I’ll post up a full review eventually, but hot damn. This book is so much. It’s blood and bright and horrifying and lovely. I wouldn’t really call this book a romance or even romantic, but it is filled with love, and I cannot appreciate it enough for that.

I’m a pretty big fan of Clarke’s other trilogy but unfortunately I think my rating and feelings have to come down to an *it’s not you—it’s me* situation. I never had a good enough grasp of what was going on in order to enjoy the interesting world and premise. I think Gideon the Ninth is a perfect comp for Metal from Heaven, especially because I feel the exact same way about both books. Clearly, they have found their audience and I’m genuinely happy readers enjoy these books so much; I’m just not one of those readers sadly.

Thank you NetGalley and Erewhon Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Alright, first off: this fucking rules. It’s rich in language and it kind of feels like a fever dream and it’s also quite brutal. The amount of imagery, emotion, and panache Clarke fits in here is impressive and while I did find the prose dense in information, it’s absolutely worth the read. There are people that have been able to articulate what the hell is going on in this far better than I can (I admit, I’ve fallen a bit behind on my ARCs and I did read this via audio from the library—I enjoyed this, and will certainly be re-reading physically as soon as I can shove it into my busy, busy schedule) because I feel like if I tried to distill this book down it would just come out like “aliogudfgashlfasjdkgl.” It’s ambitious and I think that should be rewarded regardless, but I do think it sticks the landing and in general just works. The voice was so strong and reading this made me feel breathless.

Thank you NetGalley and Erewhon for the e-arc!
This was one of my highly anticipated reads and I am so excited to say I ended up flying through it. The world-building is incredibly intricate and a bit heavy but it really lends to such a detailed story. The characters were my favorite part as I am such a sucker for messy queer characters. The revenge plotline was a bit less relevant than expected but I still ended up liking it. Definitely worth reading especially with the themes.

I have started this book a couple of times , and have gotten to about the same spot… from what I'm have read the concept is cool just not my type of book.. Who knows I may pick it up in the future

The premise of this book is so captivating. I really enjoyed the detailed writing and the worldbuilding.

Thank you Net Galley for providing me with this eARC!

This is an incredibly complex book. There were definitely sections that I thought were too smart for me but eventually they would piece together.

It’s into action from the start but takes a second for the reader to adjust. The way that the author utilizes the language to tell the story can be very strange at times and it took me a second to get my head around when listening to it. The narrator also pronounced things very strangely (example Rin ed instead of rind, bow-dice instead of bodice, etc) and everytime it happened it took me out of the story for a second. I preferred reading to listening.

The FMC grows through the story. Through time jumps you seem them age. This helped guide the story in some aspects but I feel like sometimes the storyline waxed poetically longer than it needed to. The main character would muse and contemplate, and the story wouldn’t move forward because so much time was spent on these thoughts. It slowed the pacing down for me a little bit. There were often unconnected tangents that the story would go into that took me out of the narrative.

It felt like it took the narrative a long time to get to the point that is referenced in the synopsis of the book. And I found that kind of irritating because I just felt like I was constantly waiting to get to the part that I was excited for it was almost too much set up.

The world building is a lot to digest. A lot of the characters had multiple names so I did have a hard time keeping track who was who at times. The magic in this is very unique and the politics are very complex and thought out.

I enjoyed the fact that the powers of the main character is more often a hinderance rather than a help. It’s definitely something that, though it gives her advantage, it gives her an equal disadvantage at the same time. It is like a physical disability that although can make her who she is, definitely takes a toll on her.

I found the book enjoyable, but also not at times. It sometimes is a little gruesome or squeamish for me.

The big reveal was soooooo predictable. But at the same time most of the characters never did what I wanted or expected them to so it was an interesting catch-22.

I was interested to see how the author would wrap this up into a standalone and was impressed with how it was done.

I liked a lot of things about this book. I liked the idea of a lesbian revenge fantasy, the backdrop of industrial revolution and labor strikes, the lyrical writing of the author, and the expansive worldbuilding - unfortunately, the narration kind of killed the vibe for me.

Content warnings include: death, seizures, hallucinations, violence, organised crime, robbery, sex on-page, homophobia.

