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Hell's Heart
Not yet published
Expected 12 Mar 26Hell's Heart is a queer speculative fiction retelling of Melville's classic story.
Here, a small party go hunting for a giant space creature – and experience grand adventure, love and loss along the way.
Earth is a ruin, and the scattered remnants of humanity scavenge what they can from the stars. This under the watchful auspices of a grab-bag of collectives, corporations, and churches. These are all that remains of what we once called society. Having long exhausted any conventional sources of energy, life in the solar system is now sustained by a volatile, hallucinogenic substance – this harvested from the brains of vast cetacean-like Leviathans that swim the atmospheric currents of Jupiter.
Finding herself with no money and little to occupy her groundside, the narrator (“I”) takes a commission aboard the hunter-barque Pequod as it sets out in pursuit of these Leviathans. However, once aboard, she finds herself pulled inexorably into the orbit of the barque’s captain, a charismatic but fanatically driven woman who the narrator names only as 'A'. As the Pequod plunges ever deeper into the turbulent, monster-haunted atmosphere of the gas giant, the narrator begins to lose herself in the eerie world of Leviathan-hunting and the captain’s increasingly insistent delusions. The only thing that might keep her grounded is the bond she develops with Q, a woman from the wreck of Old Earth, whose skin is marked with holographic light and who remembers things others have lost.
Here, a small party go hunting for a giant space creature – and experience grand adventure, love and loss along the way.
Earth is a ruin, and the scattered remnants of humanity scavenge what they can from the stars. This under the watchful auspices of a grab-bag of collectives, corporations, and churches. These are all that remains of what we once called society. Having long exhausted any conventional sources of energy, life in the solar system is now sustained by a volatile, hallucinogenic substance – this harvested from the brains of vast cetacean-like Leviathans that swim the atmospheric currents of Jupiter.
Finding herself with no money and little to occupy her groundside, the narrator (“I”) takes a commission aboard the hunter-barque Pequod as it sets out in pursuit of these Leviathans. However, once aboard, she finds herself pulled inexorably into the orbit of the barque’s captain, a charismatic but fanatically driven woman who the narrator names only as 'A'. As the Pequod plunges ever deeper into the turbulent, monster-haunted atmosphere of the gas giant, the narrator begins to lose herself in the eerie world of Leviathan-hunting and the captain’s increasingly insistent delusions. The only thing that might keep her grounded is the bond she develops with Q, a woman from the wreck of Old Earth, whose skin is marked with holographic light and who remembers things others have lost.
480 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication March 10, 2026
80 people are currently reading
26373 people want to read
About the author
Alexis Hall
62 books15.1k followersOne of those intricate British queers.
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for this e-ARC. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a soft dnf @ 30% (ch 25.) I say soft dnf because I was really looking forward to this book and might try the audiobook after release.
(( Update: the audiobook did not save it. Moby Dick isn’t exactly a fast paced book, but this is just…not good. I am incredibly disappointed. The characters aren’t just uninteresting, but are also incredibly annoying. The plot details are all shared though infodumps. The one positive I can give it is that it is giving the promised amount of sapphic, but in the worst possible way. ))
I do not like this main character. Moreover, I feel like I’ve read this same exact character a million times and I haven’t enjoyed it once. She genuinely has zero personality outside of attempts at quirky, wry humor and sex. Not that actual Moby Dick is a fast paced novel, but I am 25 chapters in and nothing has happened. You’re writing sapphic Moby Dick in space? Slay that’s all I want, but by chapter 25 I had better care about the characters or the setting enough to want to hold out for the plot. I genuinely do not care about any of these people except maybe Q, and even then, she’s just not enough to keep me going. I cannot handle another almost 300 pages of tongue-in-cheek humor that repeatedly misses paired with insane info dumps. Don’t get me excited about a Gideon the Ninth comp if you’re not going to give me Gideon the Ninth quality I’m not emotionally stable enough for that with the Alecto release nowhere in sight.
(( Update: the audiobook did not save it. Moby Dick isn’t exactly a fast paced book, but this is just…not good. I am incredibly disappointed. The characters aren’t just uninteresting, but are also incredibly annoying. The plot details are all shared though infodumps. The one positive I can give it is that it is giving the promised amount of sapphic, but in the worst possible way. ))
I do not like this main character. Moreover, I feel like I’ve read this same exact character a million times and I haven’t enjoyed it once. She genuinely has zero personality outside of attempts at quirky, wry humor and sex. Not that actual Moby Dick is a fast paced novel, but I am 25 chapters in and nothing has happened. You’re writing sapphic Moby Dick in space? Slay that’s all I want, but by chapter 25 I had better care about the characters or the setting enough to want to hold out for the plot. I genuinely do not care about any of these people except maybe Q, and even then, she’s just not enough to keep me going. I cannot handle another almost 300 pages of tongue-in-cheek humor that repeatedly misses paired with insane info dumps. Don’t get me excited about a Gideon the Ninth comp if you’re not going to give me Gideon the Ninth quality I’m not emotionally stable enough for that with the Alecto release nowhere in sight.
did-not-finish
January 11, 2026DNF @ 21%: This is all over the place, random women keep fingering her and I can't be bothered reading infodumps about whales. I'm literally so bored.
Currently reading
September 23, 2025A pub assistant reached out to ME about reading an ARC of this book and I have never felt so special in my WHOLE LIFE.
February 1, 2026
Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall is a queer space opera retelling of Moby Dick. The narrator, named I, boards a Leviathan-hunting spaceship captained by A and spends most of the book fucking around, both metaphorically and literally, with A and a Latin-speaking harpoonist from Earth named Q. The whole thing feels like it started with learning about sperm whales, realizing Moby Dick is about a whale, making the extremely obvious “Moby DICK / SPERM whale” connection, and deciding to make it sapphic with a side of cosmic horror.
I’ve seen a lot of people say they DNF’d this book, and honestly, I get it. The book never quite decides what it wants to be. It’s written like a memoir, sometimes talks directly to the reader, and moves at a painfully slow pace. The main character is a self-proclaimed intellectual trying to show off and fuck constantly (in short, obnoxiously unlikable), the sex scenes are constant and repetitive (I gets fingered by women she barely knows every five minutes), and the narrator seems to assume the reader is here for sex stuff exclusively. I wasn’t.
Q speaking only in Latin was another thing that wore me down. I get what the author was going for, but it was distracting and annoying. Even when I understood the Latin, I kept thinking: why am I being made to work this hard for a character I don’t care about? She never said anything interesting. Though, to be fair, I don’t think any of the characters ever said anything interesting 🤷♀️ The choppy, uninteresting narration is sort of explained at the end by the narrator saying she didn’t get the implants/alterations to be eloquent and this can work for a novella but this was a long book packed with irrelevant nonsense.
