I was instantly hooked up when I read the synopsis and some review that mentioned found family. Not to mention imagining about the whimsical elements of circus combined with sci-fi elements. Sounds great, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, it was an okay read for me. The book start strong, though, with Jes narrative about being a fugitive. The world-building is so diverse with so many multicultural background and species like Human, Rijala, Bezan, Asuna, and many more.

As the story progresses, I start to lose my interest because of the lack of characterization. I can’t connect with any characters, even though at first I was intrigued with Kush O-Nhar, the Mantodean. There were also some violence because of the power abuse and it was so graphic, and I don’t think it’s suitable with the story’s atmosphere. Well, maybe it is, for showing how evil that one character is, but it’s a no no for me.

Well, the found-family part is still a plus point, and I love how diverse the world-building and characters are.

I stepped out and plunged out of my comfort zone with this book!
I liked the rich universe, the diverse characters and their relationships, especially the friendship trio. But Jes was so, so, so frustrating! Undecisive but stubborn, a brave coward, an extroverted introvert... He was full of contradictions, which made it hard for me to connect and empathize with him and his story.
Another thing that disturbed me was the writing. First, the third-person POV was not the best choice in my opinion. They were many lengthy descriptions, way too much for me. However, the action really picks up in the last third of the book. I enjoyed the ending, although some plot elements seemed tied up a little bit haphazardly. All in all, an atypical and quite interesting read!

This is a fun, but also at times very serious, found family scifi. The book follows Jes, who has mixed species heritage, ability to manipulate gravity and read emotions, and just made an escape from a lab that was performing experiments on him. He recently joined a circus and is being blackmailed by a crime boss to do all his dirty work and torturing. I'm still scratching my head thinking about how we get from trauma to Circus to crime boss.

So, what I liked: Jes is a panromantic asexual and the book literally uses those words verbatim. I loved watching Jes navigate a new relationship, have real conversations about asexuality with a potential partner, and even hear him process his own identity. I'm also a sucker for found family and enjoyed this one.

What I disliked: The book felt long, but also lacked depth. The characters were either good or bad, no real morally grey characters. There were a lot of really important topics like trauma and xenophobia that were mentioned, but they were really only explored on a surface level. I still don't buy that Jes, who was sold by his parents and tortured in a lab, was able to escape and then just magically join a circus and family. There were also a lot of aspects of the world-building I wanted more of.

I feel like the book is worth the read for the ace rep alone, but wouldn't say it's a favorite.

I am a simple person: I hear about a queer book featuring a circus IN SPACE, and by a favourite publisher no less, and I immediately request a copy. The Circus Infinite delivers on the sparkling grandeur of a circus on a pleasure moon with an intriguing universe built around it, and though the interweaving of two tonally dissonant narratives creates some whiplash and pitfalls, it’s ultimately a dramatic and entertaining read.

Often when I’m pitched a book about queer circuses, I am disappointed at the low amount of actual circus involved. I can safely say that isn’t the case with The Circus Infinite; I often found myself immersed in the well-described, beautiful, and otherworldly performances, and the found family of misfits vibes I look for in circus stories were immaculate.

One of my favourite parts of this novel was having a sex-repulsed asexual protagonist in Jes. It’s not a viewpoint I’ve seen often (if ever) in fiction, and I can see a lot of folks finding a mirror of their experience in this novel. It could be difficult to read at points—in addition to Jes’ other abilities, he’s an empath, so his experience of other people’s sexual desire causes him a great deal of upset at several points in the novel. Seeing him navigate his romantic relationship with a fellow circus member was also something I haven’t seen explored a lot in fiction.

There’s a lot going on in The Circus Infinite, and honestly, at times it feels like too much. Jes has recently escaped from an evil sci-fi institution, The Institute, that experiments on people with special powers and abilities. Interwoven with the relatively lighthearted circus sections—at least until the drama with the crime boss on the pleasure moon escalates—are horrifying, traumatic recountings of the experimentation Jes underwent. What I would have loved to see, honestly, is a focus on one storyline or the other. Between disjointed flashbacks of Jes’ past, the narrative of his medical trauma at The Institute, and the linear storyline of the ongoings at the circus, it was high-handed amounts of drama and didn’t always contribute meaningfully to the characters or overarching plot.

