3.5/5 <i>Last Exit</i> is about a broken found family that comes back together to try and save the world.

The barrier between this world and its alternate universes is wafer thin and rot seeps through the cracks. Zelda and her crew go back into the alts to heal the world once and for all.

This is genre-blending. It's fantasy--mostly urban, part western, part horror. The action sequences were beautiful and I was rooting for the characters. That being said, I felt like this dragged in places. There was a lot of commentary on American society, but some of it felt out-of-place. Like a rant in the middle of the story. I liked it, but I had to push through at times.

<i>Thank you NetGalley and RB Media for an audio arc for an honest review.</i>

Anyone who has read Max Gladstone’s prior works can attest that he has a way with words. His prose routinely offers poignant observations on what it means to be human and what it means to be living in this cultural moment.
Last Exit is an urban fantasy book that has the traditional structure of a quest novel (think The Hobbit, Six of Crows) led by a host of diverse characters who are complex, sensitive, introspective and, above all, very easy to root for. Our main cast is a group of Uni besties (a touch of Dark Academia thrown in) who in their youth went on misadventures and aspired to lofty ideals until a personal tragedy sent them reeling away from each other. 10 years later, the band must reunite to fight the ‘big bad’ and stop an impending apocalypse. However, like any novel worth its salt, the most important battles they are fighting are internal and all the fantastical monsters they face are stand-ins for real world challenges.

Last Exit at its root is an unfettered critique of America and American Dream, who it benefits and from whom it exacts it costs. The novel is so rooted in the cultural, political and geographical landscape of America that it invariably excludes anyone with a non-US centric world view. It also didn’t flow as well as I would have liked because the long pondering, social commentary didn’t mesh seamlessly with the fast paced action sequences.

To Gladstone’s credit, the use of classic horror elements and themes as metaphorical representations of the structural failings of current society was a great stylistic choice.

There is a lot to unpack and ruminate on in this novel, you just have to be the sort of person who enjoys the mental exercise.

Audiobook Review: the vocal performance was calibrated to match each character. The overall production was engaging and consistent.

[NetGalley ARC]

Por fin tenemos un nuevo libro de Max Gladstone, tras superar el bloqueo que ha tenido estos últimos años. Además, es una estupenda novela que hará las delicias de los aficionados a la fantasía oscura con toques de terror, con un aire a road movie y una esencia muy americana.


He visto definida en redes sociales Last Exit como fantasía oscura cuántica y me hubiera encantado tener yo esa idea porque me parece una definición que le viene como anillo al dedo y además es un subgénero que suena apasionante. La novela está dividida en dos líneas temporales, con casi los mismos protagonistas pero una separación de 10 años entre ellos.

El comienzo es bastante duro, con pensamientos suicidas de la protagonista que en el pasado cometió un error por el que perdió al amor de su vida y se sigue culpabilizando por ello.

La parte fantástica se basa en la posibilidad de la existencia de mundos alternativos allí donde las cosas no están demasiado definidas o no son conocidas por mucha gente, por ejemplo, la magia es muy difícil de realizar en Nueva York, con esas calles conocidas por todo el mundo, pero si estás en esas enormes carreteras estadounidenses, más cosas son posibles, por estar indefinidas. Y se puede saltar entre mundos y encontrar de todo, desde dinosaurios a robots asesinos. De hecho, uno de los aciertos de la novela es utilizar la tecnología para bajar el nivel de incertidumbre y por lo tanto, protegerse contra la magia.

Los personajes están exquisitamente definidos en ambas líneas temporales, en el pasado asistiremos a su paso a la madurez, primero con esa inconsciencia natural de los jóvenes que se sienten prácticamente inmortales, pero a los que el paso del tiempo va poniendo en su lugar, con nuevas cicatrices y heridas donde antes solo había piel tersa. La presentación de los miembros del grupo es absolutamente magistral, conociendo a cada uno por su relación con los demás, desde la médica que cuida a sus pacientes con tanto cariño como a sus hijos como el mecánico que desmonta los coches pieza por pieza capaz de buscar el mejor camino en cada situación. Además, cada uno de ellos tiene un don que le ayudará en su aventura.

La prosa de Max Gladstone también sirve estupendamente para crear esa atmósfera opresiva de persecución, así como un ambiente pre apocalíptico situado en unos EE.UU. abocados al desastre. Que la figura que persigue a la pandilla sea un cowboy tampoco es baladí así como el uso de coches totalmente mecánicos sin preocuparse mucho por la gasolina. Es una novela muy americana, muy western crepuscular.

He tenido la suerte de disfrutar de la narración de Natalie Naudus, que adapta su voz de una forma maravillosa a la historia, al ambiente y a cada uno de los personajes a los que da vida. El audiolibro supera las 21 horas y no se ha hecho para nada largo, en parte por la propia obra y en parte por el desempeño de Naudus.

Last Exit está destinada a ser una de las novelas del año.

Zelda, Ish, Ramon, Sarah & Sal tried to save the world once & failed, losing Sal in the process.

Sal was Zelda’s GF. Zelda spends the next 10 years beating herself up about it & fending off the darkness. The other 3 live their lives as normally as they can.

There’s a lot of introspection & then a lot of action. It balances nicely. There’s multiple time shifts & character points of view.

Another chance to save the world & the band is back together. This is genre bending. Slow paced, action packed, science fiction, fantasy & a bit of horror. Dense. I really enjoyed the story,

Tune in for the prose & stay for the story! Nice narration.

