The Breach

by M.T. Hill, Matt Hill

From Philip K. Dick Award-nominated author M.T. Hill, The Breach is a unique science fiction mystery set in the dangerous underground world of the urban exploration scene. Freya Medlock, a reporter at her local paper, is down on her luck. When she's assigned to cover the death of a young climber named Stephen, she might just have the story she needs. Freya soon meets a trainee steeplejack with his own secret life. As Shep draws Freya deeper into the urbex scene, the circumstances of Stephen's death become more unsettling - and Freya risks more and more to get the answers she wants.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Dystopia

317 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 17, 2020

Reviews

[Liis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Breach was at first a challenge for myself- a scifi title to tackle! In reality and with all honesty, this book is wonderfully bonkers and just shy of hardcore scifi so that the likes of me can enjoy unexplored premises and wonderful writing.

The plot, I won’t begin to try and rewrite here for you. Back cover description is all you need because the rest is perfectly fresh, uniquely gripping and at times indescribable. Truly, some of the scenes permit a glimpse into what it must be like to trip of shrooms. I do not have first-hand knowledge but I dig it. I dig it a lot.

The plot is great, the premise promises an investigation worthy of your time and so it is. What truly kept me reading this book, though, was the delivery. You know the way you see people sometimes and they have this crackling energy about them. They go to places with a pep in their step and they instantly charge everyone around them with a boost of ‘Let’s go!’ – well, The Breach is the book equivalent of that type of person. It got my heart beating double with insanely good descriptions of edge-of-the-seat moments.

The Breach also feels like it gives you, the reader, compliments! I kid you not. It doesn’t serve every little detail and action in orderly, detailed, step by step fashion. It can feel a bit ‘jumpy’ but not by jumping from one scene to the next; the book simply doesn’t waste the readers time with boring kerfuffle. Thus, you feel in control, in power as you read one sentence after the next and it makes perfect bloody sense.

Interesting thing. Freya, journalist as she is, makes you think that she will dig out all the clues for you and deliver the/any solution to you so you can close the book with a satisfying – oof, it’s over! *swipes brow of sweat* – but far from it. Don’t expect the journalist to do all the work for you. Freya knows what’s going on, you know what’s going on, WE know what’s going on and we’re kind of saying it but we’re not! Ha! It’s wondrous!

It’s safe to say I truly enjoyed reading The Breach. It was a darned good experience and a writing style that tickles my fancy! I love books with ‘pep in step’ 🙂 Recommended? Hell yeah. Dig in!

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book unfortunately was just not for me, even though it does have a very pretty cover.

Even though I've given this book quite a low rating, I wouldn't say it's a bad book, it just didn't do anything to excite me.

In fact, I would say its probably too clever and ingenious for me to properly understand.

Plus, going into this book I thought it was a thriller, when in fact it's science fiction, which doesn't tend to be my thing.

I found this book so dull. I tried to get into the story but there was just nothing about it that I cared about. I wasn't interested in the characters or the plot. The whole thing was pretty boring.

I also didn't click with the writing style. I wasn't sure what it was about the writing that I didn't like, but I just didn't find it particularly engaging or interesting.

Overall, I found this book pretty dull and hard to follow. It really wasn't my cup of tea.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 stars and a huge sigh when I finished reading this.

My question right now is: why write a book like this, and not provide answers, explanations?

So we follow Shep and Freya, and Em and her family through these weird things. Trust me, this is a weird, and sometimes disgusting, book. But the story ends and we’re not offered a single bit of explanation about why they are happening.

It is disappointed, like this. And not even the characters will save this for us readers, because they’re are on the side of unlikeable.

Meh!

[Krystelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhh, this one was a delight. With lashings of Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke and a hint of H.P. Lovecraft, this was a horror/sci-fi bonanza. Perhaps a little slow to start, once it gets past the quarter point it turns itself into an incredible slippery slope of contagion and bizzaro alien bits and bobs- an absolute delight to read, leaving you more than a little squirmy at the various thoughts it manages to kick up.

I didn’t enjoy the characters all that much, but for a book like this, that’s okay- they didn’t need to be good, likeable people. Shep has some incredible differences shown in his twist and I really adored what the author did with that- it was fantastic to see something so messed up stem from a seemingly innocuous circumstance (at least at the outset). This was just some solid sci-fi pulp, with the best kind of creepy-crawly darkness lurking around in it.

A far step up from Zero Bomb for me, I loved this one and I’ll hopefully be back for more from this author soon!

[Gilda Felt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never did figure out what was going on. Who, or what, is in the abandoned bunker? Whose bunker is it? There are guards, but they’re not very good, considering how many people find their way into it. Why did Stephen commit suicide? What eventually happens to Shep and Freya? The reader is given clues, but no straightforward answers.

And that’s the major flaw in this book. The reader goes round and round with Shep and Freya, deeper and deeper into a puzzle that’s never really answered. Not that I was all that interested, considering how unlikable the two main characters are, especially Shep. Both are floundering, and what they discover only disrupts their lives even more.

The premise was interesting, but, given the cover, I was expecting a lot more.

[Monique · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful drivel. I skim read the second half to see if it would improve. It did not.

[liv ʚɞ · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘It’s grey out there and it’s grey in here but you’ll be back there, soon. You’ll be back’

Often I will find myself buying strange niche sci-fi books from second hand shops, and thinking to myself that I had just made the greatest decision of my life, and I was about to read an overlooked masterpiece.

Possibly I am delusional, as every time I have done this, the book has been 3 stars at best. And to no one’s surprise, least of all mine, it is true for this book as well.

Pretty much no one on this app has heard of Matt Hill. Including me, up until I bought this. And I know why. His books are kinda shit.

I’d love to explain the plot of The Breach to you, but it like explaining the plot of a Christopher Nolan film if he was schizophrenic. I think it’s set in the future because at one point the car drives itself and the fridge automatically orders a milk delivery by itself as well, but this is never confirmed with a specific date. I think the evil virus disease infection parasite thing is an alien, but I’m not sure about that. Freya and Shep were fine characters who didn’t really like but nor did I really dislike, they were just there. And that’s about it I think.

I found the shit about the climbing and the steeplejacking confusing because I don’t care about the science behind infrastructure really, and I’m not really sure who does. The author also admitted in his Acknowledgments that he just ignored the actual facts behind steeple-jacking that the guy who told him about it gave him. Which is a strange thing to admit, can’t lie. I also really did not think the evil virus disease infection parasite alien was that interesting because there was no explanation to how it worked. I’m all for leaving it up to the imagination to a certain extent, but when it is this vague, I lose interest, because I actually like learning about the science behind these things, I personally find it scarier that way (take Nick Cutter books, for example - his stories are terrifying but the science is always super clear as well). I found the writing weird, kinda pompous in the way the author seems to be trying way too hard to sound like George Orwell. News flash, you aren’t George Orwell.

I also was very upset by the fact that the infected guy kept getting boners every 5 minutes because for some reason the evil virus disease infection parasite thing made him aroused? Ew, why would you write that? It’s so unnecessary. Now I’m not scared I’m just grossed out.

Either way, The Breach gets 3/5 stars for boring me, confusing me and grossing me out. I would be impressed but I refuse to be.

[Horror DNA · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re after an unconventional science fiction thriller featuring elements of horror, a dash of David Cronenberg and a smattering of J.G. Ballard, then M.T. Hill’s The Breach might be right up your street. Although I enjoyed this book, I cannot vouch for understanding all of it; whether that is just me or a literary ploy, who knows? I tackled a few sequences more than once, in which it pushes the boundaries of conventional science fiction with its clever imagery, oppressive atmosphere and cerebral concepts that seem enticingly just out of reach.

You can read Tony's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[RG]

DNF after 67 pages. I usually give each book about 100 pages but this was doing my head in. The world wasnt really set as the author would answer questions with more questions. It was just a bit too confusing.

[Amy Walker - Trans-Scribe Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wonder if at some point this book had the working title of ‘The Steeplejack and the Journalist’, as I think I’ve read those words more in this one book than anywhere else; definitely when it comes to ‘steeplejack’. Joking aside, however, these two characters are definitely the main focus of the book, with little to no other characters making much of an impact upon the narrative mystery.

The Breach sees Freya, a young journalist working at a small publication looking for her big story, stumbling across the beginnings of a mystery when Stephen, a young climber, dies in an apparent drunken accident. It doesn’t take long for Freya to discover that things don’t quite make sense surrounding Stephen’s death. Getting to the bottom of what happened to him becomes something of an obsession for her, eventually leading her into the illegal, underground world of urban exploration, where she meets Shep, a steeplejack.

Shep leads Freya into the world of urban exploration, and the two of them become exposed to something that may have led to Stephen’s death: a mysterious nest hidden deep inside an abandoned bunker.

There’s definitely a sense of mystery to The Breach, as most of the chapters that follow Freya involve her looking for answers in some form or another. Out of the two leads Freya is definitely the audience vehicle. She has a more recognisable life than Shep, and it’s a lot easier to settle into this not too distant future with her. She’s a young adult trying to make her way in the world, to forge her career, but has fallen on some bad luck and some poor decision making, leading her to have to move back in with her parents and to feel dejected with her job. That’s something a lot of people can identify with.

Shep, on the other hand, is something of an outsider. For starters, his work is something that most people would have no experience of, and even if you’re familiar with the term ‘steeplejack’ you might find yourself struggling to explain what the job actually entails. Even in his job Shep’s a loner, never really being able to make friends with his co-workers, and being treated like the weirdo colleague no one wants to talk to. I don’t think we even see him interact with anyone in his life either, there’s no family or friends, he never goes to his home, he just sleeps in his van and hangs out on his own.

Perhaps it’s because of how much of a loner Shep is, but his segments of the book definitely take on a more surreal feel. Thanks to this mysterious nest that he and Freya are exposed to he seems to be going through a series of physical and psychological changes that read as very trippy. Coupled with his already unusual behaviour in the early parts of the book, these bizarre changes makes him read as a very unreliable narrator, and it is never clear if the things in his chapters were actually happening, or some kind of delusion.

Sadly, the book is very light on the ground when it comes to answers. For the vast majority of the book things are happening with no explanation or even hint as to what or why. Shep is falling to pieces, and Freya is losing her mind, but we don’t know why. Yes, there’s a theory presented in the first few pages but then there’s nothing more for three hundred pages. Even right at the end when we get given some more information there’s no actual answer as to what’s happening or why.

I know that this is a type of storytelling, to subject the characters and readers to a series of bizarre events that destroy them psychologically, and to give no answers so as to maintain a sense of mystery and horror, but if I’m honest I don’t find that kind of storytelling to be very satisfying. Sadly, we’re not given anything more than vague hints, and so I left the book feeling like nothing happened and that there was no conclusion.


This is a personal take however, and I’m sure that some people won’t be bothered by these factors and will enjoy the book. The rest of it is good, it’s well written and the characters are fleshed out and engaging. However, how much you enjoy the book will definitely depend on if you like unanswered questions or not.

Read more reviews from Amy at www.trans--scribe.blogspot.com

[Ghost in the Stacks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great mystery/thriller/sci-fi book. Reads more like a thriller which is what I enjoyed most about this one

[Brigitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say in the beginning it is a difficult read, it just didn't hook me immediately but out of no where it started getting so weird the more I realise what was happening. I ended up liking it.

[David Shiels · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent enough sci-fi novel, if a bit too self-indulgent at times.

Pros:

I liked that each chapter switched between the two main characters, giving their perpective on events. it made for a good change of pace.

Some good descriptions and imagery during the 'hallucination' phases that really made you get inside the head of Shep and see the crazy through his eyes, and how it related to what was really happening. The process of this downfall was well written.

neutral

The author seemed very knowledgeable about technology, and If you love steepjacking then you're in for a treat. I learned so much about something I've never ever thought about before.

Cons:

Too much description. Not a whole lot really happens in the overall story; all of the big events and twists could be summed up in a few sentences. A lot of the book is just getting to know the day to day lives of the two main characters. Freya was worst for this, as at least Shep had his weird downward sprial. But until the end Freya is overly descriptive, a bit too whiny, far too horny and her reason for even being in the story a bit too weak and forced.

When something actually, finally, happens the chapter will end, then when we return to that character they are in a whole new environment and it's like 'I Don't really remember what happened between then and now...' and this was done way too much. I really wanted to see how a lot of scenes would play out after some things happened, but the characters were just teleported away with amnesia.

Overall I did enjoy it, mainly due to the weird mental breakdown of Shep and the descriptions in the bunker, but it could have done with being chopped down with much less about Freya and her mundane life.

[D L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freya is a reporter investigating the death of a young climber who stumbles across Shep as part of her investigation. Shep is an urban climber in his own time and has recently had an unforgettable experience in a bunker which, apparently had yet to be explored. In an attempt to gain further knowledge of urbex, Freya accepts Shep's invitation to explore the bunker without knowing that Shep wants someone to have the same experience as he did.
The Breach is a more human science fiction story where two people are coming to terms with what happened to them in very different ways, both mentally and in Shep's case, physically. Sometimes when reading The Breach, I kept thinking back to some of the character-based science fiction films of the seventies where we do not know the bigger picture of what is happening but caught up in how things are affecting the individual. This is enforced by three excerpts placed at the beginning, middle and end of the book, about the same couple with two young daughters who have an experience of their own in the back garden of their house. It feels as if the writer is giving our imaginations opportunity to envisage a bigger picture or even follow up with the next part of the story.
This book might not be for everyone as there are no big set pieces and not everything is explained, but it is a very good science fiction book about two people caught in the middle of something that is out of their control.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me hooked. From the get go I was completely intrigued and I had no idea where it was going or what it had in store.

The synopsis is pretty vague, and I had an inkling that it would have some kind of sci-fi to it, but I honestly wasn't sure. There's definitely a sci-fi/horror element and if you're looking for a book that wraps up everything and gives you all the answers then perhaps this isn't for you. Instead it's a chilling, un-nerving book that will make you question a lot of things, and give you images that will stick in your mind for a long time.

I like that none of the characters are sure what they're dealing with. And what starts off as a fairly innocuous strange urb-ex find quickly changes into a horrifying ordeal where you're never entirely sure what is real and what is not. Some people see things others don't and Freya appears to be the reliable narrator with Shep going over the edge and not knowing that he has done.

This is a hard one to review without spoiling a lot of what is great about this book. Read it. Just trust me and pick this up.

[Chaucer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book I checked the reviews for it, and can't help but feel a bit of polarization.

This book, in my opinion, is a great story. It's not meant to be a very comforting or rewarding story, but a story nonetheless. Don't expect anything to be spoon-fed to you, however, as it lets you figure out the plot yourself. That's not to say that the writing is hard to decipher- the story was meant to be cryptic, through the eyes of an unreliable narrator at best.

I gave it a full 5 stars for it's artistic expression (in the writing, not the cover, though, the cover is also cool) and its ability to tell a story in a very interesting way. However, you have to stick with it until the end if you want to know what it all means. If you get halfway through and are wondering what the hell is happening, it's okay, it's supposed to feel like that. If you finish it and don't 100% get it, a reread makes it even more thought provoking.

It's a crazy story, nonetheless.

[A.K. Alliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heady melange of future tech, urbex and mystery laced with almost Lovecraftian / Cronenberg-esque hallucinogens. Another finely crafted novel by this inimitable literary craftsman.

M.T. Hill delivers again with his unique take on technological / organic mystery. What begins as an investigation by a journalist into a suspicious death of an Urbex enthusiast quickly spirals down a rabbit hole of terrifying depth.

Characters are well defined and breathe plausibility into complex and disturbing subject matter. The narrative is deftly woven, interesting and kept me unbalanced to the point that I felt I had imbibed on some of the novel's more physiological, horror-inducing pathogenic drugs.

[Vincent Hernot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing, despite what could have been a good premise etc.
It feels as if the author is interested in something (pylon climbing free-roaming and exploring), which he first took as a basis for a story and which ended up becoming the whole story.
As I have no interest in this abandoned buildings exploring etc., and as the book quickly offers little else than the writer's obsessions...it's hard to see what this is really about, or what we're supposed to do with it.
I'm fine reading about stuff I don't know about, but here it's almost non-fiction with a sprinkling of the weird/uncanny to make it look cool.
Poor.

[Nicole Andrasy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wtf did I just read? This book is meant to be futuristic, but honestly most of the "future" details are sloppy and do not make any sense. The description of "the nest" does not come close to describing a nest. I'm not sure it comes close to describing anything. The story is good, but the details throw things off completely. The characters are underdeveloped. There's so much steeplejack explanation but at the same time not enough explanation. Everything is done vague, but not in a good way. It's a way that seems half done. The landowner was a useless addition to the book completely. I enjoyed parts, but in general, pretty unlikable.

[Matt Cavanah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't an easy or casual read, and I wasn't prepared for that going in.

The author's cadence and my unfamiliarity with English vernacular left me disoriented at the start.

But once the mystery settles in and you find a comfy groove, this book sinks itself into you as much as the story does to the characters. You'll want to overcome any difficulty you might have in understanding what is happening.

You'll want answers.

But you also want.

This isn't a procedural. There isn't a nice tidy ending. The book will not hand you anything.

And I think it's better for it.

[Yolanda H · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up at page 70. This was hard to read. The writing style was weird and I just couldn't get into it. The story so far or lack thereof was frustratingly slow and everything that happened was making me progressively angrier. Then I looked up reviews and saw that the story doesn't even provide answers at the end. I usually don't rate books I didn't finish but this one really got to me. Donating my copy of the book because life is too short to waste on incoherent nonsense.

[Marie Peglow · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get through this book, ended up stopping halfway due to lack of interest. Throughout the story, the reader can intuitively pick up on something happening, however the author doesn't make it clear what that something is; instead, suspicious events are masked by lengthy descriptions and dialogs about Freya and Shep's background. Nothing captivated me to continue the story further.

Two stars rating as a one star seems unfair, since this book was not finished.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most bizarre plot ever.

I was getting journalistic/crime/mystery/investigation vibes but then it kinda turned into a very strange near-future Scifi story.

I kept reading to find out what the hell was going on but I ended up having more questions than answers.

Great detailed descriptions of the scenery and the characters' experiences though.

[Holly Mcentee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was creepy AF. The very British language, slang, and story structure made it a little challenging for this Yankee, thus 3 not 4 stars, but I'd place this in the same category as Annihilation and The Tommyknockers.

[Maya Ocean · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first sci-fi, so I gave it 3 stars. Honesty, I was confused throughout this book. I feel like I only understood parts of it, while other parts remained a mystery. Was that what the author wanted? Am I just not used to this genre? Or is it poorly written and therefore hard to understand?

[Rebeca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is trying way too hard. It wants to be sci-fi, dystopian fiction, fantasy, horror, and a plague novel. If it had picked two of the above I think it would have been great. Instead I'm left unsatisfied and with many unanswered questions (and not in a good way).

[Shivani Dahya]

it was so boring. i tried to finish it, but i couldn’t. and the interesting parts were left on a cliffhanger and wasn’t in any way returned to throughout the book. i was expecting maybe hints of those scenes or connections throughout, but there wasn’t any. 0/5 stars :|

[Steve Gillway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe not the best book to read at the moment, but it is a clever mixture of thriller/SF flipping between the 2 main characters. Tense at times and memorable.

[Sheila (Ann) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much horror for me and not enough science fiction. And it was just as much of a mystery at the end as at the beginning.

[Runalong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started great as a piece of horror but morphing to SF I found it lost its way

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...