That being said, I still found the world fascinating and enjoyed my experience of reading The Circus Infinite. With an asexual protagonist, an imaginative array of universal inhabitants, lushly described settings, and an intense sequence of dramatic events, The Circus Infinite is worth checking out if you don’t mind a decidedly darker side to your sci-fi circus thrills.

Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for an advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

Huge thank you to Netgalley and Angry Robot for the opportunity to read The Circus Infinite early!

I don't really have much to say about The Circus Infinite other than it was not for me. I had a very hard time feeling engaged with the storyline and the writing style.

As someone who is ace *and* obsessed with space, I was so excited to dig into this one. The Circus Infinite has a very unique premise involving a crime boss, and a runaway boy who joins the circus, has a very empathetic sense for other people’s thoughts and feelings, and on top of all of that, can control gravity. Amongst all the sci-fic elements, it was Jes and Bo’s relationship that really drew me in. I sincerely appreciated the detailed conversations about what sex means to them. Bo for example says ‘I’m not all into partnered sex myself’ and later ‘I’m not ace, but I’m not super into sex like other men my age’. Jes explicitly says he is asexual and sex averse, but comes to appreciate physical affection from people he’s close to. I was so delighted to see different spectrums of sexuality represented here in such an explicit way that I often don’t see when it comes to asexuality.

There were a few sudden shifts in tone that sometimes took me out of the book. It was more violent than I expected, and xenophobia is very present in this universe. I also felt that at times sentences within a paragraph were all the same length, which made the description of a scene almost sound like a list of things that were happening. However it was overall a great book and I will certainly be looking at more of Khan Wong’s work!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

The Circus Infinite has a brilliant premise but ultimately fell a little flat for me, which is why I didn't finish it.
I loved the asexual representation, it meant a lot to see a character like me in a sci-fi novel, and how Jes interacted with the world but it was a world of stakes that never felt fully realised. The writing style was fast paced and enjoyable, though the characters didn't feel as strong as they could have in such a vibrant scenario. The idea of the "found family" was originally what drew me to this story, I just wish that it had grabbed me the way that I originally hoped it would upon requesting.

3 stars

Queer Aliens, Mob boss trying to overtake a Circus, Found Family and a fugitive with some immense powers. This book manages to deliver a lot of favourites along with diverse characters and Dark themes as well.
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My Rating : 3/5 🌟🌟🌟
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I really loved Jes and his weird and likeable personality even when he was making stupid and terrible mistakes to save his circus and his found family. The first half of the book was all about finding one’s place and confidence and also some cutesy romance with a fellow acrobat alien. Then boom! All kinds of drama and stupid decisions and killing and all the darker themes happen. I liked the contrast between the two distinct themes the book had, but if was a little much and I wasn’t expecting the 180. Even though Jes tries his hardest to male sure his secret stays safe, his character development felt dramatic. Not to mention the sudden change in Mr.M’s attitude. The relationship started out really hopeful, but things go downhill after Dan enters the picture. The one thing that still bugs me is the pacing and the placement of scenes and revelations. It felt erratic, and disconnected somehow and even though I enjoyed the chaos and the vulnerable characters and their relatable personalities, it still missed that wow factor. BUT if you are looking for a fun scifi fantasy with Found family, aliens and some really dark themes then this book would be perfect for you!
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Thank you @angryrobotbooks for the gifted review copy!

DNF 35%

I really tried with this book but I simply couldn't get into it. It took me a few days to read two maybe three chapters.

The world building was fantastic and I loved how much thought went into the different alien species. However, I also thought the writing and some descriptions were a little ostentatious and some words used were superfluous. I know what they mean but I felt that they were unnecessary and other words would have sufficed as if I were a younger person I feel I'd be needing a dictionary next to me for some of them and I think that was my biggest problem with it.

