Darkly Lem’s richly woven tapestry of a science fiction novel asks us who we are, deeper than the flesh and memories that imprison us, and if we can ever escape the societies that we belong to. Characters jump from universe to universe, from shell to shell, seeking to hold on to core identity that they're not always confident exists. In lieu of the certainty of self, they lean on that of belonging to something greater than themselves–even when their society betrays them, they cling tightly to this sense of meaning in their lives. As someone who suffers from mental illness, I found the themes of identity fascinating.

And as a fan of expansive, thrilling science fiction, I was equally drawn in. There were universes of political scheming to match the White Tower, and others of fighting bug-eyed monsters with stolen swords. There was love, or friendship, or some ambiguous tangle that's both and neither, lost beneath ambition. Each fantastical world is as richly detailed as the characters that inhabit it, and they're combined to tell a captivating, satisfying tale.

Like Darkly Lem (who is five authors in an impeccably tailored trench coat, in their own words), Transmentation | Transcience: [insert book’s subtitle here] is several different stories woven into a cohesive novel.

What is it about? To quote the book itself, TT is a “work of speculative history,” written by individuals from a society that is mentioned but never actually shows up. There is a disclaimer and everything, in a very academic style that thankfully does not persist throughout the book. In fact, it’s really easy to forget that bit of information as you read, because immediately after, the action starts, sweeping you up into various worlds and the wildly different tones and tensions of each.

Every universe is unique, even if they are affiliated with the same society. One thing you have to get over very quickly is that these dimensions don’t just differ in minor ways. They are completely different, working on different laws of physics and biology and what have you. We’re talking worlds made of coral and flying whales (no hotdog fingers, though). This was where it got confusing for me, personally, especially since interplanetary travel and aliens are also a thing. Still, the creativity is off the charts, and the physical, cultural, and administrative differences are all amazing, building beautiful settings that bring the worlds vividly to life.

There’s a lot that goes on in this book. So many people, places, and plots to keep track of, with many threads and details you have to hold onto in your mind until the end when things start to pay off. It can be a lot, but I think it’s worth it. (Note: it’s definitely easier to read in a digital format where you can do a word search). Thing is, TT is very much a first book, laying the foundations for what hopefully comes next, and thus the pacing is a bit off.

That said, it’s still a very fun read. There are spies, bar brawls, and conspiracies upon conspiracies, but also moments of contemplation and softness. It could also easily be interpreted as messy and tangential at times; guess it depends on what you take away from it.

And there’s a lot you can take away from it. Like any good book that tackles the multiverse, there are questions about who you are and what makes you you. I don’t know if I’m projecting, but I also see some elements that hit very close to home, considering the current (waves hands at the world). Burel Hird’s imperialism and Firmāre’s quest for profit by any means necessary may be born in different worlds, but the same is definitely happening here and now, and I’m very much invested in how things work out in the series while trying to escape from our own realities.

If there’s one thing I want to see from future books, it’s how the characters, so embedded in their societies’ beliefs, break free from them instead of follow them. For now, I’ll have to settle in to wait for the next book and hope that others have joined me by the time it’s out.

Transmentation | Transcience: Or, an Accession to the People’s Council for Nine Thousand Worlds by Darkly Lem, is a science fiction/speculative fiction gem. This book is not for passive or cozy science fiction reader.

Transmentation was obviously meant to be the introduction to a complex and multi-layered series where the reader must commit for the long haul. The five authors, Caldwell Trunbull, Josh Eure, Craig Lincoln, Ben Murphy, and M. Darusha Wehm make up the Darkly Lem consortium slowly and deliberately build up a cast of characters and complex multiverse in this first installment of what promises to be an engaging series.

Thank you, Blackstone Publishing, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 4 stars
Pub Date: Mar 18 2025

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“Transmentation|Transcience” by Darkly Lem is an exciting experiment in science fiction, and would be particularly appreciated by those who enjoy their scifi with a bit of mystery and political intrigue mixed in. The first chapter of the book begins with meeting representatives of three of the societies of importance for the book, though we very quickly leave all of those characters behind to focus on the political narrative of Burel Hird, the society of most focus throughout the novel. Although we do later return to most of the characters from chapter 1, this quick change of focus does make it hard to remember the original cast of characters when they do reappear. I think this is a function of the entire Part I of the story, as the reader is quickly tossed between different groups that do not seem to have any overlap with each other. However, as the novel goes on, the characters flesh out more and the main characters gain their own voices, making them easier to remember and distinguish. The Interludes, in particular, distinguish themselves quickly as the setting is very different from the rest of the novel.

The pacing of the book is a bit slow but it also fits the plot and the focus of the story - which is mostly on the political interactions between the multiple factions and worlds. Although there are moments of action, these are rare as Darkly Lem spends most of their words slowly making readers question who are the heroes to root for, and changing that answer as the story goes on. Some time is spent on developing the multiverse of worlds that exist in the novel, as well as their way of traveling between them, but more time is spent in conversation between two or more characters, and slowly revealing a major political situation from multiple points of view. I found this very engaging and by the time the pace picked up towards the end, I was fully on board with solving the mystery.

Despite being a group of 5 authors, Darkly Lem weaved each of their unique voices into a pretty cohesive narrative in this book. I received this book as an ARC (and am providing my honest review) after reading No Monsters, No Gods by Cadwell Turnbull (a member of Darkly Lem) and I think other fans of his would also like this book. Although it takes some time to get into, the payoff at the end is completely worth it.

I was provided both an ALC and ARC via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This is perfect for fans of Caldwell Turnbull's No Gods, No Monsters and the Convergence Saga. Turnbull is a member of the author who make up Darkly Lem, the other authors in the collaboration are Josh Eure, Craig Lincoln, Ben Murphy, and M. Darusha Wehm. This didn't feel like it was written by multiple authors, and felt like a cohesive effort by the five members that make up Darkly Lem. If you enjoy that style of writing and storytelling you will enjoy this sci-fi, speculative fiction. This touches on politics, philosophy, environmental factors, corruption, self-reflection, and more.

Overall I really enjoyed this. It is strange in the best way, and while the pacing is a bit slow that fit the plot as it develops and the characters move about the multiverse. It is told from several different perspectives, but I had a hard time telling the characters apart and perhaps that was by design. There is a definite undertone of self-reflection by the characters as they move from place to place and they question their own identities. A major part of the plot is that characters can travel the multiverse and they inhabit different "husks" in different worlds. Their consciousness travels, while their "prime body" stays put, but don't quote me on that I'm still not 100% clear on that point. Some people have the ability to travel on their own, while others can move multiple people at once and the characters visit something akin to a train station to travel. It wasn't always clear if the character was another person when they traveled or if they were themselves, and that was a bit confusing for me. This is one of those books that I feel like upon re-read I would really understand the world and the science much better. I enjoyed the various characters once I got comfortable with their plotlines and motivations. There is alot going on and I was left with that feeling of "What did I just read?" when I was done. With this book that is meant as a huge compliment to the authors as I want to start over and dive back in because this book was so intriguing and interesting. I want to pick up on all of those things that I missed the first time through and pay closer attention to certain characters. I believe this is the beginning of a series and will 100% continue on.

They lost me. I know there's an audience for this novel that's really a mutliverse from a team of writers but I'm just not it. It's not that it went over my head (it did) it's that I was unable to connect with any one character. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Over to others.

I was hooked in the first chapter—what a compelling read! Just the kind of Kindle reading novel I love reading before bedtime! At first, the extensive dramatis personae made me uneasy. Worrying that the worldbuilding would be overly expository and dense. Leaving me to struggle and give up on a weird SF version of a 19th-century Russian novel trying to keep all the names and concepts straight. My concerns were unfounded. My second concern was the different writing styles of the various authors wouldn't work, that I would favor some more than the others. This was not a problem as it worked well given the novel features alternating POVs. I look forward to future volumes!

