Metal from Heaven

448 pages

English language

Published 2024 by Kensington Publishing Corporation.

ISBN:: 978-1-64566-098-9
ASIN:: 1645660982

(2 reviews)

Ichorite is progress. More durable and malleable than steel, ichorite is the lifeblood of a dawning industrial revolution. Yann I. Chauncey owns the sole means of manufacturing this valuable metal, but his workers, who risk their health and safety daily, are on strike. They demand Chauncey research the hallucinatory illness befalling them, a condition they call “being lustertouched.” Marney Honeycutt, a lustertouched child worker, stands proud at the picket line with her best friend and family. That’s when Chauncey sends in the guns. Only Marney survives the massacre. She vows bloody vengeance. A decade later, Marney is the nation’s most notorious highwayman, and Chauncey’s daughter seeks an opportune marriage. Marney’s rage and the ghosts of her past will drive her to masquerade as an aristocrat, outmaneuver powerful suitors, and win the heart of his daughter, so Marney can finally corner Chauncey and satisfy her need for revenge. But war ferments …

Ichorite is progress. More durable and malleable than steel, ichorite is the lifeblood of a dawning industrial revolution. Yann I. Chauncey owns the sole means of manufacturing this valuable metal, but his workers, who risk their health and safety daily, are on strike. They demand Chauncey research the hallucinatory illness befalling them, a condition they call “being lustertouched.” Marney Honeycutt, a lustertouched child worker, stands proud at the picket line with her best friend and family. That’s when Chauncey sends in the guns. Only Marney survives the massacre. She vows bloody vengeance. A decade later, Marney is the nation’s most notorious highwayman, and Chauncey’s daughter seeks an opportune marriage. Marney’s rage and the ghosts of her past will drive her to masquerade as an aristocrat, outmaneuver powerful suitors, and win the heart of his daughter, so Marney can finally corner Chauncey and satisfy her need for revenge. But war ferments in the north, and deeper grudges are surfacing. . .

2 editions

betty reviewed Metal from Heaven by August Clarke

Like if Roger Zelazny was Samuel R Delaney

4 stars

This book is aggressively, in your face queer in a way that is hard to come by. Reading it was mildly hallucinatory, partly because the protagonist has a disability that causes her to hallucinate, and the prose echoes this, becoming disjointed when she is experiencing this. (The book is extremely written, and the prose required a little bit of alertness from me.)

This book is about a child whose world is detroyed by capitalism when her family and loved ones are gunned down at the factory they are striking at. She survives this to become a train robber, and when she grows up, the only way to give the people who took her in and gave her a new life a chance at survival is going undercover in a society of rich capital class lesbians, all of whom have been trained from birth to viciously claw their way to the …

This book is aggressively, in your face queer in a way that is hard to come by. Reading it was mildly hallucinatory, partly because the protagonist has a disability that causes her to hallucinate, and the prose echoes this, becoming disjointed when she is experiencing this. (The book is extremely written, and the prose required a little bit of alertness from me.)

This book is about a child whose world is detroyed by capitalism when her family and loved ones are gunned down at the factory they are striking at. She survives this to become a train robber, and when she grows up, the only way to give the people who took her in and gave her a new life a chance at survival is going undercover in a society of rich capital class lesbians, all of whom have been trained from birth to viciously claw their way to the top.

And everyone agrees she's not really the ideal person for the job, but that person's dead, and so maybe her ability to smooth talk her way into a lady's pants and/or skirt will help?

She does her best, but she is never going to make a good decision when faced with a hot girl, and things are so much bigger than her, and as a warning, if you're hoping for an ending where they enemy is defeated and the hero and her sweetheart ride off into the sunset, this is not... that. (The book's cover expresses that it is for "fans of Princess Bride and Gideon the Ninth." I do not think this accurately conveys much about the book except swords and lesbians!)

I enjoyed this book immensely, partly for its own sake, and partly for giving me something I have not found elsewhere.

Kal

rated it

Mar 11

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