I can see what the book was trying to be, and I don’t think it’s bad, but the execution is terrible. The plot makes sense, and there are tense moments here and there. I just didn’t care about the characters at all. I and A never grew on me, and Q never became more than a gimmick. The characters had no growth throughout the book and seemed to be only there to move the plot forward and have sex, which made it all unexciting and uninteresting after a while. On top of that, there are frequent info dumps about whales and world-building details that only matter for whatever scene is happening at the time. The constant and repetitive sex stuff made the narrator feel very immature. Like, they’re hunting a Leviathan. Why is she making allegories about dildos? Every time I got immersed in the story, the writing would switch tone and start talking about sex stuff that had nothing to do with anything, and I’d stop caring about the scene. Like, we’re hunting a Leviathan and the narrator’s like, “you can skip the next two chapters to get back to the sex stuff,” keeps offering to have sex with people and being like “your loss” if they refuse, sexualizes people and puts forward fantasies constantly “as a defense mechanism,” points out that the ship had many officers and that an officer “is someone else that needs doing,” and speaks about the doctor only at the end of the book because, even though the main character visited him often for issues with the implants, they didn’t fuck, so the doctor wasn’t relevant. It was all a waste of words that cheapened the story. This was obviously intended by the author, but it didn’t work for me at all.
You’d think I’d enjoy a book that mentions Ganymede every five pages. Somehow, I still found it boring. The alien religion stuff from the early chapters was far more interesting to me than all the sperm whale material we got afterwards. All in all, I just think this book tried to be a humorous space opera, queer smut, a philosophical memoir, a retelling, and an adventure cosmic horror thing, and I’m sad to say it was all mediocre and didn’t mix well for me. I hope other readers will find some joy in it, but it was an annoying read for me with a lackluster ending.
ARC received for free. This hasn’t impacted my rating.
I’ve seen a lot of people say they DNF’d this book, and honestly, I get it. The book never quite decides what it wants to be. It’s written like a memoir, sometimes talks directly to the reader, and moves at a painfully slow pace. The main character is a self-proclaimed intellectual trying to show off and fuck constantly (in short, obnoxiously unlikable), the sex scenes are constant and repetitive (I gets fingered by women she barely knows every five minutes), and the narrator seems to assume the reader is here for sex stuff exclusively. I wasn’t.
Q speaking only in Latin was another thing that wore me down. I get what the author was going for, but it was distracting and annoying. Even when I understood the Latin, I kept thinking: why am I being made to work this hard for a character I don’t care about? She never said anything interesting. Though, to be fair, I don’t think any of the characters ever said anything interesting 🤷♀️ The choppy, uninteresting narration is sort of explained at the end by the narrator saying she didn’t get the implants/alterations to be eloquent and this can work for a novella but this was a long book packed with irrelevant nonsense.
I can see what the book was trying to be, and I don’t think it’s bad, but the execution is terrible. The plot makes sense, and there are tense moments here and there. I just didn’t care about the characters at all. I and A never grew on me, and Q never became more than a gimmick. The characters had no growth throughout the book and seemed to be only there to move the plot forward and have sex, which made it all unexciting and uninteresting after a while. On top of that, there are frequent info dumps about whales and world-building details that only matter for whatever scene is happening at the time. The constant and repetitive sex stuff made the narrator feel very immature. Like, they’re hunting a Leviathan. Why is she making allegories about dildos? Every time I got immersed in the story, the writing would switch tone and start talking about sex stuff that had nothing to do with anything, and I’d stop caring about the scene. Like, we’re hunting a Leviathan and the narrator’s like, “you can skip the next two chapters to get back to the sex stuff,” keeps offering to have sex with people and being like “your loss” if they refuse, sexualizes people and puts forward fantasies constantly “as a defense mechanism,” points out that the ship had many officers and that an officer “is someone else that needs doing,” and speaks about the doctor only at the end of the book because, even though the main character visited him often for issues with the implants, they didn’t fuck, so the doctor wasn’t relevant. It was all a waste of words that cheapened the story. This was obviously intended by the author, but it didn’t work for me at all.
You’d think I’d enjoy a book that mentions Ganymede every five pages. Somehow, I still found it boring. The alien religion stuff from the early chapters was far more interesting to me than all the sperm whale material we got afterwards. All in all, I just think this book tried to be a humorous space opera, queer smut, a philosophical memoir, a retelling, and an adventure cosmic horror thing, and I’m sad to say it was all mediocre and didn’t mix well for me. I hope other readers will find some joy in it, but it was an annoying read for me with a lackluster ending.
ARC received for free. This hasn’t impacted my rating.
Read
February 7, 2026PSA: This👏Book👏Is👏Horny👏
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I've never read it, but the narrator in this is so horny that I fully forgot for the first 30% or so that this is a Moby Dick retelling.
...unless Moby Dick has always been really raunchy? lol I assumed not but I could be wrong.
4/5
The Writing:
This book is mostly written in first person, but isn't averse to breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly with some frequency. As the book itself puts it, it's full of "weird chronality and constant digressions," and I imagine that that style of writing could be quite off-putting to some readers.
Also I just really cannot underscore the horniness here. If there's someone introduced to the story and they have 2 or fewer legs, odds are the narrator has already or will want to bed them. I didn't find the sex scenes to be overly titillating like an erotica? But their mentions are copious.
The Queerness:
I believe the narrator refers to themself as a young boy but as a woman now, and they make several references to overhauling their physicality such as: "this body is basically a rental anyway." So I'm fairly certain they're a transwoman and predominantly entering sexual relationships with women? I don't recall if the text is explicit or just heavily inferred (gender and sexuality are a spectrum, but at the very least the text is incredibly, incredibly queer).
The World-Building (Religion/Enterprise):
My favourite part of this novel were the little world-building nuggets that were never in the forefront of the story, but always building a bigger picture in the background. In particular I found it really entertaining the way that the fervent Christian dogma of modern America might be spun if its only progenitors were the ultra wealthy who destroyed and fled Earth then convinced themselves of their righteousness. I'm mostly saving these quotes so I can look back on them myself, but also I know some of my friends will be put off by the sex in this novel and might want to see this tiny slice all the same.
Overall:
This book was a lot but I appreciated that it was voicey and had something to say. I find the Classics very dull and difficult to get immersed in, so this was probably my only shot at ever engaging with Moby Dick and I think it's pretty neat that this exists.
