As soon as I saw in the netgalley synopsis that the main character was autistic I didn’t know how quickly to hit the request button. I was super excited to read it, and clearly I enjoyed it with my rating of 4 stars, but it also was very different from my expectations. It was a lot harder to get a grasp on. Confusing.

Beyond the autistic mc I did not retain a lot of the synopsis except that it was clearly sci-fi. Which is why I was so confused in the first 100 pages of the book. Our MC, Yasira, has been working on a large project but when it explodes and kills a large portion of the project workers, it hurls her into the middle of a large scale heresy.

You see this sci-fi futuristic setting has Angels and Gods. For the longest I couldn’t marry this in my head with how clearly the angels were more technologically advanced until it was point blank said in the text that the Gods were created from human machines. They developed and made the Angels who originally were humans but now seem to be more machine. One of the biggest heresy one can commit is to go beyond the technological advancement that the Gods permit. We are only allowed to evolve technologically until a certain point. Where exactly that point is remains quite vague to me. And in that regard I feel that the world building is somewhat lacking. Yasira committed this unknowingly and is then being pitched by the angels to go against her former mentor.

This novel is a lot more introspective than the synopsis would suggest. There isn’t actually that much action except for about 4-5 key settings. We spend a lot of time in Yasira’s head, going through science and evaluating the situation. What does it all mean? And what is she suppose to do. It was an interesting balance and not boring at all to read about.

Yasira does give us some different perspectives as she is autistic. This isn’t glossed over but rather talked about. Things that Yasira has had to deal with in her life, how people have regarded her in the past. Her mentor was also neuroatypical character. I think the rep was good and from what I read it is own voices in that regard.
Yasira is also queer and in a relationship with one of the other female project workers. I’m glad that was also a part of who she was. I had some trouble really feeling their relationship because Yasira kept referring to her partner as the good girl which I found highly annoying. Especially as her partner was extremely good to her.

The angels can shapeshift and there was some interesting talk about how one identified as male but was fine with being referred to as she when she was in a female form. However there was one line that bothered me and I can imagine might bother those that use they/them pronouns. It suggested that if you were in a female form and you didn’t use female pronouns it was sloppy, not right. However later on in the story they/them pronouns were used for another angel briefly so I guess it was a view of the character only. Still I can imagine it bothering people as I said.

Even so I think this is a fine and unique sci-fi novel that seems to be hinting at a sequel at the end there.

A really interesting read, something completely fresh and interesting, or it was to me at least. I’m loving the complete inclusivity of the books coming out now it’s so good and heartwarming to have so many books to offer to represent all of society. A great read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I enjoyed this book, about super sentient computers and the humans that worship them. Hoffmann presents an interesting concept, that makes one wonder about our future.

Strong 4 stars.

The Outside is a novel with brilliant protagonist who lead quite cool life, having good girfliend and leading a very important project. But suddenly something goes wrong, the project goes BUM and Yashira finds herself responsible for death of over a hundred people and kidnapped on foreign ship by the Gods. And who are Gods if not supercomputers created by humans? They tell Yashira that the real responsibility or a failure is on her mentor Dr Tallir who is heretic and is planning to kill a lot more people. Gods ask Yashira to help them find her and if she succeed, they let her go home. But what if she doesn't?

This book was one of the most interesting things I've read this year. I really liked the idea of mechanical gods, created by human race to protect them. But is it really that way? Through the book Yashira is struggling between her faith and loyalty for her former mentor. She asks herself question: who is right and if anyone's right at all.

I really liked the characters. Yashira is brilliant, she's genius and she always wants to do the right thing no matter what the cost. I loved how she desperately tried to find the lesser evil in impossible situation. She is a real hero in the story and it is so easy to root for her.

The other character that is quite well developed is one of the Angels - Akavi – I didn't like him, but despite that I find him a really interesting person.

And the most alluring in my opinion was Dr Tallir – abused as a child, she let her anger grow and stopped to care about other people. She fights Gods, but she does it only with personal motives and there isn't any greater good in it. She is not exactly likeable, but I think that she has potential in eventual future stories in this world.

I think this book is very good. It's really reach with imagination and has many interesting conce

There’s lots to like in this book.

The world was my favourite part, a fascinating mash-up of God-level AIs and their cybernetically enhanced techno-priests versus ‘Outside’ cosmic horrors driving people mad. I loved that the world was really well established, too. It had a history and a culture around the Gods that was normalised through how characters thought about and interacted in their world. Talirr’s heresies felt real and problematic in context. The descriptions of the Outside influence and events were delicious and varied, too, really conveying the wrongness of them, especially against the shiny and sanitised God-tech setting we spend most of the book in.

Shout out, too, for all the fabulous diverse representation in this book. This is an #Ownvoices book and I found the honest portrayal of Yasira’s autism without turning it into a caricature or a superpower was a really valuable addition to the story. The presentation of the ways in which her society provided supports (in contrast to how that same society had failed another character), and her perspective and responses to moving through the stressful situations she was in were also nice touches.

