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Knives In Your Eyes
After discovering he can't die, Val seeks out an old professor rumored to teach people how to kill. Instead of his student, Val becomes the man's bodyguard, and they journey across a fractured world, pursued by all manner of hunters —some more monstrous than others.
***
There were rumors about monsters wandering the country. Insect-like creatures that almost looked like humans. They wanted weapons and people who knew how to use 'em.
A boy who can't die, a professor who refuses to teach, and a hunter out of a job. They're a trio as disjointed as the world they've agreed to cross together.
Some work is more important than money.
Val is what some people would call precocious, and others would call a monster. Professor Williams calls him a pain in the ass, and that's good enough for Val. He doesn't know what the hunter calls him, but he knows he would like to find out.
Humans really are the most interesting things…
***
There were rumors about monsters wandering the country. Insect-like creatures that almost looked like humans. They wanted weapons and people who knew how to use 'em.
A boy who can't die, a professor who refuses to teach, and a hunter out of a job. They're a trio as disjointed as the world they've agreed to cross together.
Some work is more important than money.
Val is what some people would call precocious, and others would call a monster. Professor Williams calls him a pain in the ass, and that's good enough for Val. He doesn't know what the hunter calls him, but he knows he would like to find out.
Humans really are the most interesting things…
546 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2023
5 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2023
Gods i don't even know what to say, but no one else has written a review so i feel like i need to. This book is beautiful! There's body horror, and insectoid monsters, and complex worldbuilding, but i think the heart of this one is love. There's so much love here. The characters are really incredibly done, i think i'm a little in love with Hunter, or maybe just with all of them. And maybe that's because there's so much love in Val it just spills over into the reader. You can't help yourself. I was there for every moment of their journey, watching them learn more about themselves, and each other, and the world they inhabit. The plot unspooled beautifully, every new character and place a node in the interconnected spiderweb of this story. I'm also particularly impressed with how the sex scenes were handled, how a knife can be as intimate as a kiss, how sex can be more about connection than desire (though desire certainly follows!)
Do yourself a favour and read this book. If you're struggling to find a copy (as it was a crowdfunded self-published paperback) it's also available on itch.io and Ao3!
Do yourself a favour and read this book. If you're struggling to find a copy (as it was a crowdfunded self-published paperback) it's also available on itch.io and Ao3!
May 24, 2023
i have some gripes with it (couldve been 200 pages shorter, not the most distinct character voices, kinda confusing lore) but honestly? i have so much respect for the “crowdfund-publish a sexy bloody queer fantasy novel” game that it doesn’t even matter. this is what art is about, baby! someone who had a story eating them up and just had to write it down!! like. i GET it.
rlly glad i bought this, it was such a fun time!! love love love hunter. also insane props to the cover artist, i didnt realize till i was almost finished that its not just val on the cover but the others as well..!!!!!!
rlly glad i bought this, it was such a fun time!! love love love hunter. also insane props to the cover artist, i didnt realize till i was almost finished that its not just val on the cover but the others as well..!!!!!!
June 17, 2023
My love for this story and all of these characters knows no bounds. Reading this felt like a privilege, a gift, to hold in my hands the hard work and love that went into creating this strange queer fantasy. Thank you!
editing to note that finishing this book DID make spiders (the literal kind) manifest in my home for the first time in the year that I've lived here, but alas. A worthy price to pay.
editing to note that finishing this book DID make spiders (the literal kind) manifest in my home for the first time in the year that I've lived here, but alas. A worthy price to pay.
June 28, 2025
fucked up found family and val is a little freak // bugs and body horror and vivid characters, this was a weird one
September 21, 2025
Adjusted rating: 4.5 stars
What a phenomenal read! I utterly love this book. I got the hard copy of this through the crowdfundr, though I admittedly ended up reading the epub. And yeah, perhaps I did take a few years to get around to picking it up 🫣 but I'm so glad I did.
It's obviously not the book for everybody - fair amount of violence and body horror, unconventional interpretations of intimacy and desire, heavy on queer/gender thematics - but fantastic for the type of people who do enjoy those things. They are woven through with and artful hand, and I appreciate the way that they are used to make up the fabric of the story.
I found Val to be immediately charming - he's a guy who gives off polite private school boy vibes that are a thin veneer for a guy who is a freak. I like that in a character. Though I found that the relationship between Dream and Mare was the most compelling.
