe has created here, and definitely need to go search out the previous writing he's done in this setting. But that's not a dealbreaker; the background is hinted at in a way that leaves you intrigued rather than adrift (ok, maybe a little adrift). The story itself is short, and almost inconsequential. I confess it didn't really make much of an impression on me. But the setting is eerie and luminescent, kind of a Jeff-Vandermeer-does-Terminator vibe, and that kept me glued to the page. Also, that cover is brilliant.

In a future devastated by war and suffering the effects of climate change, Marcia is asked to join a rescue effort for a missing recovery team. As the story moves through an environment, even foreign to Marcia, a native of the area, she thinks back on her time in the war and the terrible creatures she fought. Though the AI, Queen of Reason, Athena Parthenus, has been "killed," something strange is happening in the hills of Kentucky. Raw with emotion, Rowe depicts a world besieged by mystery and foreboding. These Prisoning Hills is a great novella for those who enjoy a grim post-apocalyptic story.

An innovative novella about the aftermath of environmental and societal destruction, set in a uniquely mystifying Appalachian setting. The cast of diverse characters are portrayed with a refreshing honesty, and the prose is tightly bound and elegant in Rowe's personal, imaginative style. My favorite thing about this novella was the world it was set in. Who wouldn't want to read a story about towering mecha creations hell-bent on serving their AI god-queen while razing society to the ground? The science, technology, and military terminology was well-researched for this novel.

As a native of eastern Kentucky, it was wonderful to see representation of the Appalachian hills in this story, especially in its speculative context. I couldn't get enough of the world and how important of a role the environment played in this eco-dystopian story. Only after finishing this novella did I learn it was inspired by two previous short stories written by Rowe, but having gone into this book without that knowledge, I had no problems with falling into the state of the world and the lives of these characters. A short, satisfying read, with a breathless ending that will leave you thinking about this novella's world long after the last page. If Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation" ever crossed paths with the film "The Iron Giant", then you would be left with the experience of "These Prisoning Hills."

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a huge fan of this world that Rowe has created. This is definitely not a novella to read on its own, though; grab a copy of Telling the Map so that you can read "The Border State" and "The Voluntary State." Those two stories help to provide a good background for this one; so too does my own familiarity with the history and geography of both Kentucky and Tennessee. That familiarity, I think, is what helped Rowe's version of KY/TN cohere for me, and what may be lacking in other readers as they struggle to make sense of Rowe's world-building.

What's lacking here for me is a better understanding of what's at stake for the main character in this story, which is something that "The Border State" does EXCEPTIONALLY well. The writing is clean and the time-alternating POV works, for the most part. I'm still patiently waiting for a longer, more immersive foray into this world.

This was such an interesting read! Usually I don't read too much sci-fi, but the weirdness of this book really appealed to me - i also really enjoyed the time-skips in the book and how they tied the narrative together really well. I think it's the first time i've read a sci-fi novel taking place in Kentucky and I enjoyed the amount of worldbuilding done in such a limited amount of pages.
Very entertaining read!

An interesting, albeit quite short, novella. A pretty good introduction to this setting (apparently it's featured in another short story?), and one populated by engaging characters and an intriguing story. It's packed with cool SF elements, and the ending was quite satisfying.

I can't help but think it could/should have been just a bit longer - I could have done with a bit more world-building (which is strange, considering I often find first books excessively focused on that, at the expense of story). It's a minor quibble, I suppose, as I still enjoyed what I read. However, given its slim length, I think some of the emotional impact didn't quite land as hard as it could have.

Nevertheless, a recommended read: it's interesting, imaginative, and has the potential for expansion into a series.