The disability and neurodiverse advocacy message is clear in this but not preachy, instead using the Outside effects on people and the Gods’ (particularly Nemesis’) standard responses and perspectives to explore the ideas and moral issues.

However, I found I didn’t connect with the characters much and I’m not really sure why. Everyone had clear motivations and distinct personalities, no-one was two-dimensional, and everyone had humanising moments and depth, right down to Enga wanting part of her gear to click (“Elu said I could!”). Most characters, too, got really meaty arcs driven by their decisions and who they were. Yasira was the best example of this, but I found Dr Talirr and Akavi’s trajectories equally good. There’s technically nothing to complain about here, but I just didn’t feel it and that made reading this a bit detached – I never quite fell into the world and the story.

A super interesting read and well worth the time if you’re looking for an original space opera, excellent autism and queer rep, or all of the above.

This is the 3rd book recently that I have read or reading that has characters with disabilities and I think that’s bloody brilliant!



This book was crazy as hell and I loved it! I mean an autistic scientist WOMAN! <-- Hell yes! Freaking robot angels and computer Gods! <-- Dude, that's some crazy stuff right there.

Praise to the Gods of the galaxy, who brought us out of Old Earth.
Praise to the Gods of the warp drive, who push at the edges of space.
Praise to the Gods of the portal, who open all doors to our bodies.
Praise to the Gods of the ansible, who open all doors to our words.
Praise, praise be to the Gods who know, whose minds are above human minds, whose knowledge has kept us alive.

ALETHEIAN MORNING LITANY



Yasira is a scientist on a space ship and she has been working on some tech that could change humanity (basically what it says in the summary) Yasira feels something is not right with what she is working on and trying to get more time before the big shin dig. BUT, as we know - people, angels, Gods, whatever, don't listen. THEN THINGS GO TO HELL IN A HAND BASKET. I mean she destroyed a space station people. <-- it's not a spoiler, it's in the summary!

Yasira did manage to get a good bit of people saved when they were in the escape boats/pods.

Then she gets yanked out of there and on another ship with the head honcho God and some angels and some freaking alien spiders. <-- it's a thing. I might never look at a spider the same again.

A skittering noise came suddenly from a junction up ahead. Yasira perked up, expecting another bot - and came face to face with an eight-foot-tall spider.

"Hello," it said - or, rather, it made giggly chittering noises, which was translated into Earth creole by an electronic device hanging from its pedicel. Spiders were not really arachnids: they were sentient aliens, ten-legged, with a spiny central body lacking spinnerets or pedipalps. It was sheer coincidence that their overall body plan looked like an arachnophobe's nightmare. "Who is this new morsel you've brought me, Elu? Is she good to eat?"



I thought that was a nice little tidbit <--No pun intended, to get you right in the nightmare department.

Anyhoo, Yasira is brought to the Gods because they want her to find a certain person and if she does they will let her go. Well..... this and that.... and so forth and so on occurred. Just read the book; it was definitely a trip!

I quite enjoyed myself in this strange world -er book, The Outside.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the Pub for letting me read a digital copy of this book.*

Mel

I'd seen this book mentioned in a few places on Twitter, so I was very glad to see it pop up on Netgalley and then get approved for it - the premise alone was enough to intrigue me and I wondered whether it was going to live up to my expectations. In the end, it was a pretty good fit for me, though it didn't manage to snag a 5-star rating for reasons I'll explain below.

The basic premise of The Outside is that it's set in a universe where the use of computers has been strictly controlled by a number of gods, which are actually AI entities fuelled by the souls of humanity. A particular god gets to claim certain people after they die, dependent on their line of work and also on their behaviour during life. They're assisted by angels, which are augmented humans of various species, and people also can choose to sell their souls to a particular deity in exchange for a variety of upgrades and augmentations.

Our protagonist, Yasira, is a scientist working on a new form of energy drive after years as the protege of another scientist who has since disappeared. When Yasira's drive causes the death of a hundred people on the space station it was powering, she initially dismisses the things she has seen and experienced beforehand as stress-related. What they are, in fact, is evidence of infiltration by the Outside - chaotic forces from beyond their understanding of reality which her mentor had tried to invite into theirs. Yasira is kidnapped by angels and forced to work with them to try and stop this infiltration and starts to discover that perhaps things aren't quite as they seem in the universe where she has been living.

I enjoyed a lot of things about The Outside, even if it did start to lose its way towards the end - I'm not sure if it's intended to be the first part of a series but there was something of a feel of that, with things more fizzling out than being resolved (or even left as a cliffhanger).

The general premise and world-building was interesting and engaging, helping to push the story along at a reasonable pace, but I wasn't completely hooked by any of the characters. The most interesting for me was Enga, an angel with a wide variety of modifications who was generally used as muscle, though even she was relatively flatly characterised. Overall then, I'm glad to have read it and will look forward to seeing what else this author comes up with. However, it didn't completely work for me and I can't see myself re-reading it at any point.