Add another one to my "great books to read on a hammock in the sun" list - Khan Wong's The Circus Infinite is a fun romp with intriguing worldbuilding, fascinating characters and great representation. Wong's universe is brimming with lore and history, as he slowly feeds it over time to the reader to avoid exposition. I always appreciate when some things are just left to mystery; it makes the world feel more real (who knows everything about everywhere they are all the time?). The characters have understandable and traceable development throughout the plot, and as we learn more about the protagonist, his choices and actions become clearer. I also really appreciated Wong's attention to sexual representation - too often novels either gloss over non-hetero characters, or make that aspect their defining characteristic. Wong allows his characters to express themselves not just through words, but through actions that feel authentic and true to their feelings. All in all, a fun SF book that successfully focuses on its characters and their development.

Dnf @ 24%

I’m not sure if I’m coming back to this in the future but this was a chore to get through, it took me two days to get to chapter 2. I liked the world the author created, and as far as I’ve read, it wasn’t cohesive but I did appreciate the inclusivity; world building is a big part of my enjoyment. The writing too, wasn’t to my liking. I can’t really pinpoint what put me off but it struggled to keep me interested. It also took me awhile to understand that there were flashbacks, I had to backtrack several pages. Actually, I did this a lot even in the scenes set in the present. Like I said, things weren’t cohesive. I liked the found family going on here and the characters that took Jes in were good ones in my opinion, however, these weren’t enough to keep me going especially when nothing has piqued my interest.

*First review is obsolete.

This was a really good book. I don't read a lot of sci-fi but I felt like all the worlds and alien species were really well developed and realized. It also had a great parallel to real life where we have racism they have speciesism where people are judged on being mixed species etc.

Love a good found family story and this is definitely that. With Jes not fitting in or feeling loved his whole life until joining the Circus on the moon Persephone-9.

I was impressed at the amount of LGBTQ+ and sexual orientation representation in this story and a romance side story that was not sex based was refreshing. It did sometimes feel like the author was trying a bit hard with the different sexuality's and mentioning the main character was asexual a lot.

Absolutely loved the circus elements of the story, I personally trained at a circus school for a year so could picture all the skills and moved that were mentions and felt magical.

Loved the magic and the logic of the magic was handled really well and was believable.

I did feel like the plot with Niko that was building up as him being the big bad guy was resolved a bit to quickly but otherwise I loved this story and would recommend.

The cover is amazingly bright and draws you into the book itself. Jes is an asexual being of a mixed species whom has a bounty on his head. He's seeked refuge on the moon however a big nasty had caught up with him what happens next. This is an amazing adventure written by Kong Wong with hits of space and adventure.

Vaudeville is a setting that seems to lend itself well to both science fiction and fantasy. There has been a number of very successful stories in this space with circus settings. There seems to be something appealing about joining a found family in a new job where differences are celebrated and anything in the imagination is possible. Now that I say it out loud it’s pretty obvious why the setting works. The Circus Infinite, by Khan Wong, is the newest entry into the writing tradition, and it does a great job balancing fun and seriousness. 

Jes is a wanted fugitive with rare gravity controlling ESP who has escaped your typical monstrous science fiction testing facility with a plan to hide among the many planets that make up the known universe. As a mix of a human and an alien species, he is seen as an outcast, belonging to neither sphere. He makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. He soon finds a new place to belong that can utilize his special powers for entertainment, but it doesn’t take long for a local crime boss to start extorting Jes for his power or risk being exposed. As Jes gets caught up in espionage, torture, and demolition, he and his friends must find a way to bring the mobster down.

The elements of this book are very straightforward in a nice, simple, and clean sort of way. The themes revolve around found family, not fitting in with your culture, protecting those you love, finding a place to belong, and asexuality. The characters are all fun, with Jes and his numerous circus friends all having nice chemistry that makes reading feel like relaxing in a warm Friendsgiving setting. The worldbuilding is straightforward but functional. I liked learning about the various cultures and ideals of the planets and their complicated politics that govern access and cultural bigotry between peoples. There were a few nuggets of insight littered here and there that felt like it gave the text more weight than just a slice of life story.