Thank you NetGalley & Recorded Books for the ARC. Great book that begs to be reread.

thanks to the publishers & netgalley for providing me with an audiobook arc for an honest review!

Last Exit follows Zelda in the aftermath of failing to save the Earth. Ten years ago, Zelda and her college friends, youthful and hopeful, attempted to save the world by traveling through alternate realities (alts) and battling the rot that’s destroying the world. And they failed. They didn’t find a reality better than the one they are living in and they lost Sal, Zelda’s girlfriend and the heart of the group. Those remaining, Ish, Ramon, Sarah and Zelda went their separate ways. For ten years, Zelda stayed on the road to stop the rot from infesting the world but that doesn’t stop it from approaching its end. That is, until one last chance at saving the world arises and Zelda must gather her friends to finish the job once and for all.

Last Exit is told through multiple point-of-views and timelines. Whilst the ‘present’ timeline reads more like a sci-fi-fantasy adventure with a bit of a horror element, the ‘past’ timeline reminds me a bit of dark academia stories. Together, it nicely tells the tale of a group of individuals who are close-knitted in college finding something larger than themselves through mathematics, failed, grew apart and come back together learning to love and support each other all the same again. The number of times the narration go into flashbacks can be a bit too much, but I find them equally interesting to read and provides the necessary context to the character/relationship arc.

The themes of Last Exit are woven into the prose artfully. It’s able to say a lot with a few sentences. There’re a lot of times I had to rewind the audiobook (in a good way!) to fully absorb what it’s trying to say. It’s telling you the character’s story but it’s also telling you something more. It’s about the larger societal ideals and big American ideas. Last Exit is the kind of book you can reread again and again and find something new every time.

Sadly, the story lost me a bit with its slow pacing. Whilst the prose definitely gives me plenty to think about, I just personally prefer my stories to be a bit more fast-paced (especially with how bleak the tone of the story can get).

Not for me unfortunately. This was my first Max Gladstone novel and I couldn't get into the voice and writing style. DNF, I gave up because at 20% the story wasn't approaching anywhere near the plot synopsis or tagline of American Gods meets The Dark Tower, I jumped in because I was hopeful to hear a story about alternate realities and a team of super hero likes who battle a dark force. To me the MC sounded whiny more than anything, there was more description about a dead dog than what was actually supposed to be about traveling between worlds and a dark rot that destroys those worlds. In the first 20% the rot was only mentioned in brief passing two or three times. If one didn't know the book was suppose to be about traveling alternate worlds you wouldn't know it at all, not once was it mentioned, not once. I had to keep rereading the synopsis to make sure that's what the book actually was abut. There's too many new and interesting books coming out for me to spend more than 100 pages on this.

This genre bending novel was wildly inventive, focusing on college friends who each found their knack for distorting probability, lost a friend along the way, and a decade later need to get the band back together to go on one last adventure. There's a diversity of emotional arcs, settings, and characters, and I enjoyed following them through worlds.

I got my audio copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher.

I've been a Max Gladstone fan for a long time. I loved the craft books, adored "Bookburners," the multi-author audio project he created. His collaboration with Amal El-Mohtar, "This Is How You Lose The Time War" was my favorite book of 2019. So it's fair to say I came in with high expectations. The book met, and then exceeded these expectations.

Since people like to invent genres, and I'm people too, let me try and coin a term: LAST EXIT is a work of Quantum Fantasy. This is a subgenre of science fantasy that takes place in our world and/or adjacent worlds, and is informed by quantum physics. The two books I would put in this subgenre are LAST EXIT and Cadwell Turnbull's NO GODS, NO MONSTERS. Both books are dark, deal very much with our current reality, have more than a tinge of horror. Both books are about change and stasis, and have epic plots with finely drawn characters.

Gladstone and Turnbull are also both very, very good at the writing thing.

I won't talk about plot, here, and even delving into themes can be tricky, spoiler-wise. I will say this books has a fractured found family, friendship and love, and a terrifying and insidious villain. This is a book about trying to fix mistakes, and about how even the smartest people can - in the right circumstances - be idiots. It is also very much a book about trauma. Personal and societal.

I think this is the first truly great book I've read in 2022.

I tried hard to get into this book. The tone is very bleak, which makes it slow. The pace doesn't pick up until the end when Zelda gets her gang together. The book should've been cut back in many places. This one feels like you're reading The Secret History. The writing is great but they do that extra “like that one time” -e.g. think family guy- I just didn't get anything from this adventure, not to say you won't. All the best-

I've been a fan of Max Gladstone since his first novel (since before, technically, since I got an early review copy of that, too). While I think his Craft Sequence books are brilliant, I love his standalone books that let him stretch his legs and explore bigger and stranger concepts. Especially a book like this, which is set firmly in the real world with supernatural elements creeping in. The early bits of this book read like early Stephen King, but it's the sort of book King could never have written. It's distinctly Max.

While the story itself is satisfying, and I enjoy the idea that Zelda is a hero who failed, and we're meeting her after that failure, I did find myself disappointed we were told about so many other exciting/interesting adventures that happened before. It's like watching a movie based on a TV series that keeps referencing cool episodes that you can't watch. Hopefully there will be a chance to revisit some of these in prequels (short story collections, novellas, what-have-you.

Also, specific to the audiobook version, Natalie Naudus is an amazing narrator and quickly becoming one of my favorites. Character voices are distinct without becoming caricatures, and she gives each scene exactly the right amount of emotion without forcing anything. It's a reading, not a recitation, and that distinction is always welcome.