Audiobook Notes:
I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator and their decisions throughout the entire novel. Very clear quality and distinct voices, too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for granting me an audio ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
-----------------
I've never read it, but the narrator in this is so horny that I fully forgot for the first 30% or so that this is a Moby Dick retelling.
...unless Moby Dick has always been really raunchy? lol I assumed not but I could be wrong.
"As you might've worked out by now I'm an erotic, chaotic slut with so many issues I could write an allegorical novel about them."
4/5
The Writing:
This book is mostly written in first person, but isn't averse to breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly with some frequency. As the book itself puts it, it's full of "weird chronality and constant digressions," and I imagine that that style of writing could be quite off-putting to some readers.
Also I just really cannot underscore the horniness here. If there's someone introduced to the story and they have 2 or fewer legs, odds are the narrator has already or will want to bed them. I didn't find the sex scenes to be overly titillating like an erotica? But their mentions are copious.
The Queerness:
I believe the narrator refers to themself as a young boy but as a woman now, and they make several references to overhauling their physicality such as: "this body is basically a rental anyway." So I'm fairly certain they're a transwoman and predominantly entering sexual relationships with women? I don't recall if the text is explicit or just heavily inferred (gender and sexuality are a spectrum, but at the very least the text is incredibly, incredibly queer).
The World-Building (Religion/Enterprise):
My favourite part of this novel were the little world-building nuggets that were never in the forefront of the story, but always building a bigger picture in the background. In particular I found it really entertaining the way that the fervent Christian dogma of modern America might be spun if its only progenitors were the ultra wealthy who destroyed and fled Earth then convinced themselves of their righteousness. I'm mostly saving these quotes so I can look back on them myself, but also I know some of my friends will be put off by the sex in this novel and might want to see this tiny slice all the same.
Overall:
This book was a lot but I appreciated that it was voicey and had something to say. I find the Classics very dull and difficult to get immersed in, so this was probably my only shot at ever engaging with Moby Dick and I think it's pretty neat that this exists.
Audiobook Notes:
I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator and their decisions throughout the entire novel. Very clear quality and distinct voices, too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for granting me an audio ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
September 4, 2025
Hell’s Heart wants to be a lot of things a space-faring fever dream, a queered-up Moby Dick, a poetic meditation on obsession and survival. And maybe it is, in a way. But mostly, for me, it felt like being stuck in a long, winding conversation with someone who loves the sound of their own voice.
There’s a ship. There’s space. There’s ruin. There’s a narrator who watches everything and feels very little until suddenly she’s supposed to feel everything. I kept waiting to be pulled in. To feel the weight of Jupiter’s storms in my chest. But all I found were words. So many words. Describing, explaining, telling. Never quite letting me breathe.
I wanted to care. I really did. But caring requires connection, and this book never stopped long enough to make one.
I suppose some people will find it brilliant. I wanted to like it. I just found it exhausting. Thank you to the publisher and author for this ARC.
There’s a ship. There’s space. There’s ruin. There’s a narrator who watches everything and feels very little until suddenly she’s supposed to feel everything. I kept waiting to be pulled in. To feel the weight of Jupiter’s storms in my chest. But all I found were words. So many words. Describing, explaining, telling. Never quite letting me breathe.
I wanted to care. I really did. But caring requires connection, and this book never stopped long enough to make one.
I suppose some people will find it brilliant. I wanted to like it. I just found it exhausting. Thank you to the publisher and author for this ARC.
Want to read
July 3, 2025 “Gideon the Ninth meets Murderbot”????
Well, I mean, flamin' sign me up!
Well, I mean, flamin' sign me up!
January 20, 2026
This was so epic; a sapphic sci-fi retelling of Moby Dick, with plenty of gore, drama, smushing in space and interstellar battles.
The storytelling in this one is pretty unique; it’s written in first person, but our narrator, known only as ‘I’, is narrating directly to the reader, which means we get a lot of asides and reminiscing. But it was very engaging and I think reflects the original story really well.
The crew of the ship was varied and fascinating. I enjoyed Q, I’s main love interest, who speaks entirely in Latin, and the assorted crew members who start as casually religious folks and descend rapidly into a cult that worships face-eating leopards. Or something. It’s an allegory.
I was a really engaging narrator. She’s cowardly, chaotic and completely unreliable. She just wants to be loved, but due to religious trauma, doesn’t feel like she deserves it. I also think she’s trans… but if anyone else reads this and has thoughts, I’d love to discuss it! She’s on the run as she’s had her whole body reconfigured (ie. hands being made smaller, limbs reshaped) and she cannot pay the big pharma company’s bills, hence her joining the doomed quest to hunt the Mobuis Beast. I adored her and her absolute devotion to getting laid, no matter the circumstances.
The whole book explores religion and capitalism and how they are intertwined. I loved how some of the characters (Captain, Marsh) speak in ‘old timey’ language that reminds the reader that this is a retelling of an old work. Then there is Locke, who speaks almost entirely in corporate jargon. It’s such a fun dichotomy.
Overall a chaotic read but one that I really enjoyed; perfect for queer sci-fi enthusiasts and those who want to shake their heads and roll their eyes at religion and capitalism simultaneously.
Read Hells Heart for:
✨ Sapphic Moby Dick retelling in space
✨ Speculative fiction
✨ Unreliable narrator
✨ Fictional memoir
✨ Trans MC (at least in my interpretation)
✨ Is it a religion, or a cult?
✨ So many sperm jokes. So many.
Thank you so much Tor Books for a physical proof of this book! It’s available on 12th March 2026 ✨
The storytelling in this one is pretty unique; it’s written in first person, but our narrator, known only as ‘I’, is narrating directly to the reader, which means we get a lot of asides and reminiscing. But it was very engaging and I think reflects the original story really well.
The crew of the ship was varied and fascinating. I enjoyed Q, I’s main love interest, who speaks entirely in Latin, and the assorted crew members who start as casually religious folks and descend rapidly into a cult that worships face-eating leopards. Or something. It’s an allegory.
I was a really engaging narrator. She’s cowardly, chaotic and completely unreliable. She just wants to be loved, but due to religious trauma, doesn’t feel like she deserves it. I also think she’s trans… but if anyone else reads this and has thoughts, I’d love to discuss it! She’s on the run as she’s had her whole body reconfigured (ie. hands being made smaller, limbs reshaped) and she cannot pay the big pharma company’s bills, hence her joining the doomed quest to hunt the Mobuis Beast. I adored her and her absolute devotion to getting laid, no matter the circumstances.
