Metal from Heaven

by August Clarke

“WHEN MY VIOLENCE SUBSIDES, WE WILL HAVE NOTHING, AND BE CHAMPIONS.”

Ichorite is progress. More durable and malleable than steel, ichorite is the lifeblood of a dawning industrial revolution. Yann I. Chauncey owns the sole means of manufacturing this valuable metal, but his workers are on strike. They demand Chauncey research the hallucinatory illness befalling them. Marney Honeycutt, a lustertouched child worker, stands proud at the picket line with her best friend and family. That’s when Chauncey sends in the guns.

Only Marney survives the massacre.
She vows bloody vengeance.

A decade later, Marney is the nation’s most notorious highwayman, and Chauncey’s daughter seeks an opportune marriage. Marney’s rage and the ghosts of her past will drive her to masquerade as an aristocrat, outmaneuver powerful suitors, and win the heart of his daughter, so Marney can finally corner Chauncey and satisfy her need for revenge. But war ferments in the north, and deeper grudges are surfacing. . .

Genres: Fantasy, Queer, Lesbian, LGBT, Science Fiction, Fiction, Adult

429 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 2024

About the author

also writes as H.A. Clarke

Reviews

[Rebecca Roanhorse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know comfort books are in, and yes, they have their place, but there's nothing quite like reading something dangerous. Something rich with ideas, something challenging, something transgressive, and revelatory, something that feels like it's pushing the genre forward, something punk in the true meaning of the word, something that truly does not give a f**k what you think of it. This is that book. Metal From Heaven is a thunderous, visceral, Sapphic fever dream of a book, thick with religion, myth, and revolutionary ideologies. The prose seduces, the worldbuilding astounds, and the heart bleeds pure. This one goes on my best of 2024 lists for sure.

I received a free ARC which in no way impacted my honest review.

[idiomatic · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and change, i can't in good conscience round up any further because it is edge of incomprehensible. gratified to see another review describe it as 'blurry' because, yeah, you'll get individually very vivid descriptions of for example a roomful of hot dykes or a table laden for a feast — and i CANNOT stress how much those things kept me committed to my read — and then you'll blink and be like. How the fuck did i get to this point in the story. you can generally see the full picture from a bird's eye view, it's never shy about where it's going, you're obliged to d the connective work. and some of that, yes, is super close first person, which i love. but some of that just genuinely is garbled execution. there is not a ton of on-page emotional variance, and the blurriness means that even if you love individual elements it never feels fully gripping. it's easy to walk away from but it is also memorable in its elements.

specific craft weaknesses: the scene transitions, objectively bad; the transitions between abstract thought and physical things happening, dreadful. but the sex scenes, great! the characters, honestly, not great, but the DESCRIPTIONS of women. Yes. Thanks. the litigation of Lesbians Who Say Dyke Vs. Lesbians Who Say Sapphic, in fantasy worldbuilding terms: honestly very funny. The worldbuilding... Maximalist. There is lots of it. Bordering on d&d campaign levels of telling you about the map. i do not get the sense that the author was being given a lot of good guidance re. strengths and weaknesses but it is also a delight to see someone in 2020s sff, SPECIFICALLY the for-and-by-the-gays sff, (1) writing with flair even if flawed (2) whose stylistic flaws do not come from ao3 house style (3) whose problems in general don't seem to come from the internet. similarly, we are replete in the current sff market with books who are keen to tell you they have superficially good politics, anxious status quo books, and the bones of this one aren't strong enough to call it a polemic but i will hand it to august clarke for being unequivocally willing to firebomb the walmart. ending is insane (good, memorable and delirious). ending is insane (bad, impossible to visualize). ending is insane (insane). Why does the cover look like that. why is there a comp to the princess bride here. of all things. What are you TALKING about. but let me not get into the incomprehensible sins of packaging.

just, fundamentally, i am predisposed to be very generous to a sff author taking swings above their skill level in esta economia. not all books will be or can be 'good' but sloppy lurid authentically wild pulp feels like a door out of the much worse climate of harmlessness the genre is currently trapped in. it's giving dyke tanith lee. she wasn't churning out all winners either but in another realer sense yes she was.

[C.L. Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn damn damn. And what a killer last line!

This is not a happy book. It’s not romantic. I adored every heart break moment of it. It’s a bitter triumph with an oil-slick beauty. I’ve wanted this book all my life. Now that I’ve got it, it’s gonna stay with me for the rest of it.

This one’s for the dykes.

(Plus some good old wholesome Knife-fucking, strap-sucking fun.)

[Baba Yaga Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metal from Heaven is what you get when you blend the political commentary of Babel with the environmental themes of The Fifth Season and soak them in the unhinged lesbian horniness of Gideon the Ninth.

In this bold and voicey adult fantasy debut from author August Clarke, a young orphan joins a gang of female bandits after vowing to avenge her family by bringing down the business magnate responsible for their murder. As you may have guessed from the synopsis alone, this is an unapologetically political novel that centers class struggle and anti-capitalist resistance. The book opens with a scene vividly depicting a violent strike breaking in which the protagonist’s entire family is killed by police, and the socialist message only gets more overt as the story unfolds.

Though I admired the thematic depth of the narrative and the way social issues were organically woven into the text, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at some of the more naive depictions of what the author thinks life under communism looks like. Notably, the socialist commune our protagonist lives in being described as a perfect utopia with no violence or crime whatsoever (despite being populated by bandits, pirates, and other outlaws who steal and murder on the regular) was just ridiculous. I understand that Clarke is an American author who probably holds a romanticized view of communism, but I can assure you that even the most egalitarian form of government cannot magically eradicate all crime or turn people into angels who don’t need laws to regulate their behavior.

This relatively small issue, however, didn’t affect my enjoyment nearly as much as the main problem plaguing the world building in this book: its excessive complexity that often makes it impossible to understand the geopolitical tensions at the heart of the plot. Never before have I so strongly wished I had a map at hand. The narrative introduces a seemingly endless list of nations and cities with little to no context, making it incredibly difficult to follow the larger politics of this world. Another thing this book desperately needs is a dramatis personae. Halfway through the novel, a dozen new characters are introduced all at once and it’s honestly impossible to keep track of who’s who, especially because they all come from different countries and their identities intersect with the aforementioned geopolitics.

My feeling of confusion wasn’t helped by the flowery prose that occasionally bordered on incomprehensible. I appreciate that Clarke took a risk by adopting an experimental writing style, and genuinely loved how the first-person direct address narration was employed here. Still, I fear that the overly elaborate prose, coupled with the dense world building, will discourage many readers from getting through this brilliant story.

Because it is, indeed, brilliant. Despite the flaws I’ve listed so far, I genuinely had a great time with it. It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever read. You can tell that this was the author’s passion project and that they strongly believe in its vision, both artistic and political. It provides a radical critique of capitalism while allowing for nuance, especially in regards to the way class divisions affect interpersonal relationships. If you wanted to love Babel but found the characters too flat and one-note, if you wanted more complexity and interpersonal drama from them, this is the right read for you.

It is also, and I cannot stress this enough, a book that deeply understands the sex appeal of evil women. Say what you want about Clarke, they know how to write a hot lesbian war criminal. The cast is almost entirely female and the narrator loves to describe every woman at length, managing to sound simultaneously awestruck and horny in a way that I found very relatable.

Ultimately, the main reason you should read Metal from Heaven is that it’s a uniquely bold and ambitious work, the likes of which are rarely seen in contemporary fantasy literature. It’s very flawed, yes, but even its failures set it apart from its peers.

[bri]

Arcane meets Upright Women Wanted for fans of Gideon the Ninth in this bloody, ferocious lesbian fantasy.

Y’all. I’m absolutely obsessed. This is dyke required reading.

This book is not an easy one to describe. I’ve been sitting here starting out sentences and then deleting them, struggling to properly encapsulate the overflowing joy and excitement I have for this story. There’s just so much to try to hold in my hands at once from gripping action scenes to brilliant reveals to malleability of style.

I think the thing that’s really sticking with me though is that this book feels like an underdog. It’s not the cleanest or tightest book I’ve read in terms of balance or pacing by any means. In fact, I struggled through the book quite a bit at times. (Scenes that were short should have been long, scenes that were long should have been short, and once I put the book down, it was really tough to get back into the world and the rhythm of the writing.)

But. BUT. Its flaws provide a delicious texture that adds to the utter camp of it all. This book was nothing if not unbelievably ambitious and the difficult work of climbing to those heights shines through its pages. And, honestly, I kind of love that you can see Clarke’s blood, sweat, and tears in building this beast of a narrative leaking through. If it was too seamless or if it looked too easy, it would lose so much of its charm. It is complicated and smart but also weird and messy. It’s not so much a hidden gem, but an undiscovered labyrinth, sprawling and gritty and formidable.

I guess the best way to review this book is really to pitch it! So if you like:
-badass butch book girlfriends
-fighting capitalism
-large casts of characters
-complex world building
-The Locked Tomb series
-nonlinear storytelling
-experimental prose
-messy lesbian relationships
-hopeful narratives
then you should read Metal From Heaven. This book was built to be a niche–and sometimes bad but mostly epic–queer cult classic and I hope it finds its audience. It sure found a fan in me.

(I also want to shout out my friend Bailey who encouraged me to request an ARC–and by encouraged I mean screamed at me every chance she could–and who wrote a really lovely and better worded review of this book that you all should go read!)

And THANK YOU to Erewhon for shipping me an ARC of this book across seas (even when I hadn't finished my other ARC from them) in exchange for an honest review.

CW: violence, blood & gore, sexual content, homophobia, death of parents, death of siblings, grief, loss of loved one, character death, gun violence, police brutality

[Greekchoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loud, sweaty, sexy, bright, dreamlike, bloody. This won't be a book for everyone. But it was a book for me!

Metal From Heaven follows Marney, starting from when she works in a factory, chronically ill from the harsh conditions and orphaned by her family's attempt to unionize before being shot down by the police protecting the factory's - and CEO Yann I. Chauncey's - interests. We track her joining an outlaw group and sabotaging the industry from the outside to her attempts to woo Chauncey's daughter into a political marriage in order to get closer to him. Metal From Heaven's obvious contemporary is Gideon the Ninth, but there's a little of The Lies of Locke Lamora and The Traitor Baru Cormorant as well.

The writing is bright, blurry, almost stream-of-consciousness style as filtered through Marney's chronic illness and pathetically obsessive fixation on the person she's narrating to: a "you" companion who dies at the very beginning of the book, but who serves as a religious beacon for Marney's perspective. As many other reviewers have already noted, this isn't a love story, and the Clarke is wholly unconcerned with making his characters likable. Everyone here is just a little batshit, and a huge part of the appeal of this book is watching these characters clash together. And those HEIST SCENES!! There's a strong sense of found family here, and I wish we leaned even further into that!

The action sequences are exciting and tightly written, the worldbuilding is expansive and highly political (though at times confusing. I'm hoping the publisher adds a map and glossary to the finished copy), and the fervent religious diversity lends Metal From Heaven a unique texture while also working smoothly into the plot.

For as much as I'm typing, I'm struggling to capture how exciting and fresh Metal From Heaven feels. It rounds up so much of what I've been searching for in a book. It's not perfect - I can already anticipate readers encouraging people to just "get past the slow beginning" - and it's not as neat as some of its contemporaries.

But it's pulpy. It's hopeful. It's camp. It's desperate. It's fun.

Thank you to publisher and Netgalley for the ARC copy. Opinions are my own.

[blank ⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where to even begin.
Every time I open a book, I hope to be sucked in from the very first word. There are great books out there, but still this doesn't happen as often as I'd like. Until this book comes along, and with it all my prayers to a God I don't believe in and don't pray to are answered and every page feels like drowning, like coming up gasping for air only to be swallowed by the current, body battered by the cliffs.
I love the feeling; I could get drunk on it.

"When few rule the many, they must use force to take what they want, and demonstrate force not just to keep it, but to snuff the fires of contradiction from the collective."

This is not a happy story, not really, but it's a real story in a richly imagined, vibrantly complicated world that gnaws on itself and takes you, helplessly, along for the (angry motorcycle) ride. It's a story about loving so much you hurt yourself. About finding you, the real you, while lost in others like them. It's all the uneven parts of a whole that don't quite fit yet manage to hold, like a broken vase that's been glued back together and tries desperately not to crack, and if it's held all hope is lost. But not really, because being whole is good but being broken is also okay. Maybe even more than okay, because you're seen and cared for even though you didn't ask for it, but it doesn't matter because you deserve it and that's all anyone can hope for anyway.

Friday philosophy aside, this book altered my brain chemistry. I didn't know I needed it until I had it, and now that I have it I don't know how I went so long without.

"Help that wants to help is a cog that makes the right kind of ticking sound inside the machine and by harmony becomes invisible."

Take Babel (if Robin were pro-revolution from the start), shove in the unhinged energy of Gideon the Ninth and you've got (you guessed it!): Metal From Heaven.
Chaotic, poignant, deliberate prose that reads like being high on butch-fairy pixie dust (I know that for a fact because this book exists; thank me after the author).
The characters? Fifty-shades-of-royally-fucked-up. Which is to say I hate everyone a little but will also gladly lick the ground they step on (maybe even something else).

There are great books out there, and then there are running-into-a-burning-building-to-save-you books like this one.

"Unalone toward dawn we go, toward the glory of new morning!"


THANK YOU NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the ARC.

[sakurablossom95 · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A bloody lesbian revenge tale and political fantasy set in a glittering world transformed by industrial change – and simmering class warfare.” – When I read this in the synopsis I was like SAY LESS! I knew this was going to be a good one, and it absolutely delivered.

First off, can I just say that it’s criminal that there isn’t a special edition of this book because I would buy it in a heartbeat! This story is a brilliant mix of revenge, revolution, labour rights, environmental destruction, and class conflict. It’s messy, it’s bloody, sexy and it’s unapologetically bold from the very start (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read it).

I enjoyed the story, but I have to admit it took me a minute to get used to the writing style. There’s a lot packed into each page, with LOTS of descriptions, intricate worldbuilding, and at times, paragraphs that seem to stretch onto page long descriptions. But once I got accustomed to it, I couldn’t stop reading to the very end. The political systems, the religious factions, the magic, it was all very well-thought-out and woven together brilliantly. I just wish there had been a detailed map and glossary to help me keep track of everything. My pen and notepad were sick of me 😂😭.
The story is set in a dystopian world powered by ichorite, a toxic metal that fuels the nation's growth while poisoning its people. Our MFC Marney Honeycutt, is a child worker who survives a massacre orchestrated by industrialist Yann Chauncey's strikebreakers. Ten years later, Marney embarks on a dangerous mission to avenge her people and family by infiltrating the elite Chauncey family, pretending to be one of their own.

I especially loved reading Marney’s character arc. Growing up in ichorite factories left her with “luster-touched,” a debilitating illness that causes her body to slowly shut down and her mind to hallucinate. Her journey from a tragic childhood to becoming a part of a choir (cough *gang* cough) and eventually a bandit was truly a wild ride. 👀

Overall, I ate up Metal from Heaven, even though the writing style sometimes had me struggling to keep up but that’s just me living on two brain cells that were struggling to survive, lol. If you’re looking for a revenge story with complex, morally ambiguous characters in a Victorian-style political fantasy world, you need to read this.

A huge thank you to Erewhon Books and Kensington Publishing Corp for providing an e-ARC and a finished copy in exchange for an honest review!

[Samantha (ladybug.books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I hate to say it—I really hate to say it—but I think I might have found something that is too confusing for me. I love a confusing book, but Metal From Heaven did not quite have the payoff to outweigh the amount of effort I had to put in to follow the story.

Metal From Heaven is weird, complex, confusing, and ambitious. I admire it so much for what it brings to the fantasy genre and for its commitment to being insanely weird from start to finish. While there were a lot of things I really enjoyed about this story, every time I put the book down it was a struggle to find the motivation to pick it back up.

What is going to make or break this book for most readers is the writing style. I am incredibly torn about my feelings on the writing. On one hand, it is uniquely in character for Marney and incredibly ambitious. Metal From Heaven is told from the perspective of a narrator who is unhinged and completely unreliable. She is experiencing mental deterioration from her exposure to the magic in this world. She is also dealing with trauma and is fixated on her vengeance and her grief. All of these things warp her perspective of things. The story reflects this because it is a very bizarre, nonsensical, flighty narrative that captures Marney as a character.

However, the writing is also too often completely nonsensical. I would read paragraphs and unsure if what I had just read actually said anything. Some of the scene transitions or transitions between abstract thought and reality were honestly… bad. The abrupt transitions make it too disorienting for the reader at times even if the abruptness was intentional.

Being so in Marney’s head all of the time also kept me at a distance from the story and the other characters. I didn’t get enough of a sense of the other characters to really care about what was going on at times.

The world-building could be very info-dumpy at the most random times. There would be occasional tangents about the history of the world or the legacy of conflict between groups. It’s just not the kind of information that we needed in so much detail for this kind of story.

The pacing is also at odds with itself. Metal From Heaven has a surprisingly slow open, only reaching the events on the back of the book at the halfway point. In my opinion, that second arc needed to take up more of the book. As it is, it felt like the two halves of the book were fighting for control and, as a result, neither section ended up standing out as much as it could have. We could have spent more time meeting that second cast of characters, forming connections, and exploring the politics of the world. I don't feel like the first half of the story needed to be as detailed as it was.

This review feels unbalanced because some of the things I critique about this book go hand in hand with what I really enjoyed about it. I loved how wild, wacky, and ambitious this story was. I just don't feel like the ending gave me quite enough payoff to make it feel worth it. I love that the magic is completely unexplained and gross. The way that Marney fights to use her powers and how the ichorite uses her, in turn, was so interesting.

Metal From Heaven was a story that I admired but a reading experience that frustrated and underwhelmed me.

Links to my TikTok | Instagram

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so disappointed. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2024, and was so excited to be able to read an ARC of it. Sadly, this book really, really wasn't for me.

I'll start with the positives.

This book is incredibly gay; but not just gay, it's incredibly lesbian. There are so many lesbians. So much lesbian sex. A lot of the characters also play with gender in a way that feels very authentic to the lesbian experience. This is not just Sapphic (which there is nothing wrong with) but very distinctly lesbian, and I think that is so crucial and important in a time where lesbian is beginning to feel like a dirty word. So I absolutely applaud this for how unapologetically lesbian it is.

This book is also extremely anti-capitalism and is about a class warfare and worker's rights. Great. Love to see it.

That is about where the positives end for me. I'm going to start with the biggest negative, which is the thing that really killed my enjoyment.

The writing style. I hated this writing style. Not the second person perspective; that I don't mind. Harrow the Ninth is one of my favorite books (so you can see why I was so excited for this when it was pitched as being for fans of Gideon the Ninth. The second person perspective was fine. What wasn't fine was everything else about the writing style. It is so disjointed and strange. At times it was really metaphorical and poetic and I enjoyed it. Other times an entire page looked like "I did this. I did that. I then did this. I thought about that. I said this. I watched her do that. I I I I I." The writing actively grated on me as I was reading. Writing styles rarely bother me, and I tend to be pretty flexible with writing styles, but this one did not work for me, at all.

Tying into that, because of the writing style I could not connect to any of the characters. They all felt like just names who sometimes did things, but they never felt like people. They all felt so disconnected and removed. Even Marney, our protagonist. Despite being in her head, I felt like she was so far away and hard to really get a grasp on. Everything felt removed and held at a distance.

Further, in addition to the above, the ploting and pacing of this book was rough. We start off with a quite literal bang of Marney's family being killed, Marney running, and then Marney getting taken in by a group of bandits known as the Choir. The problem is, Marney's family gets killed before we even know who they are. We don't know these people at all. There is no emotional impact. We absolutely needed to spend more time with Marney's family and Marney's day-to-day life first before they are killed. We need to see how they are suffering, what it means for Marney to be luster-touched, and why they are speaking out. We need to care about her sisters first, but more importantly, we need to get to know "you". I will be honest, I don't remember what her name actually was. Gwywn or something like that. But she was Marney's main reason for doing what she did, not her sisters, or her parents, but "you". Except "you" is(are?) killed right at the beginning of the story. Except apparently she's not killed, apparently she becomes Goss, but somehow Marney doesn't realize this, despite hanging out with Goss for so long and planning to marry her, until Goss goes 'oh yeah I was actually an orphan who got taken in' and then Marney pieces it together but Goss doesn't. Okay. We needed more time with these characters to care (and a better writing style to let us get closer to characters and care but I digress.)

And then we are suddenly thrust into the world of the Choir, but we also skip over quite a bit of time. We are introduced to a character and then almost immediately told she leaves for years. Years are skipped over incredibly quickly, so these new characters we are supposed to care about are just introduced to us rapid fire and then they disappear again. And most of this takes about a hundred pages to introduce Marney to the Choir and then quickly go over the years she was with the Choir. This I think needed to be done differently in either one of two ways; time-skip over this completely, or make this a series. Either, we see Marney meet the Choir and get taken in and then skip forward a couple years and right to when Marney is already the Whip Spider (also what does that mean? That name didn't make any sense to me) and established as a bandit. Or, we needed to spend more time and flesh out her time as a bandit, spend more time with the Choir to get to know and care about these characters, and make it a series. People from the Choir died and I sat there going "who was that again?" It had no impact. If we had spent more time with them, it would have had more impact. Plus, I think it could have been used to better show the state of this world and how oppressive the industrial class was. I personally prefer the time skip option but expanding it could have worked as well.

Honestly, by the time we got to the actual plot of this book, we were nearly half way through the book and I had stopped caring. It didn't help that we were introduced to a whole new cast of characters when I was still trying to figure out who was who from the Choir. I was frustrated and bored and sick of reading it and began skimming. I feel a bit bad even marking this as finished rather than DNFed, considering I skimmed half the book. Don't ask me what was going on with the wealthy people part of the book. Marney pretended to be somebody else because I guess nobody had ever seen this person before, and she was able to come up with a fake name, too. That just worked, apparently. So she pretended to be somebody else in order to get close to Chauncey's daughter and I think there was some other woman involved and a lot of lesbian sex. I had no idea what was going on here or what the point was. I skimmed hard.

Which brings up another issue; the world building in here is dense and not in a good way. There are so many names thrown at you and none of it makes sense. And not in the fun way that Gideon the Ninth is confusing. In GtN, you are receiving information about the world from a character who doesn't care, so you don't get all the information, so it's confusing. However, upon reread, or upon continuing the series, you learn more about the world, so things that were confusing before, begin to make sense. It was clever in its confusion. This was just overload. This was just way too much information. It's very clear Clarke did a lot of world-building, but this is too much for a single book, and it is thrown at the reader in such an awkward, hasty way. It felt like half of this book was exposition to fill you in on the in-depth world-building Clarke did. Maybe if this had been a series it could have been revealed to us in a more graceful manner, but as is, this was hard to read, even as an avid fantasy reader.

