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Disillusioned PhD student Brian take a gig assisting former alien abductee and current monster hunter Mark Sandoval in his investigation of a unicorn sighting on an island off the coast of Iceland. While the unicorn proves elusive, maybe there's Something Else lurking in the surrounding woods and why exactly is there a US military base on the island? More importantly, will both men face up to the real monsters they're running from from? There's a lot to unpack in this wonderful novel which defies classification. Maybe a horror/magical realism/family drama mashup; it covers so many bases and it covers them so bloody well. I really loved the "first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is" nature of the preternatural elements of the book. There's a big reveal, in passing, because that's not really what the novel's about. The worst monsters are in ourselves: literally and metaphorically and we must face up to them sometime. Wouldn't the world be a more interesting and larger place if people were abducted by aliens and forests are littered with roaming unicorns?
Funny, poignant, with a terrific ending. Good luck, Brian!

The best thing I can say about this is that it is decently written in part; there's the kernel of a good story here and Nguyen does enough to make you want to keep turning the pages, but as mentioned in enne's review below, the science is laughable. Take the book description for example - "an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy". Really? Ok fair enough, I can let that pass - maybe Eos is in an unexplored galaxy, but then very early on there's this, which stopped me completely:

"She’d brought a MAD—a Mood-Altering Device that shot soothing gamma rays into a patient’s eyes". There's nothing soothing about DNA damage, burns or radiation sickness!

Nguyen uses scientific jargon without appearing to know or care what the concepts mean and I found it really jarring. At best it demonstrates a lack of research, at worst it suggests a belief that the audience for the book is, I don't know - unsophisticated? I'm surprised these weren't picked up before publication. But then neither were the numerous continuity errors and plot holes. There's a flashback to training in the Antarctic where Park adjusts well to the "blank, razor line of the arctic horizon". Quite poor from DAW, honestly

Why does Park act like she has no aptitude or interest in her role? Is psychology a good career for someone so obviously neurodivergent? Why would anyone choose to have someone so wooden to be part of the crew? Why does a crew of 13 humans need two psychologists but only have one engineer? Park is supposedly an expert in body language but misses so much of what is going on. For all the that the crew have been assessed and tested before selection, they act like young children. You get the impression the author was constrained by her plot and needed the crew to act as they do much like the way folk in horror films do really stupid and counter-intuitive things. Some of the crew want to do something, but having the maturity and planning skills of your average nine-year-old, they do it all wrong, but the plot dictates they do what they do.

There might be some interesting ideas about the nature of consciousness, but with all the pseudosciency hand waving, I didn't really care.