However, there were also things that worked a little less well - but nothing deal-breaking. The prose could sometimes feel halting and awkward. Characters occasionally vomit out their emotional state with a little prodding to push development along, and it felt unnatural in some conversations. Additionally, the Asexual identity subplot (while I liked it a lot and takes up a significant portion of the book) didn’t mesh as well as it could have. It didn’t feel well transposed into the science fiction setting—references felt more from our world than the one Wong built, and the prose noticeably shifted in style. Whenever Wong talked about Jes’ Ace identity, I felt like I was reading a literary fiction story in a real-world setting that didn’t match the tone and vibe of his sci-fi world. That being said, the Ace subplot was great and I loved it. I am so happy to see more representation in books; it just could have been melded a little better.

Overall The Circus Infinite is a solid book. It has low stakes with a plotline that still has excitement and depth. Jes is an enjoyable character with some added representation that is nice to see in the SFF genre. Give it a shot if you are keen on an intergalactic circus.

The Circus Infinite is a SciFi novel by author Khan Wong, featuring a universe where a bunch of different species are connected to a single force that unites them, and provides certain members of each with their own special powers when they are on their own worlds. It's a setup that isn't quite as ideal as it sounds, with various prejudices hindering the unity of all, such as a prejudice against the children of mixed-race parentage. So naturally this story follows one such hybrid, Jes, a Human/Rijala hybrid on the run from those who would torture him for his special powers, as he discovers a circus made up of many different species and finds a family he never expected.

This is hardly a unique setup, but the found family story is prominent for a reason, and it works very well here. The characters are very well done, and the combination of Jes' powerset - not just gravity powers, but also empathic feeling of emotions - with his asexuality causes him mental stresses and difficulties in ways that I haven't seen done before, and it works pretty well. On the other hand, most of the conflict plotline faced by Jes, featuring a gangster kingpin blackmailing him and more, is a bit generic and is resolved in a way that is a bit too easy and abrupt. Still, the result is highly enjoyable and different enough to be well worth your time, even if its last act doesn't quite live up to the rest of it.



---------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
Jes didn't have a destination in mind when he stole a ticket granting him access to any world within the 9-star Congress - he just knew he had to get as far away from the Institute as possible, to the last place they would ever think to look for him. For the Institute has been torturing him for too long to experiment on his strange gravity manipulating powers to let him ever go free.

And so, guided by his special intuition Jes winds up on a trip to Persephone-9, the pleasure moon known for providing all types of depravity to every species throughout the 9-star congress. Jess expects it to be largely miserable, with his empathic sense picking up so much lust and sexual desire to overwhelms his sex aversion.

But what Jess finds instead, led by his intuition and his grandmother's dowsing crystal, is a circus full of various talented species, each with their own unique talents and skills. And to his surprise they welcome him among them, and he begins to find a home, and even some kind of love there. But the circus is beholden to the whims of a gangster looking to control the entire moon, and when that gangster learns of Jes' true identity and powers, Jess finds himself forced to make difficult choices to save not just himself, but the family he never knew was possible.....
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The Circus Infinite is in some ways a pretty typical type story - person on the run from a tragic past, with no family or seeming hope of one finds a cast of oddballs of different species/races who take him in, forming a found family and love he never knew he could find, and eventually has to fight for their sake. And it's very much that, and a pretty good example of that for reasons I'll get into below, but mainly due to its very likable cast of main characters each of whom bring something different to the table and provide Jes with something different that he needs. And of course a circus or show is a pretty classic place for such a found family to be found.

But what makes The Circus Infinite really different is Jes' empathic ability - his ability to "sus" out emotions or feelings that others are feeling - and how that affects him personally. For one, Jes is asexual (but not aromantic), and has a strong aversion to sex....such that even the empathic feeling of sexual desire or lust is really off-putting to him, which naturally makes a lot of situations uncomfortable for him (and he spends most of this book on a moon known for pleasure, complete with sex clubs, so there's no avoiding it). For another, while knowing the emotions of those he's with can in some ways be helpful, its not the same as reading minds, and so it can just as mislead as physical observations at times....and Jes can't turn it off. So while his sussing can tell when feelings towards him are friendly or genuine, it can also lead him down some paranoid paths that cause him genuine distress, even when not confronted with the painful feeling of sexual desire.

And Jes is so easy to care for, as the narrative shows us his own feelings, how others' feelings affect him, and the past that led him up to this point (via flashbacks every few chapters to his life beforehand, which is often depressingly awful). Up till the story begins, the only love he was shown was by his grandparents, with his parents selling him to the Institute which tortured him for his gravity-manipulating abilities. If it wasn't for those grandparents he wouldn't believe there was anything worth living for at all as he points out once, and even with that he has a hard time trusting that what the circus and the friends he finds there provide him with is real. And so he has a hard time figuring out what to do with it all, but in a way that's easy to understand. And it helps that the rest of the cast, from Asuna-human hybrid Essa, to Bo, a member who is attracted to him and still willing to be with him despite the lack of sex (to Jes' amazement), to Asuna singer and young teenager Esmée, and more, are all really interesting and well done, even if most of their plots also revolve around Jes and aren't really independent of him.

Alas, the weakest part of The Circus Infinite is how the story wraps things up. The story uses a typical plotline of having Jes both be on the run from pursuers (who you just know will come back into play) and be targetted by a blackmailing mobster, and things go poorly just as you'd expect from them. But the way how Jes manages to deal with them, though gratifying, is very abrupt and just feels like it makes their threats for most of the book feel kinda pointless. This is not to say the book is entirely predictable - there are several characters who a typical plot would reveal to wind up being antagonists betraying Jes.....and instead just turn out to be normal people whose feelings towards Jes are normal - after all, not everyone Jes meets is going to like him or be comfortable with him, or will be someone Jes will feel comfortable with, but that doesn't make them necessarily bad people. It's a nice touch, even if the larger parts of the book's ending feel like the author had to wrap things up and didn't know how to do it so he rushed it.

Still, if you're looking for a found family book, especially one with an ace (but not aromantic) protagonist, The Circus Infinite might be very for you.

This book was odd. There were quite a few things I really liked and just as many (maybe more) that I didn't. Overall, I'm torn about what to think of it, and if I had to choose one word to describe it, I'd probably choose 'alright.' It didn't wow me, but it wasn't completely awful either.

I really liked the world the author built. The different alien races, their powers, and the council that governed them was really cool, and I enjoyed learning about all of the different cultures. Anything to do with the circus was also really awe-inspiring. I found myself sitting and daydreaming about what all the acts might look like and enjoyed the descriptions of them. In general, the author did a great job of setting scenes, and I loved it. My favorite thing about the book was the descriptions on the characters' trip hopping around the moon. I really felt like I was there and experiencing all of the amazing sights with them.

The LGBT representation was fantastic in this story, as well. I particularly liked getting to enter the point of view of someone who was not just asexual but sex-averse. It is so far outside of my personal experience that I found it incredibly eye-opening to see the thoughts and feelings that someone with that identity might have day to day. The growth of Jes' romantic relationship, as well as his friendships, and the exploration of his boundaries in each were definitely highlights of the book for me. There was a range of other LGBT folks in the story too, and I liked that the world was pretty much accepting of all sexual and gender minorities. My only complaint is that quite a bit of the dialogue felt forced and almost clinical in nature, especially the conversations between the characters about their sexualities.

The found family vibes of parts of this book made me fall in love with the characters, even if they were all a bit two-dimensional. Anytime the circus crew were together, it just felt heartwarming. This brings me to the first major thing I didn't like. It felt like I was reading two very different books. There would be a heartwarming scene and then we'd be off to torture, death, sex clubs, or destruction. I'm not sure if it was a pacing or transition issue, but it felt jarring to go back and forth. It's not even that I didn't like the harsher aspects of the book because I thought they were well-written. I just didn't like the mashup of them with this circus family. It just felt off.

Despite liking certain aspects of the character and the exploration of asexuality he provided, the characterization of Jes got on my nerves a lot. It was super inconsistent. He was smart, until he wasn't. He was good, until he wasn't. He made some DUMB choices here that made no sense for someone on the run. I get that he was dealing with trauma and still quite young, which could easily explain some of the inconsistency in his character. However, he made some choices that had me wanting to chunk my kindle across the room in frustration, while other times he was portrayed as the smartest person in the room. It just seemed like he was smart or dumb depending on what the plot needed him to be rather than there being a real motivation behind the choices.

Finally, the ending of this book knocked a star off of my rating. I honestly hated almost everything about it. ***SPOILER ALERT*** One of my favorite things about the book was Jes' growth from connecting with others in a healthy way, and the ending felt like it threw away those connections with very little set up. It also made Jes a murderer, which really made me mad after seeing his struggle with not crossing that line throughout the rest of the book up to that point. The ending also made me hate the bug character (I forget his name), who I had really liked up to that point, because he could have prevented it all, including Jes becoming a murderer, if he had just taken Jes before the council from the very beginning instead of waiting until the exact second he was going to destroy a star system. Like, WTF bug dude. WTF. ***END SPOILERS***

Overall, I loved the world, asexual rep, and found family feels of the book. I didn't love the characterizations, and I hated the ending. So, this one gets 3 out of 5 stars from me.

The cozy found family in space vibes here felt very reminiscent of Becky Chambers, while going to some dark places. Jes, our main character, starts the book escaping from the Institute where he was essentially tortured in the name of science. We get some flashbacks of his time there, but the bulk of the plot deals with the actions he takes hiding from the Institute, which include finding a family at a circus and being blackmailed by a local crime boss to do his dirty work or else he'll destroy the circus and turn Jes in to the Institute.

Jes was such a charming main character. I loved following him as he tried to figure out where he fit in the world as someone of mixed species (fairly unusual in this world) who has "secret" powers and identifies as a panromantic asexual. He had been sold to the Institute at a rather young age, so watching him find his place and learn to trust his new circus family was sweet and I really liked the way Khan Wong played on the "misfits at the circus" trope.

I also absolutely loved the ace rep here. Jes is very confident in his sexuality, but shortly after joining the circus, he starts to form a relationship with one of the performers. I thought the way Jes struggled with his sexuality in relation to this new relationship was portrayed was so well done. Jes, and his budding romantic relationship as well as his platonic relationships with some of the other performers, were by far my favorite parts of this book.

While there is definitely some room for improvement here, overall I had a great time and will be interested to see what Khan Wong writes next.

Loved the ace rep and need more books with that rep included but the actual plot felt lacking for me. It may be a case of not being in the right headspace for this book and for all the triggers it held.

I rather enjoyed The Circus Inifinite, it has its flaws but I liked how it treated some dark themes with the right lightness for YA but sometimes it could come across as inconsistent. Oner thing, i really enjoyed is how unapologetically asexual Jes is, it wass really nice to see the term for once and being in a book with not asexuality as the sole theme.
So Jes has escapedand has a bounty on his head and a lot of people want to study/disecting him for his powers and joins a circus however the circus is threatened by a crime boss. He will get the said boss attention and he will be blackmailed to work for him , that is how it starts.
Jes will have to torture, kill for the boss and he is traumatized by it this was interesting to see how it affect him, he isn't a morally grey guy, he is lovely and hated every minute of it, he cares for other people.
I liked the queer found family and the little side romance with Jes and how it was written to make a highlight of his asexuality and showing how a aspect of asexuality is, I found that great, they were cute.
On the asexuality subject again, as Jes is also an enpath it was interesting to see him in quite a lot of situations being uncomfortable in specific situations that you would not notice as a sexual person in this world where it is actively pushed for it.
For the end, the antagonist Dax was interesting to me and a good villain, he did his role and the confrontation was well written and so satisfying.

This book was really full of hopes and dreams with a nice message while carrying some dark themes along the way to finish it comfortably

DNF at 37%. I wanted to like this novel. The premise sounded so intriguing, and having an ace MC seemed great. I just could not get into the plot and none of the characters were able to grasp my attention.