The whole book explores religion and capitalism and how they are intertwined. I loved how some of the characters (Captain, Marsh) speak in ‘old timey’ language that reminds the reader that this is a retelling of an old work. Then there is Locke, who speaks almost entirely in corporate jargon. It’s such a fun dichotomy.
Overall a chaotic read but one that I really enjoyed; perfect for queer sci-fi enthusiasts and those who want to shake their heads and roll their eyes at religion and capitalism simultaneously.
Read Hells Heart for:
✨ Sapphic Moby Dick retelling in space
✨ Speculative fiction
✨ Unreliable narrator
✨ Fictional memoir
✨ Trans MC (at least in my interpretation)
✨ Is it a religion, or a cult?
✨ So many sperm jokes. So many.
Thank you so much Tor Books for a physical proof of this book! It’s available on 12th March 2026 ✨
Want to read
February 22, 2025This still doesn't sound like a real thing that's happening to me.
Read
January 7, 2026
Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:
If Sky Daddy was 2025's unhinged take on Moby-Dick, Hell's Heart is 2026's. Given that Moby-Dick is my favorite book of all time, I am always eager to read anything that claims it as an influence. This spacefaring version follows the narrator I in pursuit of spermaceti, a hallucinogen produced by Leviathans swimming in Jupiter's currents. With women cast in the roles of Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg, this book promises a story even more queer than the original, and that's saying something. —Isabelle Popp
If Sky Daddy was 2025's unhinged take on Moby-Dick, Hell's Heart is 2026's. Given that Moby-Dick is my favorite book of all time, I am always eager to read anything that claims it as an influence. This spacefaring version follows the narrator I in pursuit of spermaceti, a hallucinogen produced by Leviathans swimming in Jupiter's currents. With women cast in the roles of Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg, this book promises a story even more queer than the original, and that's saying something. —Isabelle Popp
September 21, 2025
I received a free copy from Tor Books via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date March 10th, 2026.
I've been a longtime fan of Alexis Hall's, and I was interested to see what he'd do in his science fiction debut. In Hell's Heart, aimless and self-destructive I- signs on a space whaling voyage in order to flee her merciless medical creditors, who own her body and soul. In this retelling of Moby Dick, she begins to realize that their charismatically deranged captain is hell-bent at hunting down the leviathan who injured her--even at the cost of her life and the lives of the entire crew.
Well! As someone who's familiar with Herman Melville's Moby Dick, I should not have been surprised that the lesbians in space retelling had a pace as slow as molasses, interspersed with endless and aimless asides to the reader. Because I- states directly how the book ends from very early on, the four hundred plus pages of boat antics and Leviathan slayings feel like mere filler before the ultimate end. The effect is exacerbated by narrator I-, who is passive, depressed, and has a very detached perspective that makes the narration feel distant. I know many of you like your women soggy and pathetic, but personally I prefer the aggressively digging themselves deeper into a hole type rather than the facedown on the floor type.
By far the strongest point of the novel was the worldbuilding. Since the original novel was set midway through the process of driving whales nearly to extinction in the Atlantic, it's fitting that the retelling is also set in a capitalistic hellscape, albeit one set in a retro-style Solar System limited space future. While I- has mostly left the awful religion she was brought in (a grotesquerie of a certain type of prosperity Christianity), she accepts the values her culture presents her without much question, and drops the awful little details as casual little asides. Onboard the ship, shower minutes are billed and taken directly out of their wages. I's surgery (implied to be gender-affirming) puts her in debt to a pharma-corp conglomerate, and if she misses a payment, they can repossess her organs. People can be sold into debt-slavery for the crime of inheriting a patented gene complex. And so on and so forth. It's a fitting accompaniment to the grim plot.
Overall, Hell's Heart is a throwback to Hall's complex early steampunk novels rather than his frivolous recent historicals. It certainly isn't a romance novel--while I- has unhappy escapist sex with a number of women, there's no romance and nothing I'd consider a full sex scene. However, I did enjoy I-'s crewmate and sometimes-lover Q-. Q- is from Earth, speaks nearly exclusively in untranslated Latin in the text, and has a sort of smartphone reference device that I- doesn't understand and refers to as her "idol". Alas, Q- is almost entirely opaque to I-, who doesn't really understand her, and therefore to the reader as well.
There's some fantastic details here, but not much substance. I think this would have been a much stronger work chopped down into a novella..
I've been a longtime fan of Alexis Hall's, and I was interested to see what he'd do in his science fiction debut. In Hell's Heart, aimless and self-destructive I- signs on a space whaling voyage in order to flee her merciless medical creditors, who own her body and soul. In this retelling of Moby Dick, she begins to realize that their charismatically deranged captain is hell-bent at hunting down the leviathan who injured her--even at the cost of her life and the lives of the entire crew.
Well! As someone who's familiar with Herman Melville's Moby Dick, I should not have been surprised that the lesbians in space retelling had a pace as slow as molasses, interspersed with endless and aimless asides to the reader. Because I- states directly how the book ends from very early on, the four hundred plus pages of boat antics and Leviathan slayings feel like mere filler before the ultimate end. The effect is exacerbated by narrator I-, who is passive, depressed, and has a very detached perspective that makes the narration feel distant. I know many of you like your women soggy and pathetic, but personally I prefer the aggressively digging themselves deeper into a hole type rather than the facedown on the floor type.
By far the strongest point of the novel was the worldbuilding. Since the original novel was set midway through the process of driving whales nearly to extinction in the Atlantic, it's fitting that the retelling is also set in a capitalistic hellscape, albeit one set in a retro-style Solar System limited space future. While I- has mostly left the awful religion she was brought in (a grotesquerie of a certain type of prosperity Christianity), she accepts the values her culture presents her without much question, and drops the awful little details as casual little asides. Onboard the ship, shower minutes are billed and taken directly out of their wages. I's surgery (implied to be gender-affirming) puts her in debt to a pharma-corp conglomerate, and if she misses a payment, they can repossess her organs. People can be sold into debt-slavery for the crime of inheriting a patented gene complex. And so on and so forth. It's a fitting accompaniment to the grim plot.
Overall, Hell's Heart is a throwback to Hall's complex early steampunk novels rather than his frivolous recent historicals. It certainly isn't a romance novel--while I- has unhappy escapist sex with a number of women, there's no romance and nothing I'd consider a full sex scene. However, I did enjoy I-'s crewmate and sometimes-lover Q-. Q- is from Earth, speaks nearly exclusively in untranslated Latin in the text, and has a sort of smartphone reference device that I- doesn't understand and refers to as her "idol". Alas, Q- is almost entirely opaque to I-, who doesn't really understand her, and therefore to the reader as well.
There's some fantastic details here, but not much substance. I think this would have been a much stronger work chopped down into a novella..
Want to read
January 2, 2026Oh my god, this is where I deploy the I am seated. I am so seated that I've cuffed myself to the chair, swallowed the key (not looking forward to digesting it!) and nobody can remove me from the premises under threat of law!
February 1, 2026
Received from NetGalley, thanks!
Okay, this book was absolutely fucking brilliant. This was Alexis Hall being *the most* Alexis Hall.
I made sure to read Moby Dick before diving into this, and I’m really glad that I did. It’s certainly not necessary, I think that anyone would enjoy this regardless. But having read the source material, I was able to pick up on all of the little nods made to the original, as well as when the original is being lovingly made fun of.
I adored our narrator, she is funny and cynical and horny and an amazing narrator. I was also lucky enough to listen to an audio ARC, and Charlie Anne Delores was so very good.
I’m not sure what else to say. I just really really loved this book and can’t wait until it’s out in the world for everyone else to read!
Okay, this book was absolutely fucking brilliant. This was Alexis Hall being *the most* Alexis Hall.
I made sure to read Moby Dick before diving into this, and I’m really glad that I did. It’s certainly not necessary, I think that anyone would enjoy this regardless. But having read the source material, I was able to pick up on all of the little nods made to the original, as well as when the original is being lovingly made fun of.
I adored our narrator, she is funny and cynical and horny and an amazing narrator. I was also lucky enough to listen to an audio ARC, and Charlie Anne Delores was so very good.
I’m not sure what else to say. I just really really loved this book and can’t wait until it’s out in the world for everyone else to read!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I picked this book up purely based on the description "a lesbian retelling of Moby Dick in space" so I had very little idea really of what to expect and somehow this book was still so much more than I expected.
It's one of those books that I absolutely adored reading and I can't even really put into words why, I just had a great time every time I picked it up, and I was constantly desperate to get back to it whenever I put it down. It manages to be both irreverent and profound, witty and emotional, at times cutting and at times devastating.
It follows a nameless main character on a space voyage to hunt monstrous leviathans that are killed and harvested for their brain fluid (spermaceti), which is used as a form of power. On board are a whole cast of characters, the main important ones being the captain, A, and our main character's bunkmate, Q, both of whom she is in some form of a relationship with. Like the original Moby Dick, the plot is meandering and slow, but the journey is still so compelling and along the way manages to make scathing points about religion, AI, society, and humanity, as well as relentless sperm jokes throughout.
Overall it was a delightful, thought-provoking fever dream, unlike pretty much anything else I've ever read.
I picked this book up purely based on the description "a lesbian retelling of Moby Dick in space" so I had very little idea really of what to expect and somehow this book was still so much more than I expected.
It's one of those books that I absolutely adored reading and I can't even really put into words why, I just had a great time every time I picked it up, and I was constantly desperate to get back to it whenever I put it down. It manages to be both irreverent and profound, witty and emotional, at times cutting and at times devastating.
It follows a nameless main character on a space voyage to hunt monstrous leviathans that are killed and harvested for their brain fluid (spermaceti), which is used as a form of power. On board are a whole cast of characters, the main important ones being the captain, A, and our main character's bunkmate, Q, both of whom she is in some form of a relationship with. Like the original Moby Dick, the plot is meandering and slow, but the journey is still so compelling and along the way manages to make scathing points about religion, AI, society, and humanity, as well as relentless sperm jokes throughout.
Overall it was a delightful, thought-provoking fever dream, unlike pretty much anything else I've ever read.
Read
December 19, 2025The sky itself will remember our names.
4.5 stars rounded up because it's Alexis Hall.
Honestly, I don't really know what more I can say to convince anyone to pick this up. If the cover and "SAPPHIC MOBY DICK IN SPACE" doesn't convince you to immediately drop everything and read this book, I don't know what will. Also, "sapphic Moby Dick in space" kinda tells you everything. It's Moby Dick. In space. With lots of queerness.
For those who already love Alexis Hall, you know what to expect: it's irreverent, fun, sarcastic, and will make you feel things at unexpected moments. There are lovely shiny moments were the narrator (Call her... whatever) muses on the logic behind hunting beautiful beasts so you can take them apart, religion and how it is used (and abused). Yes, sometimes they go off on tangents (which they freely admit early on) and ramble a bit but let's be honest: it's Moby Dick in space, if you didn't expect that then. Well...
And one last time: it's sapphic Moby Dick in space! Enjoy.
*I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
4.5 stars rounded up because it's Alexis Hall.
Honestly, I don't really know what more I can say to convince anyone to pick this up. If the cover and "SAPPHIC MOBY DICK IN SPACE" doesn't convince you to immediately drop everything and read this book, I don't know what will. Also, "sapphic Moby Dick in space" kinda tells you everything. It's Moby Dick. In space. With lots of queerness.
For those who already love Alexis Hall, you know what to expect: it's irreverent, fun, sarcastic, and will make you feel things at unexpected moments. There are lovely shiny moments were the narrator (Call her... whatever) muses on the logic behind hunting beautiful beasts so you can take them apart, religion and how it is used (and abused). Yes, sometimes they go off on tangents (which they freely admit early on) and ramble a bit but let's be honest: it's Moby Dick in space, if you didn't expect that then. Well...
And one last time: it's sapphic Moby Dick in space! Enjoy.
*I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
did-not-finish
February 21, 2026DNF 50% -- I'm so sorry to say that this book didn't quite work for me and I was so looking forward to it! 😔 The World is a creative and unique sci-fi world, that's both modern and whimscal, with inventive names & terms to learn. There are a LOT of meandering tangents, which the narrator even tells the viewer they are embarking on. I really wanted to like it more, but I struggled to follow the story and lost patience. I think maybe sci-fi isn't my jam.
Having read and loved Alexis's entire catalogue the closest genre comp for me is Prosperity with some of the attitude of Kate Kane, and complexity of The Affair of the Secret Letter. Instead of Cant language, one of the characters only speaks in Latin, which was funny. Alexis's love of language and how he plays with it is like no one else and I really appreciate the talent he has for that. Although not very steamy, the characters "I" (the narrator), "Q" (the hot harpooner) and "A" (the captain) have an interesting lesbian love triangle of sorts. The captain is by far my favorite character with her long dark hair and red corset dress and cool Leviathan-bone engraved leg, all-knowing sass and Dom vibes. She makes quite the first impression and begs to have fan art made of her.
I've never read Moby Dick and I had a similar problem with Gideon the Ninth, which is referenced in the book blurb, and if you like those books you will probably love this one! I'm sure that discovering how he retells the beats of Moby Dick is probably a delight. Sadly it was lost on me. 🖤
**Thank you to TOR & NetGalley for the ARC**
(Edited for new DNF Function)
Having read and loved Alexis's entire catalogue the closest genre comp for me is Prosperity with some of the attitude of Kate Kane, and complexity of The Affair of the Secret Letter. Instead of Cant language, one of the characters only speaks in Latin, which was funny. Alexis's love of language and how he plays with it is like no one else and I really appreciate the talent he has for that. Although not very steamy, the characters "I" (the narrator), "Q" (the hot harpooner) and "A" (the captain) have an interesting lesbian love triangle of sorts. The captain is by far my favorite character with her long dark hair and red corset dress and cool Leviathan-bone engraved leg, all-knowing sass and Dom vibes. She makes quite the first impression and begs to have fan art made of her.
I've never read Moby Dick and I had a similar problem with Gideon the Ninth, which is referenced in the book blurb, and if you like those books you will probably love this one! I'm sure that discovering how he retells the beats of Moby Dick is probably a delight. Sadly it was lost on me. 🖤
**Thank you to TOR & NetGalley for the ARC**
(Edited for new DNF Function)
February 13, 2026
I was genuinely really looking forward to this book, which makes the disappointment hit even harder. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t connect with the characters at all, the storyline failed to keep my interest, and the overall execution felt weak. On top of that, the humor came across as unnecessary and immature, pulling me out of the story rather than adding anything to it. Sadly, this one missed the mark for me.
September 21, 2025
I’ve never read Moby Dick but thought the idea of lesbians in space sounding fun. This was not that for me. It felt like it took me forever to read and I was never really sucked in.
The writing is well done. The worldbuilding was great. It was very easy to imagine this world and there’s so much information provided. I found all of the churches, religions and cultures mentioned to be interesting. As well as the leviathans themselves.
It does pick up at the end but that wasn’t enough for me. Overall I just don’t think this was for me. But if you’re a fan of the author or just wanna read Moby Dick in space then I would definitely give this a shot! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
The writing is well done. The worldbuilding was great. It was very easy to imagine this world and there’s so much information provided. I found all of the churches, religions and cultures mentioned to be interesting. As well as the leviathans themselves.
It does pick up at the end but that wasn’t enough for me. Overall I just don’t think this was for me. But if you’re a fan of the author or just wanna read Moby Dick in space then I would definitely give this a shot! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
September 2, 2025
This took me longer than I thought it would to read but that’s because it reads like Moby dick: long, meandering, weird, horny, sad, silly.
It’s not a line for line rewrite but it feels not far off. It hits all the major beats of the story the minor ones too. The story translates really well to space and sad horny lesbians. I had a great time and probably need to re read Moby Dick again!
It’s not a line for line rewrite but it feels not far off. It hits all the major beats of the story the minor ones too. The story translates really well to space and sad horny lesbians. I had a great time and probably need to re read Moby Dick again!
February 14, 2026
Moby Dick but with sapphics in space, written by none other than Alexis Hall?! I was super thrilled to hear about this book and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. As such, I was surprised to see it get so many low ratings, but after reading.... oof, unfortunately, I can understand.
The style of writing this as a memoire of one of the few survivors of the hunt for the Möbius beast did not work for me. The writing in said unamed narrator's style was very meandering, with lots of infodumping and side tangents, and it did not help any that the narrator acknowledges awareness of her own rambling passages to the reader. Maybe that awareness and calling herself out was supposed to be charming, but I am never a fan of a narrator adressing the reader, so it did not work for me here.
The characters were, at least, interesting. But the narrative style made it hard to really get a grasp of them as characters as the narrator admits to misremembering people, making things up, not getting the timeline right, or she just tells about a situation without showing in directly on-page, which always lowers emotional engagement for me.
If I had read this digitally, I would have DNFed this, and to be honest, even in audio format I was really tempted to just drop it multiple times. Even though on-page the plot about a crew sailing the hydrogen seas of Jupiter in the hunt of giant leviathans, with mysteries, intrigues, and complex crew dynamics on board, should have been exciting, but due to the disjointed narrative and the narrator's rambling I was not engaged at all.
I usually like the idea of telling a stroy from the perspective of a random side character who is neither special nor involved at the front lines. But, again, due to the book's style this did not end up adding any interest either.
Overall I really wanted to like this, but so many of the choices made did not work for me.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
The style of writing this as a memoire of one of the few survivors of the hunt for the Möbius beast did not work for me. The writing in said unamed narrator's style was very meandering, with lots of infodumping and side tangents, and it did not help any that the narrator acknowledges awareness of her own rambling passages to the reader. Maybe that awareness and calling herself out was supposed to be charming, but I am never a fan of a narrator adressing the reader, so it did not work for me here.
The characters were, at least, interesting. But the narrative style made it hard to really get a grasp of them as characters as the narrator admits to misremembering people, making things up, not getting the timeline right, or she just tells about a situation without showing in directly on-page, which always lowers emotional engagement for me.
If I had read this digitally, I would have DNFed this, and to be honest, even in audio format I was really tempted to just drop it multiple times. Even though on-page the plot about a crew sailing the hydrogen seas of Jupiter in the hunt of giant leviathans, with mysteries, intrigues, and complex crew dynamics on board, should have been exciting, but due to the disjointed narrative and the narrator's rambling I was not engaged at all.
I usually like the idea of telling a stroy from the perspective of a random side character who is neither special nor involved at the front lines. But, again, due to the book's style this did not end up adding any interest either.
Overall I really wanted to like this, but so many of the choices made did not work for me.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
“Space whales, obsession, and a journey that’s more about the ride than the destination.”
🗓 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲: March 12, 2026
📚 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Hell’s Heart
👑 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: Alexis Hall
✨ 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 & 🍵 𝗧𝗲𝗮 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
In a future where Earth is gone, humanity survives by hunting massive Leviathans drifting through Jupiter’s atmosphere. The narrator signs onto the ship Pequod and gets swept into a voyage led by a captain driven by obsession and purpose. There is a tight crew, strange cosmic scenery, and a hunt that slowly becomes more personal than practical. It is a sci-fi retelling of a classic story, focused on atmosphere, reflection, and the cost of devotion.