One of my biggest issues was that the main plot that is described in the book description - the bit about the main character Marney seeking revenge on the the man who killed her family, so to get close she starts courting for his daughter's hand - doesn't even come up until after 50% into the book. This is already a pet peeve of mine, but unfortunately the bits between the very beginning, where Marney's family is killed, and the plot really starting, were not my cup of tea.
Not because of what was happening - Marney growing up with bandits - but because of the narration.

For a huge part the book is written as Marney telling what happened to her to "you", her childhood friend who died with her family. Meaning the events are not written as if they are happening to Marney, but as if they had happened in the past and she is recounting the events. I simply did not like that.

The book was not well written - the writing is very beautiful, and I have enjoyed it already in the author's other works. However, the very lyrical writing, combined with the retrospective narration, and how the reader is thrown into the entire world without much explanation made it confusing to read at times. Usually I don't mind a bit of confusion while reading (the book is compared to Gideon the Ninth after all, which is famously confusing and one of my favourite books) but in this case this specific combination made me not particularly engaged with the book or plot.

Additionally, while the characters were pretty cool, they also felt very scattered and surface level. Even some of the most important characters I had no grasp on as I finished the book, and since a lot of the characters switched around, appeared out of nowhere just to disappear again, it was hard to really get invested into any of them as they were discarded so quickly even when they seemed important. And even the ones that reappeared never got much depth.

Conversely, it actually felt like there was a lot of depth to the setting and worldbuilding, but following it was difficult, and I admittedly just gave up on some of the world politics and countries/players involved. I wanted more from it, but couldn't quite get there.

The plot, what there was of it, was very cool. Unfortunately, it sort of just.... ends at 90%, and the rest of the book is told in a sort of omniscent epilogue style were a ton of events are summarized. It's not like it doesn't make sense for the plot, and IS explained away, but it felt like a very strange choice. It also gave some of the coolest worldbuilding reveals, but it wasn't as impactful as it could have been due to the narration, again.

Ultimately this has a super cool concept and I did enjoy parts of it, but it hugely missed the mark for me due to the narrative choices.

DNF AT 30%. The run-on formatting and the weird bioessentialism (wtf is boycrunchy and girlcrunchy or whatever for butch and femme) and just batshit piratical anarcho-capitalistic politics of this books got real unbelievable. I initially found the second person perspective intriguing but the sentence formatting got tiresome, especially cause the main character seems to roll an auto-fail on not being incredibly obviously shady every time.

DNF @ around 65%

This book was truly a victim of circumstance. I was reading "Metal from Haven" during the 2024 election and the themes of the book started feeling a little too close to home. I had to put it down, and once I put down books I'm not good at picking them back up.

By all standards, this is a fantastically written book with strong themes and messages about greed, capitalism, and labor politics. It reminded me a lot of "Babel" and I think it deserves a place next to it in discussions about politically impactful industrial fantasy novels. I will definitely recommend it to people, despite not finishing it myself.

Thank you NetGalley and Erewhon books for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Some books stick to your insides, hang from your ribcage, and prod at you for days. This is a book like that. It just doesn’t leave you. A wondrous, gut wrenching torture.

Highly recommend.

The premise itself for Metal from Heaven by August Clarke is barrel of rip-roaring fun. It’s a gun-slinging, industrial revolution-inspired book that explores worker exploitation—albeit with a magical twist.

However, all these stellar concepts unfortunately get watered down by shoddy execution. On a technical level, the writing quality was terribly inconsistent for me. The action sequences are awkward and clunky at times and riddled with comma splices.

For instance, take a look at the following passage:

"A man scrambled from his booth and threw himself across the gap, but the train lurched, his ankle twisted, he slipped and was caught just before gravity stole him by a second enforcer, who tossed him down in the second car, strode across him as she advanced on the bandits, but she’d lowered her weapon to catch him and had no time to ready it again."

For a fast-paced action sequence, there is no artistic reason for this section to contain so many conjunctive clauses or for so many independent clauses to be glued together with commas. Honestly, an editor should have noted that and suggested that this sentence be broken up.

All in all, I’m frustrated and saddened that this is yet another promising book this year that feels like it had been prematurely published and needed further polishing to truly shine.

