Rhiannon

An offshoot of Huff’s excellent novel "The Divine Flesh" (which I read as an ARC earlier this year and then promptly bought the physical book because I liked it so much) this novella explores the Mirror People from that story in more detail. Specifically, it focuses on Paul Cattaneo, or rather… not-Paul, as he’s actually a cosmic entity just living in Paul’s skin, pretending to be him, to be human, living his uneventful life as a vacuum cleaner salesman, trying really hard to not kill other humans.

Poor Paul… I think his species has more emotions than actual humanity does, and that is a real problem… because he loathes what he is, what his ‘people’ really are. He’s torn between trying to live a normal human life and the alluring inclusivity of his fellow Mirror Person sibling group, which he at first desperately describes in human terms (childhood friends, buddies), but then becomes horrific, sad and tragic as his denial of his/their nature interferes with a looming natural biological evolution he can’t escape: procreation.

As he starts to go into heat all manner of chaos erupts in what I’m starting to realize is ‘Drew Huff mayhem’ and I love going along for the ride. But there’s more than just the body horror and cosmic insanity (as there was in The Divine Flesh): there’s a lot of allegory here with self-loathing and denial, closeted identities, shame, guilt. Of course, body horror often serves as a perfect vehicle for these themes and Huff does this to near-perfection.

I managed to acquire an ARC of this back in May (Many thanks to the author and NetGalley for the advance review copy) but then pre-ordered a physical copy almost immediately after when I realized I needed to buy it. Unfortunately, through no fault of Drew’s, the current political spat between the US and Canada meant my order was automatically cancelled two weeks before release and I am no longer able to get a physical copy right now. Hopefully that nonsense ends soon so this absurdity can stop having such a seriously horrific impact on indie authors. [end rant]

All opinions are my own.

A little slower out of the gate (Ha!) than the first two, it picks up some speed (ironically enough) once everyone hits the Slow Zone. The book feels like it’s easily divisible into three parts: the trip out to the Ring; the Roci and crew escaping into the Ring with the horde of three different factions hot on their tail and Holden’s journey to the station; and then all the action on the Behemoth. Once everyone is inside the Ring is when the story really starts to shine.

The introduction of new main characters Melba/Clarissa, Anna and Bull and their respective POVs were ok, but it’s at the expense of not having Bobbie and Avasarala around for this book. I missed those two.

And because it’s been a while since I’ve read and watched the TV series, my memory is taking a bit of a beating in remembering what happened to who, and when, and what characters were or weren’t in each (I find myself really missing Drummer’s character in the books).

Good entry in the series, but not great.