I liked this book, though I had mixed feelings along the way. The worldbuilding is creative and the concept is genuinely cool, but the pacing drifts and some sections feel longer than they need to be. A few character moments hit well, while others felt a bit distant, so I was not always fully emotionally invested. The writing style is engaging, yet occasionally leans too heavy on introspection instead of forward motion. It kept my interest, but not enough to make me want a reread. Still, it is a decent sci-fi adventure and a solid time passer.
🫶 Thank you to @panmacmillan for this gifted copy!
🚀 Spacefaring adventure
🐋 Leviathan hunting
🤝 Crew dynamics
🌌 Expansive sci-fi setting
📖 Slow unfolding journey
✨ Retelling inspiration
🗓 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲: March 12, 2026
📚 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲: Hell’s Heart
👑 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: Alexis Hall
✨ 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 & 🍵 𝗧𝗲𝗮 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
In a future where Earth is gone, humanity survives by hunting massive Leviathans drifting through Jupiter’s atmosphere. The narrator signs onto the ship Pequod and gets swept into a voyage led by a captain driven by obsession and purpose. There is a tight crew, strange cosmic scenery, and a hunt that slowly becomes more personal than practical. It is a sci-fi retelling of a classic story, focused on atmosphere, reflection, and the cost of devotion.
I liked this book, though I had mixed feelings along the way. The worldbuilding is creative and the concept is genuinely cool, but the pacing drifts and some sections feel longer than they need to be. A few character moments hit well, while others felt a bit distant, so I was not always fully emotionally invested. The writing style is engaging, yet occasionally leans too heavy on introspection instead of forward motion. It kept my interest, but not enough to make me want a reread. Still, it is a decent sci-fi adventure and a solid time passer.
🫶 Thank you to @panmacmillan for this gifted copy!
🚀 Spacefaring adventure
🐋 Leviathan hunting
🤝 Crew dynamics
🌌 Expansive sci-fi setting
📖 Slow unfolding journey
✨ Retelling inspiration
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2026
Well…that just happened.
This book will definitely stay with me for some time. Was it good? No…but it was weird enough to be memorable.
This is a Sci-fi retelling of Moby Dick. Right down to the recycling of the sperm whale in Moby Dick into this universe’s leviathan. The “sperm” is the liquid they harvest from the beasts to power their cities. The sperm joke wasn’t funny a single time, and it was made countless times.
It felt like the goal was to make this universe sexually accepting and fluid, but the writing made any sex scene feel kind of cold and isolating. “I” has some major daddy issues and uses sex to mask boredom and their inadequacies. The sex they are having felt very one sided and often kind of violent.
Finally, the way the main character was described, by herself as the book was written like a journal, was confusing. She hints at medical procedures but never says what she had done. I assume she is a trans woman, but you’d think after reading the whole book, I’d actually know that for sure. The writing was so jumbled that I felt like I don’t have a clear vision of my protagonist which distanced me from the story.
This book will definitely stay with me for some time. Was it good? No…but it was weird enough to be memorable.
This is a Sci-fi retelling of Moby Dick. Right down to the recycling of the sperm whale in Moby Dick into this universe’s leviathan. The “sperm” is the liquid they harvest from the beasts to power their cities. The sperm joke wasn’t funny a single time, and it was made countless times.
It felt like the goal was to make this universe sexually accepting and fluid, but the writing made any sex scene feel kind of cold and isolating. “I” has some major daddy issues and uses sex to mask boredom and their inadequacies. The sex they are having felt very one sided and often kind of violent.
Finally, the way the main character was described, by herself as the book was written like a journal, was confusing. She hints at medical procedures but never says what she had done. I assume she is a trans woman, but you’d think after reading the whole book, I’d actually know that for sure. The writing was so jumbled that I felt like I don’t have a clear vision of my protagonist which distanced me from the story.
December 24, 2025
(3.5) An astronomical retelling of Moby Dick! Hell’s Heart takes a long-time classic and sets it in the swirling depths of the cosmos, among the budding madness of a revenge-driven captain and the frenetic energy of a crew who just wants to kill leviathans. I loved the often philosophical narration and how real the extra-planetary surroundings of the setting felt, from religions based on the eventual consumption of the universe to pharma companies who extract perpetual payments on the limbs they replace. I’ve personally never read Moby Dick, but I think if you’re a fan this will be huge for you.
I was caught off guard by the abruptness of the ending and the way the plot meandered in the last third of the book, but I think that may be a problem with Herman Melville and not Alexis Hall. The first 50% of the book was some of the best stuff I’ve read all year!
I was caught off guard by the abruptness of the ending and the way the plot meandered in the last third of the book, but I think that may be a problem with Herman Melville and not Alexis Hall. The first 50% of the book was some of the best stuff I’ve read all year!
February 1, 2026
This prolific author turns her hand to sci-fi, and the result is a very funny, suspenseful, and successful novel.
The narrator signs up to work on the Pequod, a space-faring ship that travels around Jupiter hunting leviathans for their bodily fluids (ok, their spermicide), not unlike old whaling ships did on Earth for their blubber and ambergris. The narrator is continuously horny and manages to hook up with even the most unlikely of shipmates. The sex isn’t explicit, just constant, as if to ram home the point (haha) of what crews do on long ship voyages. The Pequod’s captain is a bit of an Ahab too: she wears a prosthetic to replace the leg she lost to a massive leviathan that got away, the one she’s now determined to hunt down.
We get stories of earth - a now-desolate place with no natural resources and a decimated population - and the space cults that have filled the void. These cult adherents worship profits and life, in that order.
One of the cleverest bits is when we meet a so-called serial killer on the ship, on the run from corporate overlords who have accused him of 435 murders because he removed and discarded cancer cells from human bodies. He is, in fact, a “back room oncologist” who signed up to the Pequod to get away. What’s the alternative to an illegal oncology session? You’ll have to read the novel to find out. Or do what I did and enjoy the well-narrated audiobook.
This book should have a higher rating, so I’m rounding up my 4.4 to 5. People who enjoy humor, adventure, and a snarky, self-deprecating narrator who is always ready for some sex will enjoy this romp.
My sincere thanks to the author, @AlexisHart, publisher, @MacmillanAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #HellsHeart for review purposes. Publication date: 10 March 2026.