Thank you, NetGalley and Erewhon Books, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is crazy unique - it isn’t the easiest read, but I have been thinking about it for months since finishing. Easily the most interesting book I have read this year by a landslide.

I’ve put off writing my Metal from Heaven review for a while, for no particular reason except that I didn’t feel an urge to get my thoughts down. More fool me, because now I don’t remember anything about it! Anyway, this will end up being probably a reasonably short review because of that and also because I don’t feel like spending that much time on a book that frustrated me as much as this.

I had been anticipating this one quite eagerly, since Clarke’s previous series is probably one of the only YA series I have enjoyed in recent years. So, their move into adult was one I was excited for. Alas, it was not to be.

It feels a little wanting my cake and eating it too to, on the one hand, complain when writing is all bland and samey, and then turn around and say what I’m about to say here, so let me preface this somewhat. It is very refreshing to read a book with a distinctive authorial style as was the case here. However, there are some reasons I don’t think it worked in this book: the style was one that worked very well for the edgy teenage witchyness of The Scapegracers, but here it felt very flowery and worked only to obscure a lot of what was going on. And, perhaps, to also obscure the lack-slash-flimsiness of some of the worldbuilding. Either way, it was the kind of writing that became a slog to read. YMMV, as ever.

The worldbuilding itself feels quite light touch a lot of the time — you get religions and places and occasionally politics thrown in at random and you have to infer, which is all very well and good, but at times there needed to be a better balance between inferring and giving you the information. It didn’t help either that there was a lot of politicking going on off-page, which then suddenly becomes relevant to the plot. The plot in itself never felt particularly complex, but I can see why the politics might appear so at times: that would be because you never see them, only the results.

My final point is that this book felt less like a coherent whole and more a string of scenes coming one after the other. This might tie back into my issue with the opacity of the writing, but on the whole, it felt like a book that just needed a bit more editing and a bit less metaphor.

Metal From Heaven by August Clarke

If August Clarke has no fans, I’m dead. I’m just sad that tracking down a hardcover of this book in Australia is so difficult and expensive :(

Revenge, queer af, gritty, raw emotions, addictive writing, with engaging side characters.

Messy ‘what even is gender’ main character lesbian Marney, who is obsessed with a dead childhood friend tries to win the hand of her enemy's daughter to get her revenge.

Marney has illusions and the writing goes off the rails when it happens, which could be difficult to follow but I couldn't get enough.

Listen, if you want a more in depth review, there are heaps out there already that do a fantastic job at breaking down this book. Just know that I fucking loved it and will have a trophy copy for my shelf asap.

eBook supplied by Kensington Publishing/Erewhon Books. All opinions are my own

Going from one DNF to another. What did this one do wrong, you might ask? Well I just found it a mix of boring and confusing AF.

This had been compared to GIDEON THE NINTH but whereas that was confusing in some of the bigger plot points until they unfurled, whereas the smaller/closer interactions and narrative voice was equal parts compelling and hilarious, this was confusing in a "my brain is leaking out my ears and my eyes are rolling off the page" kind of way. And additionally I just could not vibe with the writing. I got 18% in -- yes there was some skimming in the later bits -- and as soon as I put it down I fell into a short coma.

Initially I thought I'd be willing to make this a DNF-for-now and I'd try again later but just describing my feelings about this has me yawning again so I may not risk another narcolepsy attack. We'll see.

Part lesbian revenge fantasy, part hallucinogenic fever dream - this book is exactly what I needed. Metal From Heaven is a coming of age tale filled with blood, s*x, and sedition. Tamsyn Muir fans: you’re going to want to move this to the top of your TBR!

Marney Honeycutt is a lustertouched child. She is allergic to the ichorite metal her parents work with in a luster factory - metal she can also sense and manipulate. When the factory goes on strike to request medical help for their lustertouched children, they are massacred by their employer. Marney vows to one day destroy the man who ordered her family killed. She runs away, joins a cabal of irreverent outlaws, and meets dissidents determined to one day topple governments. But it’s a cruel world led by tyrants and psychopaths, and they do not relinquish power.

Marney hides her pain and anger under tattoos and bravado. If you loved Gideon in Gideon the Ninth, you will love Marney. Clarke’s prose and writing style will appeal to fans of Harrow the Ninth, which also means it will not work for everyone. Marney hallucinates when near ichorite, so you have to interpret parts of the plot through her delirium. Clarke assumes you can pick up world building through context. Very little is explained.

I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy-light books lately, and it was SO nice to finally sink my teeth into something this layered and complex. I loved everything about this book.

Strap in because Metal From Heaven by August Clarke is one dark, mean, but spirited fantasy novel that takes a swing at capitalism and lands its fists.

Marney Honeycutt just watched everyone she knew get cut down in the streets of Ignavia City. Industry Yann Chauncey heard the workers cry out for better conditions and to have their “lustre touched” condition researched. He answered the only way he knew how, with death and violence. Marney is the only survivor, and happens to be lustre touched herself, making her escape on a train outside the city with the help of bandit women calling themselves the Choir. A decade later Marney is known as the “Whip Spider,” and has the opportunity for revenge. Chauncey’s daughter is looking for a suitor, and Marney will pretend to be an aristocrat just to get a shot at Chauncey. But will she do it before a war that will change everything?

Metal From Heaven snuck up on me. I was enthralled by the idea, but since I had no expectations from Clarke, I was worried it would fall into a cookie cutter “romantasy” with trappings of industrial worker action. While the bombastic start chipped away at my cold heart, it wasn’t until Marney was pulled into the sway of the Choir that I began to be swallowed by Clarke’s narrative. Her entry into the life of crime, becoming one of the most notorious brigands in the industrialized world was seductive, though harsh. Clarke pulled down my defenses with ease and panache, to the point that I forgot they even existed. It helped that most of the story leads up to the synopsis, building up Marney and the many men and women of the Choir and its allies.

It also didn’t hurt that Clarke is just a damn good writer. I don’t know what’s in the sauce these days, but I’ve read quite a few books this year from newer writers who have amazing prose. Clarke gets you to really feel how Marney feels through the story. Her cynical view, but deep abiding love for the women she fights with and for. The gritty world in which they exist ventilates off the page like smokestacks without a filter. A second person perspective was employed to incredible effect, giving Marney a real voice, and implicating the reader within her life, and the world she lives in. It really pays off in big ways as the story continues, and Clarke absolutely destroyed me with its implications. The slow burn of its use, the perfectly timed and inconsistent reminders that Marney is talking to you, and where it ultimately leads, left me speechless. I want to hug Clarke for it.

The worldbuilding is complex and rich, though it may leave some confused. Clarke employs a vagueness to a lot of the cultural worldbuilding. I don’t mean this in the sense of they wave their hands and it’s just “that’s how it works.” It’s more that they approach it from the character’s perspective in their own world. The religions and cultures that intertwine have their surfaces scratched in a way that someone who kind of knows the tenets would. It makes navigating their differences an interesting problem, and forces Marney to truly read her opponent’s and friends on a deeper level. It avoids generalizations and plays with the idea that these systems and beliefs have changed over time and influenced each other. Marney clearly understands her own religion and the ties that bind her to it, but has a spectrum of knowledge around the others, depending on her closeness to those who practice. It feels fresh and exciting having to navigate the world and understand how it would make one’s head spin. The various faiths and cultures are also described deliciously with Marney’s calculating attention to detail too. As the reader, you feel like you’re inside her head as she decides her next move.

That’s not to forget the gender and sex politics that grow between every crack in the book. They pop through in beautiful and gritty ways. They feel lived in, explored, and fluid. I don’t know if they used historical vocabulary or invented their own (rudimentary searches yielded nothing), but it really drew me in. I’m a sucker for these kinds of things because I was raised a particular way, despite the lack of religion in my life. But watching Marney come into herself, have relations with other women, and navigate her friendships was as delightful as it was heartbreaking. I also really adored that it didn’t feel like it “got in the way,” in the sense that Marney was able to have room for her romantic, sexual, and political interests. They didn’t confuse each other. They weren’t clean-cut either, but neither of them hampered the progress of the story in a way that one could expect in a story billed as a sapphic revenge romance. Again it wasn’t pretty, but it really pulled me in to see it so up front. Also, easily some of the most exhilarating sex scenes I’ve read in a while.