(Also, I'm still confused about the whole crawly thing. At first it made it seem like being gay is super illegal and looked down on, but women can marry women in this universe, including upper-class important women. That was kind of the whole plot point. I don't know if it was more like, in one society its looked down on, but in another its not. But even in the one where women are marrying each other, it still seemed like it was some sort of secret that they were crawlies. Also the big bad evil of this book was like 'yeah I'm fine with you marrying my daughter' and I would have expected him to be homophobic but he wasn't. Unrelated, but I also loved him being like 'yeah so you're going to marry my ward, and even though you're not married yet and I literally just met you, let me tell you important information about ichorite right now.' For plot reasons, I guess. So was the world homophobic or not?)

I kept skimming because I read a few reviews and a lot mentioned things about the ending that had me intrigued. So I skimmed it to the end. Unfortunately, I truly had stopped caring by that point so the ending had no impact on me aside from being really fucking weird. If the beginning of this book is strange, the end felt almost illegible at times. When I finally figured out what exactly was going on I went "sure, why not."

I am happy that this book exists and that a lot of people are enjoying it. I'm happy to have a very angry, messy revenge story featuring so many lesbians. I'm happy about that, and I'm happy so many people who need this book will have it. But god I wanted to love this book so much and had a terrible time with it. I think I'm going into a bit of a reading slump because of it. And I was so looking forward to this book. I wanted to love it so badly, but I'm pretty sure this is my most disappointing read of the year. I am truly devastated but oh well.

[Aster · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need the people on tumblr writing essays about the locked tomb to analyze this book for me from cover to cover

I'm not sure I could  write anything to do this book justice. Let's start with: if you found Gideon the Ninth "confusing" and struggled with its writing in a way that made you dislike the book, Metal From Heaven is not the book for you. While I consider myself fluent, English is my second language, and I had a hard time with Metal From Heaven chipping away at the pages of what is already a long book. It's one of those books you read with your brain fully turned on. The worldbuilding and prose are dense and rich, and I can't wait to see what people who are good at textual analysis can tell me about this book.


The world of Metal From Heaven is brimming with geopolitics I still don't understand, heavy on long names, characters entering the narrative, leaving it, and reappearing much later in the story. You need to keep track. But the core of it is simple enough.


Marney, a young child from a miner family, suffers from a disease that affects miner children. She's luster-touched, rendered sick by the metal they're extracting. When the miners revolt to help their sick children, they're brutally repressed, and Marney loses everything, everyone but revenge. In the protest, she (I believe? that's how other characters refer to Marney, I know she's meant to be read as a stone butch lesbian with gender going on) loses her entire family and the girl she's in love with. She quickly joins a group of outlaws that takes her under their wing as she prepares for revenge against the capitalist who took everything from her.


I could talk about themes, about revolution, labor rights, environment, working class queerness vs upper class (crawlies vs lunarists as a thinly veiled dyke vs sapphic), revenge, the entire second-person narrative, i still love you and the locked tomb similarities in terms of butch dyke literature. But I feel so stupid for this kind of book and feel like my worth is in getting smarter people to read it so they can write about it. 


It's not a romance, but it's not devoid of messy sex scenes either. Like someone said, it's the knife. It's sucking the strap. There are three women who are some sort of love interests to Marney, all representing different parts of her life and ideals. I can't say too much without venturing into spoilers, though.


The narrative is messy, you're never sure where you're going and what's going to happen next, every time you feel like a thread is set up, it's not going to be followed like you expect. It is unconventional speculative fiction in the vein of a few similar stories I've read this year, although I mostly grasp what is happening here.


Now, I need to talk about my favourite part, which is the use of the second person. The story is told in the first person from Marney's perspective as she is mostly narrating the story to "you". It's very clear early on than "you" is the friend/lover she lost as a child as "you" is the motivation for her revenge. Marney's narration to this girl is intimate, loving and yes the way it's played reminded me of certain parts of the Locked Tomb, Baru Cormorant and maybe the Seven Deaths of the Saint.

[Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woof. Yeah. OK. Best read of the year by far.

This is the first book amongst the generation of books descended from the Locked Tomb that actually furthers the aesthetic conversation and deserves the comparison to that series. I LOVED Marney--her voice really worked, making the story funny and devastating in equal measure.

The narration is very close 1st person, so the reader isn't going to get explanations or hand-holding as the story moves. I liked this, but I'm willing to simply let a mildly complicated story wash over me without trying to grasp every detail of the geopolitical whatever. There's a lot of detail and you don't ultimately NEED to hold every bit of it in your head, and the people who seem frustrated with this book obviously wanted it to be a little more concrete than this. It isn't, and that was fine with me personally.

Is it a perfect book? No, but it gave me the very specific sensation in my body of Reading a Good Book, which happens with one in every fifty books or so for me. For that reason alone it's going to stand out in my memory for a long time.

[Zana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up.

This book had one of the oddest writing styles and prose that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It's definitely something that won't work for everyone. I'd even argue that only a small percentage of readers might be into this.

I gotta say though, as part of that tiny niche, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the story so much that I bought a signed and personalized copy from Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago.

Even with its unnecessarily difficult to comprehend prose, the in media res beginning that threw me off my feet, and the entirely new worldbuilding (with its different words for familiar terms and concepts, such as "crawlies" for sapphics/wlw), I had a great time going on this anti-imperial adventure with Marney and co.

While this might officially be compared to the Locked Tomb series, I'd say it's more like Vajra Chandrasekera's novels and short stories. As much as I love the Locked Tomb from the depths of my cold, dark heart, I don't really think it's the right comparison since Metal from Heaven approaches its themes (power structures, queer identities, etc.) in a slightly more grounded manner while the Locked Tomb uses a more whimsical approach.

Despite its quirks and oddities, this is a classic tale of community building and revolution, mixed with class consciousness and queerness. If you love those types of fantasy novels, then give this a try.

Thank you to Erewhon Books and NetGalley for this arc.

[ruaridh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Local lesbian seeks vengeance, uses allergy to wreak havoc.

Metal From Heaven is a standalone industrial fantasy that manages to tell a story more fully and slickly in its pages than most book series manage in thousands. It masterfully sinks you in to a well realised world, makes you fall in love with or feel disgust at each of its large cast of characters, and pulls no punches as it hopes for a better world whilst not hiding the violence of the one it exists in.

It is also deeply, unapologetically lesbian.

Whilst certainly not a happy book, at times it had me feeling more seen than the parade of “sapphic” (not lesbian, never lesbian) romances that are supposed to do so. After the never ending encroachment of fantasy titles you are told, vehemently, are cosy, yet amount to little more than an incumbent small business reinventing capitalism to sell to the uneducated, terrible locals it was a reminder you can want for more.

I cannot understate how ambitious a project this book is either, and yet in its just over four hundred pages it achieves a staggering amount. If you enjoy books filled with small moments, of reflection I would not proceed, for this rarely gives you a chance to breathe as it thunders towards the protagonist’s one goal, to be the one to kill the man who ordered the deaths of everyone she knew.

The writing in itself was a wonder. It mixes first person with second address, a clever way to weave the protagonist’s grief throughout. At times the prose is simple, at others ornate which comes together to create something incredibly well realised. Coming across speculative fiction where the writing is not simply a tool for the story to be told but a beauty in their own right is always a pleasure for the litfic wanker I can be.

I could yap about the little things for hours, about the nods to lesbian culture like motorbikes or the never ending labelling argument by those insistent lesbian is a dirty word. About how well realised the magic of lustertouched was, of how it wasn’t something simply overpowered but had real impacts on the protagonist. About how tangible the Fingerbluffs were.

All of that to say: this book is special. If it does not make it to best of 2024 lists it has been utterly robbed. From the moment I picked it up I felt like I was getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing in lesbian SFF and have since been unable stop shouting about it from the rooftops.

Make it your next read. Savour it. You will not regret it.

5/5

[Heather M · Rating 4 out of 5]

IS this really a four star read? well.

i got a lot out of it and at the same time if anyone told me they hated it on sight i would completely understand. i looked up to see if it was a debut and saw it's the same person who wrote the scapegracers and that makes perfect sense. i don't think they're fully an adult fantasy author yet in terms of structure. but i haven't read anything like it and that's nice.

from beat to beat it gets VERY fuzzy and confusing in a way that is absolutely an author skill issue but you can generally follow it if you lock in and unfortunately i was locked in because the protag is a butch who says ma'am reflexively and is beset on all sides by hot femmes just spilling out of their dresses. like every few pages. there's damask everywhere. the descriptions are fun, the world is detailed, it's unflinchingly horny. when the characters failed to fully emerge i didn't mind as much as i should have because the pov was so close/the protagonist is so dazzled by women that it was almost charming how much she didn't even need to know them, if that makes sense lol. but i wanted to know them more. i will read more books from this author. i hope they get better.

the ending is WILD too, i don't know how well it lands but at least i'm thinking about it + i got a kick out of the last line because clarke was absolutely raised on Justified

[Finchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

labor rights. motorcycles. dyke drama. strap-ons. courtship. decadence. chronic illness. PINK.

i will write a proper review eventually but this book was everything ive ever wanted so it will take a while to turn that feeling into words. also im sisphe.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take the horrible lesbians from Gideon the Ninth and shove them into Babel’s labor uprising and you’ve described 1/10 of METAL FROM HEAVEN’s magic.

I want to tell you everything about this book and its brilliance. I want to tell you nothing about it so you can experience it from scratch. I want to buy and mail copies to anyone who enjoyed Gideon so this book will be just as big and bigger. Not to exaggerate but it restored my faith in fiction.

Everyone who’s read this book doesn’t have words to describe their glee. Maybe I’ll find my way to a full review later.

[L (Nineteen Adze) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this is a story that I often admired for its ambition even while I was impatient with the narrative voice and many of the structural choices. It’s strange, it’s messy, and it’s in desperate need of a map–but it’s not like anything else I’ve read lately, which is always a positive.

Any story following a character from childhood to adulthood is of course going to have time jumps between major events, but some of those gaps contributed to choppy pacing and a confusing plot. Spoilers to follow, including some major ones:
We open on the harrowing massacre of Marney’s family and community of fellow workers for the crime of trying to go on strike for better working conditions. It’s a decent vengeance setup, but I’m personally left cold by books that open directly on trauma to engage the emotions, so your mileage may vary there. She then joins up with some friendly outlaws who take her away to the Fingerbluffs to grow up in safety and to one day join their number. Marney gains a reputation as the outlaw Whip Spider, but we skip directly from her early days in the Fingerbluffs to her established career, with no intermediate glimpse of how she picked the name, how she came to be a gang leader instead of a member, or the formation of the friendships among her crew. We also learn that she had a deep romantic and sexual relationship with one of those friends, who then broke up with her due to the seriousness of her quest for vengeance and started seeing another member of the crew– and again, we just see the girls meeting as children and then being part of this crew as adults, with not a moment of this life-changing relationship taking place in real time. I don’t object to missing action scenes, but many of Marney’s core character-defining moments between her traumatic childhood and her adult intrigue mission are simply not on the page in a way that makes them stick.

These missing details feed into an extremely messy plot for me. I need to pause here and complain about the marketing: the jacket copy pitches Marney’s masquerade trying to win Chauncey’s daughter in marriage in order to get closer to him for revenge (and to protect her home). This happens nine chapters into the book, 43% of the way through. This means that the entire time Marney’s friend Candor was preparing to be Baron Loveday, I kept waiting to learn when she would die or back out of the ruse, sapping valuable tension from a scattered first half. I would be delighted to see publishers stop doing this: spoil the initial hook at the 10% mark, sure, but jumping straight to a juicy part to hook readers can backfire once they’re in the thick of reading.

Anyway: when Candor dies tragically, the brave heroes of the Fingerbluffs seem like absolute idiots for only preparing one fake heir (who seemed reluctant from the start) instead of training a group of potential heirs, and then for sending their one great hope out on bandit missions and saying that she can just drive instead of fighting directly, as though plans never go wrong. The stupidity-for-plot was so thick here that I never quite recovered from it, and it just made smaller plot holes more obvious.

I also would have liked a lot more about Gwyar/ Goss. She has the potentially great arc of being Marney’s best friend and the only other survivor of the Chauncey massacre that killed Marney’s whole family and community of workers, then being adopted as Chauncey’s heir, next in line to run this deadly industry. I would have killed for a companion book from her point of view: she’s clearly bought into a lot of propaganda, perhaps to survive, and cares about Chauncey as a father rather than just a means to an end. She went to a toxic elite boarding school with the other women in this marriage competition, contributing to years of dark history that combines politics and personal grudges. That’s all great stuff, or would be if we could learn about it in some way other than a friendly near-NPC telling Marney things via a wall of exposition or each character narrating some deep motivations directly to Marney when they’ve just met her. It’s all dramatic and overwrought in a way that swings between (fun) melodrama and tedium.

The ending… what even is there to say? Some people in my book group loved it, but the sheer anime energy of “Marney got kicked so hard into an ichorite table that she merged with all of this substance in the world, and turns out the substance is basically the egg yolk of supernatural Lustrous creatures who rise from the earth and destroy the oppression of industry” is simply A Lot. Parts of it are foreshadowed, but it’s generally just messy and seems like too simple a solution to the questions of class struggle and exploitation that have framed the book up to that point. Points for audacity, if not for coherence: I do think that part of the means of production itself rising up at least carries some nice symbolism.

One of the story’s greatest strengths is its focus on queer women: virtually every character of importance is a lesbian. People in the Fingerbluffs don’t adhere to broader societal norms, and the barony is essentially a queer socialist paradise. Marney’s experience there is distinctive: she takes lovers but also sees herself as a “boycrawly,” taking on a more masculine social rule and giving pleasure without liking to be touched in turn. It’s a cousin to the real-life butch/femme dynamic, but rooted in a different world and pressures. When she meets high-society queer women, they refer to themselves as Lunarists or astrologers, choosing a label that’s a coy (and somewhat deniable) reference rather than a slur. It’s a division in public perception as well as class: the Lunarists would never frequent the hidden crawly bars that Marney thinks of as home when she’s away from the Fingerbluffs. Another reviewer aptly described this as something like “the conversation between lesbians who say ‘dyke’ and lesbians who say ‘sapphic.’” That feels apt: there’s tension here around community, prejudice, and respectability.

It’s all then somewhat muddled by the way these high-society women are openly not interested in men and instead planning to marry each other with nothing more than perhaps mild disapproval from parents (the story can’t quite decide how serious those societal prejudices are), but this picture of community tensions is rich in a way that a story with one token queer sidekick simply can’t be. It’s sometimes extremely over the top (I think a lot of people are going to remember this for the dramatic gay knife fight that culminates in forceful, angry sex and then a friend stepping on Marney to calm her down while they talk politics, or for the extremely horny murder attempts), but in a way that fits the larger-than-life scope of the story.

To me, this needed either a very different structure or to be a duology that ended on Marney deciding to pose as Baron Loveday and picking up with the new setting. It’s a memorably weird book, though, and I’m interested to see whether it opens the door for more strange and queer-focused stories that use this as a comparison title in the next few years.

//
I have no idea how to rate this book. On one hand, it's an amazing breath of fresh air to read a book that's so different from a lot of what I've seen in the last few years: this is a book celebrating lesbians and their communities, with very few male characters of any significance. The terminology can be clunky, but I also appreciated seeing a story so willing to grapple with class struggle and political theory. On the other hand: I like to see those ambitious stories stick the landing, and the last few chapters of this read like a bizarre fever dream watched on fast-forward speed. RTC, and I can't wait to see what my book club thinks of this one.

Other recommendations:
- If you’re interested in part three (with the setting change to a manor house full of dangerous aristocratic women), that’s the part that bears the greatest resemblance to Gideon the Ninth. They're not otherwise very close, but it's an interesting parallel starting point.
- I need to anti-recommend The Princess Bride as having anything in common with this book beyond the concept of a person experiencing seeing a family member killed in childhood and seeking revenge. In terms of content, mood, tone, and everything else, it's a bizarre and misleading marketing decision.

[nisa esen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m stealing the term ‘crawley’ and will solely refer to myself as such from now on, thanks.

Song on loop: Les filles désir - Vendredi sur Mer

[☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5☆

Wow. What a journey this was. I never read something like this before. I knew I was going in for a wild weird journey, but I still didn't expect what I ended up reading.

We dive into a industrialized futuristic world, and the author doesn't waste time showing us the root of this story: ichorite. Ichorite is what ultimately builds prospect, progress - it is the future. And it is sickening its laborers. Being "lustertouched" is the condition ichorite provokes, and the one that has fallen over Marney as well. When a peaceful plea from the workers becomes a bloodshed, and only Marney survives, the story begins.

What a bang right? Marney is a character driven by the trauma of losing her family that day, and the youthful, yet powerful love she nourishes for her best friend. That love impacts and will shape the rest of her life. It's a love that was never lost, although the lover is.

At first I found it odd by how Marney addressed her loved one by nothing but "you". There wasn't a name, but simply a "you". For example, Marney was narrating and she would say something between the lines "How I adored you". Although simple, it felt strong. That person was everything to Marney, and you can feel it when she directly calls to us, to her. There isn't a name, but there needn't to be one. This also allowed an incredibly impactful moment by the end. I saw it coming, but I loved how it was done. This is Marney's revenge story, but it's also much more than that.

I wish this book was everything I had idealized in my head. There's a part of me that loves it, and is still holding on to it. But, unfortunetly, there was many things that didn't work for me.

The worldbuilding. I love complicated worlds and to get lost in them, but this one was too much. Or better said, it felt too much by how little insight it was given to us readers. The politics are constantly happening in the background, but they are never fully fleshed out. I wanted to understand them. I tried to make sense of them, but there was too many names and places thrown at you all the time. It's like the author has it all in their head and is showing us only one third of it. I can't read minds yet, although I really tried. And the frustrating part is that this seems like such a compelling world to immerse yourself in. I WANT to know MORE. I loved how religion was depicted in this book, it has fascinating and original concepts. It truly intrigued me every so often. But each time I was getting more information, it got harder and harder to puzzle it together in my head. I felt like I lost a lot of world and politics which is unfortunate.

This is one of those books that you need to have a pen and paper right next to you and write the characters names and places down. I pride myself (I'm lazy) in my insistence on reading without looking back, even when I don't fully grasp what's going on, because I trust the author will make every thing make sense as we continue on with the story. Metal From Heaven doesn't give you any breaks, though. This is the exception. Each character has numerous names that they are addressed by. I've read Dostoevsky and this was harder to follow. 80% in and I was still confusing the characters and couldn't make sense of the dynamics between them. It got exasperating to not being able to distinguish one character from another in a vast cast of them.

Staying on this point, this book presents us an almost all female cast, full of sapphic relationships and affairs and lust and love. This is not something that lowers or necessarily peaks my interest, but it's such a prevalent aspect to this story that I had to mention. Sadly, I felt very disconnected to the characters, including Marney. Even with the heavy politics happening in the background, Marney isn't actively doing anything. Things happen and she reacts to them. I wish there was more planning or action from her. She wants revenge, and I want more scheming. Every character was kinda crazy in their own unique way to the point that they didn't feel like real people. Pretty early on, I had to conform myself that this wouldn't be a book that would win me over through its characters, but through its plot.

What mainly provoked that huge gap between me and the characters was the writing style. Here lies the fulcral issue I had with this book. It suffers heavily from purple prose. I understand what the author was doing. I even thought at times that this writing style matched the weirdness of the story and characters perfectly (because it actually did), but damn... it became too much and too tiring too quickly. It was hard enough to keep up with the characters and the world on its own, then you add the prose that they are all wrapped in, and it becomes the perfect receipt for a permanent state of confusion. It really was the last straw. I could never make sense of what was going on. I loved it a few times, I hated for the rest. I hated how it was so hard to get through this book. It was too complicated and overly flowery. I applaud the author for being able to develop such a unique style, but it ruined this story for me. It was too much. Besides, the pacing also felt off. Some scenes were too dragged out when they needn't to be.

The ending. Wow. What a weird, unique, perfectly fitted ending.

This book is hard. This book is every word I already said multiple times on here: weird, unique, crazy, and probably more, since I defintely didn't understand all of it. I wish the author finds the right audience for this story, because it is NOT for everyone and it wasn't partly for me either. Metal From Heaven is that rare case when I find more enjoyment discussing the story than I did while I was reading it.

Also... Petition for final version of the book to have a map? Please? I think this is the only book, that I have read so far, that a map is desperately needed. Also... a list with the characters and all the names they go by would be nice... Don't mind me, just throwing around some ideas!

Anyway... I recommend it to everyone who's weird and a bit crazy (and is into all that as well)!

Thank you Netgalley for the e-ARC in the exchange of an honest review.

[BONNIE SMITH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not often do you read a blurb that describes a book as "a bloody  lesbian revenge tale and political fantasy set in a glittering world transformed by industrial change."

Color me intrigued.

Upon completion I can say I am pleasantly surprised. This book has, for lack of a better word right now- MOXIE. Although something tells me Marney would hate that description. But I often caught myself saying "Damn girl, good for you"
Ambitious to say the least, messy at times, this is a story of revenge, bringing down political systems and fighting "The Man"...and I say that figuratively and literally as this novel IS lesbian punk in it's core.

I can't even start a summary without getting too detailed so here's what I'll say:
If you took Mad Max, The Count of Monte Cristo, Bound (a great 90s movie) and Dune and mashed them all up- I'm still not totally sure that hybrid monster could be as in depth as this tale.

I always go into books blind, and this one is no exception. BUT, I often paused mid page, stared at the cover and thought- "How the hell did someone come up with this storyline?"

And that- has not happened in very long time.

Thank you to Goodreads Giveaways, Between the Chapters/Kensington Publishing and the author a chance to read this one, I probably would have never discovered it otherwise.

[Siavahda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intoxicating fever dream that I wanted to go on forever.

Rtc

*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*

Highlights
~the strangest metal you’ve ever met
~unexpected otters
~the life of a highwaywoman is the life
~service-top MC ftw
~I’m an anarchist now and I’m not sorry

Metal From Heaven grabs you by the throat with the very first line, and doesn’t let go until long after the last.

I still have bruises. I am scarred where this book touched me; I am branded.

And I am so, so good with that.

Metal From Heaven is a feral, phantasmagoric fantasy with bloody knuckles and otherworldly oil between its teeth, an anarchist bacchanal as sharp as it is gorgeous, hot pink and vicious. It’s almost impossibly vivid, every detail jewelled and gleaming, every line a decadent feast, electric and crackling. It’s an iridescent lightning strike, and you’ll find clarke’s prose seared like Lichtenberg figures across your skin before it’s done.

My blood was thick and vibrant. Cut me and find grenadine. Cut me and find white hot light.

The blurb has the plot covered pretty well: Marney’s family and community are all murdered for a peaceful work strike by Chauncey, the man who discovered and discovered how to utilise ichorite, a weird metal that can be used for almost anything. He didn’t care about his workers; they protested; he had them killed. Marney falls in with bandits; grows up; and eventually masquerades as a noble to get close to Chauncey’s daughter, with the goal of killing Chauncey. And – because where would the story be if they didn’t? – things get complicated.

I understood that we had a future of incomprehensible beauty. I just lacked the words for it then.

But even before we get to the plot, the structure of Metal From Heaven is already unusual. The opening lines are spoken from the end of the story;

Know I adore you. Look out over the glow. The cities sundered, their machines inverted, mountains split and prairies blazing, that long foreseen Hereafter crowning fast.

What’s a Hereafter? Who is adored? What’s happening?

What’s happening is Marney telling her story. To us, but not really us. To one person in particular.

Marney survives her family’s massacre, and a single moment of careless, casual kindness – a stranger, not just feeding her, but feeding her the kind of dessert she’s never beheld before – hooks her fate in with that of the Choir: anarchist communists who steal from the rich to support their own hidden community in the far-off Fingerbluffs. They are Hereafterists (does that ring a bell?), working towards paradise on earth (the Hereafter) with every breath, defiantly discarding the constrictions of religion, gender, sexuality, and anything else that seeks to restrain them.

And it’s absolutely beautiful.

Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!

[KMart Vet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This. Will NOT be for everyone. But it was for me.

This is an audacious, complex, and unsettling story that unapologetically leans into its darker themes, blending brutal political fantasy with an almost... punk edge. This is a story that will likely polarize readers, but for those willing to dig into its intricacies, it offers an unforgettable experience. I suspect there will be a lot of DNFs, which I understand - but it's worth finishing. It takes patience and it delivers in the end.

Set in a world undergoing a grimy industrial revolution fueled by ichorite, Clarke’s vivid world-building plunges readers into the violent tensions of class warfare. It follows Marney, a victim-turned-highwayman on a quest for revenge. From its opening violent massacre, every beat of this story brims with pain, rage, and the heavy cost of survival. You have to square with the unsettling realization that no one in this world comes out unscathed. There are no heroes here.

The writing is undeniably dense and lush, with prose so rich it sometimes demands careful rereading. It walks a fine line between challenging and rewarding, offering layers of meaning and subtext that encourage — perhaps even require — a second read. It has a kind of charm to it, but it again - won't be for everyone. Marney's tangled motivations, simmering rage, and dubious decisions make her fascinating and frustrating to follow, even as the story explores the ways she’s both shaped by and contributing to the broken system around her. Relationships in the book are raw and multifaceted, teetering between tenderness and violence.

As for the comparison to Gideon the Ninth, it does not have any of the humor; but it does have some of the intense atmosphere, a tad of the body horror, the questions about what is real and what isn't, and some complex love.

This isn’t a romance, even if there is some spice to be found. Instead, it’s a haunting exploration of revenge, power, and the relentless grind of capitalism. The book is heavy, almost oppressive at times, but for readers who thrive on layered, gritty storytelling, it’s immensely rewarding.

Metal from Heaven is weird, brutal, and unapologetically unique. It’s not for everyone, but for readers who love to pick apart complex narratives, wrestle with morally gray characters, and lose themselves in rich, challenging prose, this book is a triumph. Just be ready to unpack it with someone else afterward — you’ll need the conversation. I sure did.

Thanks so much to Erewhon Books for the complimentary copy! This review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

[charlotte, · Rating 2 out of 5]

On my blog.

Rep: lesbian mcs

Galley provided by publisher

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.

[robin✨allthethingssheread · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I even begin.

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sent this book as an advanced copy by the publisher via NetGalley for reviewing purposes, but all opinions are my own.

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.

[Iona Sharma]

Wild, lush fantasy, about Marney, a stone butch lesbian committed to revenge, her lesbian community of bandits bringing in socialist revolution, and the imminent approach of war: all dressed up in abundant worldbuilding and fantastically unhinged prose.

[Costanza Miccichè · Rating 5 out of 5]

Su questo libro sono capace solo di scrivere pensieri sparsi, perchè è impossibile fare una recensione in stile classico e soprattutto con totale imparzialità. Del resto, non credo che sia possibile scrivere in assoluto delle recensioni imparziali e avulse dal sentimento, perchè qualsiasi cosa leggiamo DEVE per forza stimolare in noi del sentimento, qualsiasi esso sia. Se un libro non riesce a fare questo, ha già fallito in partenza.

"She and her crawlies, all of them crawlies, filthy rotten repulsive vile violent wicked depraved little crawlies, menaced upright women and harrowed polite society."

"Metal from heaven" è un sentimento su carta. È lotta, è ideale, è sogno, è delirio, è vendetta, è sangue, è sesso e coltello, è brutalità, ma soprattutto è amore e rabbia. È un inno alla rabbia e all'amore, tutte e due insieme, due sentimenti inscindibili che si uniscono dentro la protagonista/voce narrante, Marney Honeycutt: operaia minorenne, vittima del lavoro, resa orfana dal padrone e dalle forze di polizia, idealista, anarchica, ragazza, compagna, butch, bandita. Tutto si condensa dentro di lei e anche noi, mentre leggiamo, ci condensiamo dentro di lei.

È come se diventassimo noi stessi un pezzo dell'interiorità di Marney. Il racconto in seconda e prima persona è rivolto sia a una persona esterna a cui Marney fa da narratrice sia a sé stessa e a noi che facciamo parte di lei. Non è la storia di ciascuno di noi ma è una storia che abbraccia tutti noi come massa. In quanto tale, siamo invitati a ricordare. Come se questa fosse veramente la nostra storia collettiva.

"Metal from heaven" è innanzitutto un libro politico, su questo non si può nè avere dubbi nè minimizzare. È stato pensato in questa ottica, è stato scritto da una determinata prospettiva, radicale, cosciente, consapevole, che non ha paura a mostrarsi per quello che è. È sentimento e ideologia, e per quanto mi riguarda così come riguarda A. Clarke, queste due cose vanno di paripasso. L'ideologia non è una brutta parola, ma lo diventa quando non ha sentimento, quando non ha passione, perchè in quel caso diventa dogma disumano e disumanizzante.

Già con una serie come "Baru Cormorant" (guarda caso citata nei ringraziamenti), una serie fantasy basata tutta sulla politica e sul sentimento, è chiaro che un romanzo fantasy può essere veramente definito politico solo nella misura in cui presenta una vera contrapposizione politica. La politica non è un cambio di potere, è un cambio di prospettiva, di regime, un rovesciamento di ciò che c'era prima. È soprattutto la lotta tra prospettive diverse, ma VERAMENTE diverse. Ma in "Metal from heaven" si fa un salto ulteriore.

Il collettivismo di cui parlavo (il "tu" che diventa "io" che diventa "noi") non è solo una questione politica. O meglio, lo è ma se si considera il secondo elemento di rilievo del romanzo: lo sfruttamento della Terra, delle risorse, che è un tutt'uno con lo sfruttamento delle masse. Non dovrebbe sorprendere, nè dovrebbe essere una novità nel fantasy, dove questo nesso viene stabilito e descritto da moltissimo tempo, ma il problema è che questo rimane sempre relegato a un mero aspetto estetico e di trama. Se è relegato nel fantasy, allora non può essere preso sul serio, è una banalizzazione. Purtroppo sappiamo bene che questo è uno scotto che il fantasy deve pagare, quello di essere visto esclusivamente come evasione.

Quindi, il legame tra sfruttamento delle risorse e sfruttamento delle masse. Vorrei essere più precisa e dire sfruttamento dei lavoratori. Degli operai, che ultimamente sembra diventata una parola di cui vergognarsi. Non si tratta di tipologie separate. Se guardiamo all'inquinamento causato dall'ILVA o in scala terribilmente maggiore alle miniere di cobalto del Congo, ci rendiamo conto che salute, inquinamento e impoverimento sono intrecciati. Su questo non posso dire troppo per rischio spoiler, ma è una chiave di lettura che va tenuta in mente mentre si sprofonda nelle pagine di questo libro, perchè è una componente essenziale della trama.