The narrator signs up to work on the Pequod, a space-faring ship that travels around Jupiter hunting leviathans for their bodily fluids (ok, their spermicide), not unlike old whaling ships did on Earth for their blubber and ambergris. The narrator is continuously horny and manages to hook up with even the most unlikely of shipmates. The sex isn’t explicit, just constant, as if to ram home the point (haha) of what crews do on long ship voyages. The Pequod’s captain is a bit of an Ahab too: she wears a prosthetic to replace the leg she lost to a massive leviathan that got away, the one she’s now determined to hunt down.
We get stories of earth - a now-desolate place with no natural resources and a decimated population - and the space cults that have filled the void. These cult adherents worship profits and life, in that order.
One of the cleverest bits is when we meet a so-called serial killer on the ship, on the run from corporate overlords who have accused him of 435 murders because he removed and discarded cancer cells from human bodies. He is, in fact, a “back room oncologist” who signed up to the Pequod to get away. What’s the alternative to an illegal oncology session? You’ll have to read the novel to find out. Or do what I did and enjoy the well-narrated audiobook.
This book should have a higher rating, so I’m rounding up my 4.4 to 5. People who enjoy humor, adventure, and a snarky, self-deprecating narrator who is always ready for some sex will enjoy this romp.
My sincere thanks to the author, @AlexisHart, publisher, @MacmillanAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #HellsHeart for review purposes. Publication date: 10 March 2026.
February 16, 2026
This was a very different kind of sci-fi and I’m really glad I picked this up.
I loved the concept of Moby Dick… in space. The inspiration is obvious, yet the author puts a creative spin on it that kept me interested and curious about where the story was headed.
I was especially drawn to the main character, she’s flawed, layered, and interesting to follow. The pacing slowed down in some places for me, but overall the storytelling and character work kept me invested.
Not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but if you enjoy unconventional sci-fi and stories that take risks, this is definitely worth checking out. Thanks to Tor publishing for the gifted ARC.
I loved the concept of Moby Dick… in space. The inspiration is obvious, yet the author puts a creative spin on it that kept me interested and curious about where the story was headed.
I was especially drawn to the main character, she’s flawed, layered, and interesting to follow. The pacing slowed down in some places for me, but overall the storytelling and character work kept me invested.
Not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but if you enjoy unconventional sci-fi and stories that take risks, this is definitely worth checking out. Thanks to Tor publishing for the gifted ARC.
November 25, 2025
so good! so weird and sad and vast and lonely! I love Moby Dick but I might love this book more.
February 5, 2026
I was immediately interested in this book when I heard the pitch “sapphic Moby Dick in space,” but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. The actual monster hunting in space was interesting, but the characters didn’t work for me because they were just becoming insufferable to read.
The novel is written as a memoir from our main character, I, after the events of the novel. She’s written as a weird quirky woman whose only response is sex or suicide. She is constantly trying to fuck anyone just because, there’s no necessary reason other than “she’s just so messed up”. It reads as instead of giving her an actual personality and backstory, they just make her constantly horny. The captain is also a terrible character with barely a motivation other than revenge.
2.5 stars, rounded up.
Thanks NetGalley for an Arc!
The novel is written as a memoir from our main character, I, after the events of the novel. She’s written as a weird quirky woman whose only response is sex or suicide. She is constantly trying to fuck anyone just because, there’s no necessary reason other than “she’s just so messed up”. It reads as instead of giving her an actual personality and backstory, they just make her constantly horny. The captain is also a terrible character with barely a motivation other than revenge.
2.5 stars, rounded up.
Thanks NetGalley for an Arc!
February 5, 2026
So weird. I enjoyed it at times - vibes are Moby Dick but in outer space and with a lot more weird sex. Definitely a good book for if you want to shake things up a little. I didn't love the ending & felt a bit underwhelmed, but won't say more because spoilers suck. I think I was left feeling like I didn’t care for any of the characters that much and wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of it.
Read if you like: Sigourney Weaver in Alien. Also, if you liked T Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series, you will definitely enjoy this book. The narrator's voice feels very similar - just with more sci-fi vibes than horror.
Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Read if you like: Sigourney Weaver in Alien. Also, if you liked T Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series, you will definitely enjoy this book. The narrator's voice feels very similar - just with more sci-fi vibes than horror.
Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I never thought Moby Dick retelling will be high on my reading list. But apparently if you set it in space and make it sapphic, you have a recipe for my favourite book of the year.
Honestly that feels very redundant when it comes to this book because I loved every element of it. The way small comments on how "ancient earth texts" are read in the present of this book provides so much context on how this world looks and what matters in it. The way Q, the only character who comes from terra, speaks in Latin (and I ended up looking up her every line to figure out the quotes). The way it respects so much of the source material while putting a new and fascinating twist on it.
And then there's I, our main character and this book's version of Ishmael. The whole story is her memoir and I found it fascinating in how much she's torn between wanting to tell her story, and the story of the people she's lost, while still hiding behind jokes and sex to make it seem like it mattered less.
The only complaint I can think of is that sometimes the sperm jokes were a little overplayed. But they were easy to move past and the story had so much more to it that I loved that it didn't bother me for long.
Thank you to Alexis Hall and Pan Macmillan for providing me with this ARC.
Honestly that feels very redundant when it comes to this book because I loved every element of it. The way small comments on how "ancient earth texts" are read in the present of this book provides so much context on how this world looks and what matters in it. The way Q, the only character who comes from terra, speaks in Latin (and I ended up looking up her every line to figure out the quotes). The way it respects so much of the source material while putting a new and fascinating twist on it.
And then there's I, our main character and this book's version of Ishmael. The whole story is her memoir and I found it fascinating in how much she's torn between wanting to tell her story, and the story of the people she's lost, while still hiding behind jokes and sex to make it seem like it mattered less.
The only complaint I can think of is that sometimes the sperm jokes were a little overplayed. But they were easy to move past and the story had so much more to it that I loved that it didn't bother me for long.
Thank you to Alexis Hall and Pan Macmillan for providing me with this ARC.
November 6, 2025
A sapphic space opera Moby Dick retelling with a widely inclusive cast of characters went about as chaotically as I could’ve imagined.
Hell’s Heart thrives in the world building department which does slightly sacrifice the pacing up until the third act—but the capitalistic undertones really keep the intrigue alive in this one.
I’ll read anything Hall writes, because they consistently push literary boundaries—this does just that.
Thanks again to NetGalley & Tor for a digital copy in exchange for a fair/honest review.
Hell’s Heart thrives in the world building department which does slightly sacrifice the pacing up until the third act—but the capitalistic undertones really keep the intrigue alive in this one.
I’ll read anything Hall writes, because they consistently push literary boundaries—this does just that.
Thanks again to NetGalley & Tor for a digital copy in exchange for a fair/honest review.
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