But Clarke doesn’t just stop their worldbuilding there. After all, their world is on the cusp of an industrial revolution. Industry Yann Chauncey wants to be the sole provider of Ichorite and the progress it promises, and boy, does Clarke indulge the reader here. I will preface this by saying I am a certain type of freak. I love seeing someone build a system, describe it, and set it into motion. I want the details, the academic understanding coated with a venomous loathing for its processes, and by god did Clarke deliver for me. Your mileage may vary, but if you want an intimate fictional look at how land possession, industrial processes, capital accumulation, and the rigidness of landed aristocracy all clash together, then Metal From Heaven is for you. The dance that the Choir and its allies have to perform in order to maintain their secret while preparing for a war they know is coming is captivating. They take their enemies seriously, plan accordingly and don’t take any half-measures. These aren’t plans made by children in the vague hope that something will work out. They are prepared to slap the lion in the face with their bare hands and keep fighting after it’s awakened. And it works so well because Clarke has built a material world in which these different ideologies and ways of living exist. There are no maps, but you can feel the geography, feel the resources that are being described, and know the elites who won’t give them up to some upstart. It made my heart sing to read the descriptions Clarke gives of this world, and the kind of progress that Chauncey and his protege are planning to rip from the ground and the hands of their workers.

Those things would make a good book on their own, and I’d be satisfied, but Clarke had to go and write an excellent character in Marney Honeycutt. Characters for me are usually just a good vehicle for the story, allowing me to delve through the themes an author wants to present. But on rare occasions, I really latch onto a character, and Marney is one of them. She’s badass, smart, notorious to her enemies, and reliable amongst friends, but most of all, she is truly devoted. She does it for her loved ones and the promise of the hereafter. Every obstacle is just another chance to rededicate herself to the cause. It is both some far-off idea that she will never obtain, but also just within grasp if she reaches far enough. Her own well-being is a chip to be played, not one to hold onto dearly. It’s inspirational and heroic in a very specific sense, even though it’s portrayed as what one does.

The last thing I want to mention, even though I could wax on and on about this book, is Clarke absolutely delivers on the ending. I want to talk about it so badly, but it’s something to behold. Clarke uses everything they have set up through the rest of the book to tell a truly unique ending. A beautiful conclusion that is borne through suffering and perseverance. It’s something to aspire to.

Metal From Heaven is one of my top books of the year. It’s well-paced, filled with character, world, emotion, grit, sex, pulp, and the promise that there is work to be done, just not the work you’re told to do. It’s deliciously written front to back and owns its premise. The acknowledgments were a real treat, and Clarke wears their influences with pride. Pick this up. It’s brutal, but it punches up while showing you there is still a fight worth winning.

Rating: Metal From Heaven – Divine.
-Alex

I ended up buying the book due to formatting issues in the ARC

My original, gut-feel review stated "I am entirely too stupid for this book" and I stand by it. But I am also sapphic and was utterly intrigued by the premise of this book and the promise of lesbianism, WHICH!! It was totally delivered on! Without there even being a romance!

This will be entirely subjective to everyone but personally I couldn't stop reading this. Even when I was confused I trusted the process and kept reading. Even when I definitely thought some things were a bit hard to believe and a little too convenient, I was too far to stop. There's definitely stuff I can pinpoint as being what made this drop a star for me, but it was still a memorable reading experience.

This book is very much not for me. The prose is so flowery that it is borderline incomprehensible. I was also so bored. The story started to pick up around the 50% mark, but by that point I’d already checked out. It just took way too long to get the story going. I don’t necessarily think the first half really even counts as setup. I have no idea what the point was. I think it was just world building and nothing else. Also, this is a personal preference thing, but this book is very… salacious, I suppose? There isn’t really that much sex, but every time Marney sees a woman, she starts thinking about how much she wants to have sex with her. It just felt excessive. While I can read books with a lot of sexual content in them, I don’t particularly enjoy it. But I can normally stick it out because I enjoy the plot or characters. But the plot in this story took too long to get started and I didn’t really care for any of the characters. If you are hesitant on whether you want to read this book, I recommend reading a couple chapters to see if you like the writing style. If you like the overly flowery prose, I think you’ll enjoy it. If not, your better off just dnf-ing it.