This was a good read. I do enjoy when a book can deliver a complex and compelling storyline with enough levity to keep me from getting bogged down by the hard science on which the book is based. This is a multiverse jaunt that has multidimensional travel, alien life, political intrigue, and interesting characters that held ne until the end.

This is clearly a FREAKING EXCELLENT book – I am in AWE of the worldbuilding, and the writing is crisp and quick without sacrificing complexity.

But, uh. I am too dumb for this, basically.

It’s not that Transmentation | Transience is hard sci-fi, full of technical details that make no sense to us laypeople – it isn’t! But it does take the ‘swim or drown’ approach to explaining to us what’s going on, and while I do normally love that, I have realised that I love it when the water is much shallower than this. Here, the reader is dropped into the middle of – well, everything, and everything involves multiple alternate realities which each have (as they should!) wildly different societies/cultures/relationships to each other/etc. I found this dizzying, to be honest. There were so many proper nouns thrown at me immediately without explanation or even much context – just the character list at the beginning of the book is incredibly confusing! – that it rapidly became overwhelming.

There also wasn’t really any incentive to push through it and continue: I didn’t actually like any of the bits of worldbuilding I could make sense of, I didn’t find any of the characters especially interesting, and I can overlook all of that if I’m given really scrumptious prose, but that’s not the style here. I’m very impressed, but I wasn’t enjoying it, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which I would come back and try again.

On a technical, writerly level, I think this is amazing. I just don’t want to read it.

Five authors, one premise -- while I really, truly, love the experimental nature of this book, I don't think it avoided the "too many cooks" curse. Combined with that of a multiverse story, it's like asking five people to draw a maze from memory on trace paper then flatten them together to reveal... chaos. So many ideas, not enough practical story application for them. Story always has to be king.

All of that being said, I absolutely want these kinds of experimentations to continue. I love what it brings to the table. But it needs to be more cohesive and driven by either story or character; ideally both. Not just ideas.

“Transmentation|Transcience” by Darkly Lem is a deep dive into a futuristic multiverse that deals with themes of corruption, power, conspiracies, exploration, and identity. Through a wide cast of characters, readers are introduced to societies and factions within the multiverse where nothing and no one is exactly who they appear to be.

A lot of world-building has been carefully thought out to create such a complex and vivid multiverse for the characters (and readers) to traverse. When it comes to fiction, especially science fiction, it’s easier to get into a story when the authors have a good comprehension of the rules and laws of the world they’ve created and what that world looks like. Not to mention, it’s easier for the setting to feel more tangible like it actually, totally exists somewhere in the universe. At the same time, the amount of information felt overwhelming and made it hard to follow at times. Yet, the pro of having so much thrown at the reader is that there is time to adapt and figure out what is going on versus having the story feel underdeveloped and left with unanswered questions.

There was a good mix of characters, each one having their own positions in these societies and multiverses. This created a good contrast of characters who had their own motivations and goals inspiring their actions. Sometimes I found the style of the writing or the voices of the characters blended and they lost their unique characterization, making it hard for me to keep the cast of characters separate when reading. I was also sad that one of the characters I really liked played a minor role in the story. It made me question why it was necessary to have them in the book at all and if the beginning could’ve started differently.

Overall, this was a fascinating read with a lot for the reader to chew on. Unfortunately, having not read a lot of sci-fi, I feel I wasn’t the perfect reader for this book as I often felt lost and confused. Those who enjoy science fiction will likely enjoy what this book is doing and what it has to offer for the genre. Even I can tell Darkly Lem is doing something really cool with this book and pushing against the margins of what sci-fi is all about. The writing style also wasn’t intriguing to me, making it hard to get into the book and keep going to the end. It felt neutral and almost monotone, like a retelling of events instead of a narrator invested (or interested) in the events taking place. While this was likely intentional, it didn’t help me fall in love with the story or the characters. Still, for five writers working to create a unified, cohesive story, they did a pretty good job and there will be a lot of sci-fi readers out there who will appreciate and enjoy Darkly Lem’s intent with this story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and Darkly Lem for providing me with an e-arc of this story and the opportunity to share my honest opinion in this review. “Transmentation|Transcience” by Darkly Lem is expected to be published on March 18th, 2025.

This was a wild ride.
Speculative science fiction about identity and relating to the world. This was told primarily through dialogue between all of the characters but had a lot of plot.

A very interesting way to tell a story.

Thanks to netgalley and blackstone publishing for an eARC.

This book was an interesting collaboration. I though it was going to be hard to follow but, it held my attention for the most part with the characters and the multi worlds. The characters were truly well written into this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read this.

This is an interesting science fiction novel, set in a futuristic multiverse. It is written jointly by five science fiction authors using the pseudonym of "Darkly Lem". (I presume this is somehow an allusion to the great Polish sf writer Stanislaw Lem). I have only previously read solo works by one of the authors in the consortium: the excellent Cadwell Turnbull. The book is an engaging and rich narrative, set in a multiverse of sufficient complexity that it is so far hard to get a line on all the issues at stake. This book is only the first volume of what will be a multi-volume series, and it works mostly just to set things up -- many things are left hanging at the end of the book. There is a series of universes, most of which seem to have only one known inhabited planet. There are methods of traveling between the universes: when you go from one to another, you find yourself in a different body in each universe. When you go somewhere else, the body you leave behind seemingly functions autonomously on its own until you return, but it only does routine activities when it is by itself. There is no sense of consciousness for the abandoned bodies, though the travelers find their personality inflected by the particular body they are in at any given time. This shifting of identities is the most interesting aspect of the novel. Various political schemes are afoot between the different worlds (or between the powers on these different worlds). One of them is clearly imperialistic, others seem to be continually varying; the stakes of the power struggles are not entirely clear. What we mostly get is vivid pictures of particular individuals who travel from one universe to another, and who sometimes come into conflict. None of these individuals, however, is able to discern the big picture (assuming such even exists). There are maneuvers, fights, adaptations, and even an assassination of a leading political figure in one world. I have little sense of where this series is going, but it was engaging enough that I will read future volumes. I remain curious about the division of labor among the five authors.

This was really fun, if not a little weird. Which I don't mind at all! A true sci-fi experience, and not for the casual sci-fi fan. I'm going to buy it for my husband when it's released because this is 1000% his domain.

I'm not sure how to feel about this book. There is definitely a lot going on in it and there's definitely more to explore. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing but it is a solid start to a potential series.

This book has a lot going on. World building, conflict, so much!
I can't wait to see where the story goes.

#NetGalley

Dimensions and Societies Generate Horror Through Nonsense

Yet another great cover. This one also uses a mutation of photos by bending them, but also adds glows with the strings that representative of magical connectiveness. Images are stretched and bent and otherwise manipulated in a curious way. The design succeeds in pulling the eye between the different places displayed: desert, forest, and city. This design is by Kathryn Galloway English. Her Facebook page shows her drawing with a pen on a large pad.
“From bestselling authors Darkly Lem…” I thought the s in “authors” was a typo, but no, “Darkly Lem” is a pseudonym for five authors: Josh Eure, Craig Lincoln, Ben Murphy, Cadwell Turnbull, and M. Darusha Wehm. Their website lists one previous book they published together: an anthology of stories. The unifying element is that they mostly live in Durham, or Raleigh North Carolina. Eure and Turnbull are literary award-winning editors of Many Worlds. And Wehm has also been nominated for top awards, and has published some sci-fi popular novels. It is strange that these five authors decided to work together. I can’t imagine splitting novel-writing between five different people…
“…The first book” in a promised series with “a… multiverse of adventure and intrigue… Over thousands of years and thousands of worlds, universe-spanning societies of interdimensional travelers have arisen.” The term “interdimensional” never appears in the body of this novel… “Dimensions” does thankfully appear, in lines such as, “Sensing in three dimensions… Everything is all tangled…” No clarification is given why somebody cannot distinguish these three dimensions from each other, if they can travel between them… Later a more mundane mention describes “a three-dimensional tree of the data Duncan… pulled out…” In the second half of the novel, a character objects: “I can’t understand all that six-dimensional, multispacial nonsense.” This seems like a confession that the author doesn’t understand dimensional travel, and pretty much never addresses what this means, how it’s done and the like across this narrative. The surrounding lines are generic stuff that can be in any text, such as, “I don’t think I can.” When these authors attempt to be deep, they say things like: “he knew more about the true nature of reality than almost all of the trillion people of this universe, had even been to a half dozen worlds beyond the veil, but for all that extra-dimenational knowledge…” his life was worse than “the average Avancorpo junior executives”. This is all incredibly dull and unreadable.
“Some seek to make the multiverse a better place, some seek power and glory, others knowledge, while still others simply want to write their own tale across the cosmos. When a routine training mission goes very wrong, two competing societies are thrust into an unwanted confrontation. As intelligence officer Malculm Kilkeneade receives the blame within Burel Hird, Roamers of Tala Beinir and Shara find themselves inadvertently swept up in an assassination plot.” There has to be an “assassination plot” in this plotline because otherwise these guys are talking about cross-dimensional travel without coherently going anywhere. If there is an assassination; this at least lets the writers point to this as a climatic incident: formulaic box checked for the presence of death-fearing tension. “Meanwhile, factions within Burel Hird are vying for greater control over their society in a war of cutthroat machinations—at a heavy price. Elsewhere, two members of rival societies lay their own plans for insurrection—with ramifications that will ripple across the Many Worlds…” What? Earlier in this blurb there was a reference to “two… societies”, now these are the same two, or a different two?
The opening sections seem to deliberately confuse readers with vague references to cryptic societies, and the “Authors’” relationship to them. This is followed by a long character list, with too-brief descriptions of who they are. I’ve seen enough… Not recommended.
—Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Fall 2024: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-fall-2024

I really liked this book! I definitely see the potential it has for becoming a successful seriers. This book covers a wide array of themes in the science fiction world, and it touches a bit on everything, and I can see the growth potential for sequels and series following up on these topics. It was so fun to read, I liked the way it was written, and I am going to keep my eye out for any other books from this author!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

A bit of a mixed success, but overall an intriguing start to a series with potential.

This collaborative multiverse world-building/writing project has a lot going on - multiverse philosophical and ontological implications; coups, assassination plots, conspiracies, and subterfuge; "many worlds" travel/transference - and as a consequence, there is simultaneously a lot to get excited about and a bit that feels under-developed. Which is fine for the first book in an eventual series, but I think it's fair to note that this is *particularly* true for a book of this nature.

At its best, there are thoughtful, creative, eloquent explorations of the nature of being and identity in a multiverse reality. There is complex politicking, ideologically distinct factions rivaling and coexisting, intimate emotional moments of family and partnership and loneliness and grief, and a sense of fragile balance with the (many) world(s) at stake. But the potential behind both the creative exploration of ideas and the plot often takes a back seat to developing so many things at once, making progress feel slow. I like a slow, thoughtful book, but this felt like it wanted to be faster paced than it was actually being at times.

After a rocky start with sci-fi names and world building deluge, I do think this ended up being well-written, doesn't have any of the consistency issues I was worried about with five authors co-writing a book. I'm not huge on heavy (collaborative) world building or multiverse stories, and politicky space opera is hit or miss, so I'm compensating for my preferences by giving this a slight bump - if those buzzwords work better for you than for me, this is probably closer to 4 stars than 3.