Il terzo aspetto fondamentale è quello del lesbismo, e non come mero e generico orientamento sessuale contrapposto a un ancora più generica, occidentalista e classista eterosessualità. Mi riferisco al lesbismo come cultura. Perchè sì, è in questo modo che penso (come molte altre persone) che andrebbe visto.

Mi vergogno e al tempo stesso mi irrito al dover precisare che "Metal from heaven" NON È un romance, e non per antipatia verso il romance, ma per quello che ho appena ribadito prima: la presenza di personaggi lesbici non è per forza legata al dramma e al romanticismo. Una persona lesbica è lesbica indipendentemente dalle relazioni amorose, come se poi fosse così semplice incasellare il concetto d'amore. Del resto, l'ho detto all'inizio che "Metal from heaven" riguarda anche l'amore, ma pure la rabbia. Questo è il motivo della mia irritazione quando parlando di "Gideon la Nona" la gente si aspetta un romance o qualcosa di simile solo perchè si parla di "necromanti lesbiche" e no, io non sono affatto convinta che sia un blurb sbagliato perchè appunto il lesbismo è (almeno in parte) una cultura. L'argomento è fin troppo vasto e poi qui si andrebbe fuori tema.

"Metal from heaven" è un inno al lesbismo in tutte le sue forme. È sanguinoso, è sporco, è incredibilmente sensuale, ed è militante. I richiami a "Stone Butch Blues" di Leslie Feirnberg non si contano e li ho colti ancora prima di ritrovarlo tra i ringraziamenti (li ho colti grazie alle lacrime agli occhi, ormai ho il radar ipersensibile per questo libro). Se non sapete cos'è e quanto sia importante il libro di Feirnberg, vi consiglio di cercarlo o di leggerlo.

Non si fa l'errore in questo libro l'errore di attribuire il lesbismo solo a una parte, quella di Marney, ma A. Clarke ha dipinto molto bene la contrapposizione, che esiste realmente, con il cosidetto "imperialismo gay" (borghese, capitalista, spesso intellettualoide, moderato e funzionale al potere poichè ben inserito tra i suoi ingranaggi e da esso tollerato perchè non rappresenta un pericolo), quello che comunemente viene chiamato "rainbow washing".

E allora al potere, o meglio sottomesse al potere e ben inserite nei suoi ingranaggi di guerra, di sfruttamento e di arricchimento sfrenato, si trovano altri personaggi lesbici, tutte con una loro personalità, le loro motivazioni e i loro scopi, ma è la loro rappresentazione a colpire per l'estremo realismo: tutte in contrapposizone tra di loro per mantenere la ricchezza e il potere, alcune credono davvero nel loro paternalismo progressista, ma sono tutte pronte a costituire un blocco unico di rispettabilità e coesione per distinguersi dalle "crawleys", le sporche, radicali lesbiche di ogni genere (sì ho detto genere) della classe operaia, quelle che fanno funzionare le loro fabbriche e quelle che assaltano i treni.

Questo libro è un viaggio allucinante. La compresenza e la fusione di io/tu/noi, l'ubriacatura di voglie e di rabbia e di lotta, tutto ciò conduce a non capire a fondo quello che succede, e al tempo stesso capisci tutto perché non è con la testa che devi comprendere, ma con il cuore. La rivoluzione è prima di tutto cuore, è uno stato d'animo, ed è con il cuore che capisci quello che stai leggendo. In questo è complice anche un lessico complicato, corposo, che mette a dura prova chi non è madrelingua, ma alla fine anche se non hai capito ogni singola parola non importa perché il cuore le ha capite. Ha una sonorità perfetta, una melodia struggente e incalzante che toglie il respiro. Capitoli molto lunghi che si prendono il loro tempo e che suonano come un inno.

[seasalted.citrus (Topaz, Oliver) · Rating 4 out of 5]

my StoryGraph rating is 4.5 but I rounded it down on GR (I will see if my rating changes)… oh this slapped SO HARD. Crushed me but was also hopeful. My Intro To Lit professor decided to give us a choice reading assignment after she became disappointed in the book originally part of our curriculum, I am glad I brought this out of my pile of soon-to-be-overdue books but I cannot think of a single academic setting where I should have been reading this. Thank god I do not have to do a full plot summary. Haha.

I appreciate the integration of socialist and communist ideas into a fantasy world for a change, even if I think the execution of the actual revolution was a little “baby’s first anarchist fiction”— perhaps I will feel differently about it (negatively?) when I am more politically educated but time will tell.

I have a love-hate relationship with the audiobook. On one hand, some creative choices absolutely worked for me; basically the entirety of chapter 16 made the format worth it, between the POV change and the free verse-esque writing style giving it a different kind of narration than the rest of the book… (I have a list on StoryGraph of parts that made me emo.) On the other hand some deliveries were a little drier than i anticipated they’d be and there was a slight fuck it we ball (as in, going into it cold) energy.

Confused on how to feel about the ending. For now I will say it was brilliant, if a little unexpectedly surreal. (The “End Of Evangelion” inspiration REALLY showed.)

I’ll write a full review later and try to keep it free of oversharing! It will be a long one. I was pretty obsessive about this book as I was reading it.

[Teeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC for early review.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Metal From Heaven is like taking the vibes of Star Wars bounty hunter culture and making it the sexiest, gayest, and most unrelentingly badass mixture of anti-capitalist punk rock eco-scifantasy that I have ever consumed and possibly will ever consume.

Metal From Heaven is like if Sarah Gailey went on a date with Gideon the Ninth and the result was not a relationship but a story that is so inherently 2nd-person-POV lesbianic saddle-raging biker gang hookup that you get whiplash just trying to write a review for it.

Metal From Heaven is THE singlemost queer revenge quest/meetcute governmental takedown grindcore "murder ballad" literary achievement in my very unprofessional opinion, and I've read 3.7 million words of gay fanfiction this year alone (that's War and Peace about seven times over), which absolutely does not qualify me to do anything at all, but I'm going to attempt to ramble about this book a little bit more anyways.

This isn't even normally the kind of thing I would pick up or gravitate towards. If you're looking for high clarity, clean and simple, or tender love and care, this ain't the book for you, and you should read it anyways. While it's not the most high concept unique premise ever imagined, the execution, the attention to detail, and the style that literally drips and oozes out of this thing will probably blow your mind like a pipe bomb shoved behind your temporal lobe. I was convinced to read this as an ARC by a great friend from my book club and I was readily warned and aware of just how insanely gay and nutshitjackwild this would be. And literally, by about forty or fifty pages in, I was already entranced by the vibes. It's bloody, violent, cruel, and apathetic. There's no slowing down, no brakes, no time to wonder about anything but what is going on right in front of your eyeballs. Are you confused reading this stream of consciousness review? Then you're getting closer to being ready for Metal From Heaven.

It's got plot, it's got character, it's got woke messaging out the wazoo. There's like three men in the entire book but it hardly even matters because the gender of characters really only comes up in terms of political and religious belief. No one cares what's in your pants when you're robbing an entire train full of people. Romance? Maybe. There's sex, love, obsession, sadomasochism, and more, but probably not romance. All's fair in fits of ichor-induced seizures and corporate sabotage. Motorcycles, lesbians, tattoos, guns, fancy gowns, sharp nails, forced marriages, righteous anger, revenge, trauma, chronic illness, more lesbians, highway robbery, blowing shit the fuck up, Robin Hood would be real proud, knives, politics, classism, extreme amounts of death, being adopted by five (six?) revolutionary leaders in one day, returning to a home you build with your own blood, drinking, fucking, sobbing, screaming, taking vengeance, losing everything, nothing is true, death isn't the end, and holy mother of pearls, you need to read this goddamn book.