[Mild spoilers] If I had to pick at something, there were a few minor plot points that I felt weren't really wrapped up well. I wish we knew what happened to Chase - I feel like it would have given a bit of insight into Val's life between the orphanage and meeting Dream. I also...wish that more was done with the hand in the sky. Perhaps it would become more clear if I read the book again, but I feel like it could have been cut out completely and nothing would have been lost from the story, which is a shame because I was really invested in it. The Queen's interpretation of it was framed as a bit of a dismissive hypothesis so it didn't feel like an explanation. And - this is just me, having a preference for complicated characters - I wish a little more had been done with Mare's character/motivations. After all the build up with him being villified and accused of having joined the enemy and having caused the death of lots of his siblings etc etc, it was a bit deflating to have it chalked up to him being tricked by Raleigh. What happened to him shooting Dream a year after leaving him? After seeing the permanent damage the knife did? (Side note: what made that knife so special in the first place?) Give him some problematic motivation like wanting Dream dead because he couldn't have him without hurting him or something. Make him a little evil. Dream will still love him and so will I.
I suppose, because it's Val's story, you could argue that not getting the answers was thematic as part of his whole thing is that he values people's identities and therefore wants to learn about them, which is preceeded by not knowing about them by necessity. But it could have been in the extras! And I would have liked it. A treat for me.
Overall though, I think this story was beautifully executed. Bonus points for all the bugs. I'd read it again.
What a phenomenal read! I utterly love this book. I got the hard copy of this through the crowdfundr, though I admittedly ended up reading the epub. And yeah, perhaps I did take a few years to get around to picking it up 🫣 but I'm so glad I did.
It's obviously not the book for everybody - fair amount of violence and body horror, unconventional interpretations of intimacy and desire, heavy on queer/gender thematics - but fantastic for the type of people who do enjoy those things. They are woven through with and artful hand, and I appreciate the way that they are used to make up the fabric of the story.
I found Val to be immediately charming - he's a guy who gives off polite private school boy vibes that are a thin veneer for a guy who is a freak. I like that in a character. Though I found that the relationship between Dream and Mare was the most compelling.
[Mild spoilers] If I had to pick at something, there were a few minor plot points that I felt weren't really wrapped up well. I wish we knew what happened to Chase - I feel like it would have given a bit of insight into Val's life between the orphanage and meeting Dream. I also...wish that more was done with the hand in the sky. Perhaps it would become more clear if I read the book again, but I feel like it could have been cut out completely and nothing would have been lost from the story, which is a shame because I was really invested in it. The Queen's interpretation of it was framed as a bit of a dismissive hypothesis so it didn't feel like an explanation. And - this is just me, having a preference for complicated characters - I wish a little more had been done with Mare's character/motivations. After all the build up with him being villified and accused of having joined the enemy and having caused the death of lots of his siblings etc etc, it was a bit deflating to have it chalked up to him being tricked by Raleigh. What happened to him shooting Dream a year after leaving him? After seeing the permanent damage the knife did? (Side note: what made that knife so special in the first place?) Give him some problematic motivation like wanting Dream dead because he couldn't have him without hurting him or something. Make him a little evil. Dream will still love him and so will I.
I suppose, because it's Val's story, you could argue that not getting the answers was thematic as part of his whole thing is that he values people's identities and therefore wants to learn about them, which is preceeded by not knowing about them by necessity. But it could have been in the extras! And I would have liked it. A treat for me.
Overall though, I think this story was beautifully executed. Bonus points for all the bugs. I'd read it again.
October 10, 2024
The first 500 pages of KIYE are a balls-to-the wall adrenaline rush perfectly balancing plot, characterization, and unique worldbuilding in a spare-yet-inspired world. I still stand by what I said before, the first 500 pages really do make you wish 'this was printed on rice paper so I could tear it apart with my teeth and consume it in a violent expression of love that would perfectly compliment the lurid, possessive nature of this story.'
However, the finale feels like a pulled punch. Mare is rescued, but it doesn't feel like we get the explosive closure we need to match the explosive set-up that came before it. After the crew leaves Innovation, everything seems to slow to a crawl as the story becomes logistics of where people will settle and much slower, character focused pieces that don't match the three-in-one scenes the rest of the story was built on.
I still love this story for what it was, and I still keep that love as I look at what it became in the final leg of the journey.
However, the finale feels like a pulled punch. Mare is rescued, but it doesn't feel like we get the explosive closure we need to match the explosive set-up that came before it. After the crew leaves Innovation, everything seems to slow to a crawl as the story becomes logistics of where people will settle and much slower, character focused pieces that don't match the three-in-one scenes the rest of the story was built on.
I still love this story for what it was, and I still keep that love as I look at what it became in the final leg of the journey.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews