A sweet, heart-warming novel jam-packed with queer rep!

A great deal of this book reminds me of the 80s b-movie Cherry 2000. It, too, has insular modern cities surrounded by wasteland. It, too, deals with androids (though not about A.I. sentience), and it too has a wasteland mercenary as a main character. Yet, that movie is mainly pulp action with a bit of a love story, where this one is mainly love story with a bit of action. As such, this is not so much a post-apocalyptic book with a love story than an LGBTQ+ love story with a bit of post-apocalyptic flair.

A lot of the novel deals with body dysphoria: first, Valentine’s, as he’s a trans man that hasn’t been able to transition, so the female aspect of his anatomy causes him great distress, and he’s often misgendered by others; and second, Osric’s, as he’s an A.I. foisted into an android body, so he shares a similar distaste with his own body. There are also themes of bad friendships, and A.I. sentience and what that means about consent.

In terms of the love story, it’s human and android - the Terminator-style of robot that’s like human skin over exoskeleton. While I Iiked their romance and thought Hess did a great job of giving them understandable foils in said romance, I found Osric a little … boring. Valentine had a fully-fleshed personality, but Osric was a bit flat for me. Maybe he was supposed to be - as he even mentions being a boring person at one point, or perhaps he is such to provide a balance for Valentine’s often profusion of emotions (an aspect of what I perceived was his neurodivergence). Either way, I think their relationship was fun, sweet, and had good tension.

In terms of the story, while I was engaged and the story moves at a fast pace, it doesn’t have an overly-intricate plotline. My interest was piqued, but I wanted a bit more depth or time with the A.I. sentience story. While I do love character-focused novels, and the love story is the main focus, I could have used a bit more twists in the storyline.

Either way, though, World Running Down is a thoroughly enjoyable and thoughtful read with a cute-as-heck love story, important themes, and a fun setting! Definitely recommended!

“Osric drew in a labored breath. “I’m – I’m not supposed to be in this body.”
Valentine tugged Osric’s shirt closed. “Me neither, hon.”
–Al Hess. World Running Down

Here’s a post-apocalypse tale set in the desert outside Salt Lake City that channels Mad Max and The Wizard of Oz, well, sort of. Valentine is a scavenger in the wasteland who dreams of getting a visa to Salt Lake City where he can get free health care, and, more importantly, the gender change he longs for. Ace, his partner, just wants to get out of the scavenger business and live somewhere other than a beat-up van that smells like socks while avoiding salt pirates’ arrows on every run. The two show up in an outlying gated city only to find an android from Salt Lake City waiting for them with a job and before you can say yellow brick road, the trio is on their way to recover stolen sex-worker androids in what should be an easy haul.

Though Valentine’s trans dreams are front and center, this isn’t just a book about LGBTQ angst. Osiris was an important steward AI in Salt Lake City before crossing someone who got him stuffed into an android body and sent off into the desert. The sex androids are all intelligence-limited, except maybe they’re not as dumb as they seem, and maybe they don’t want to go back, while Ace is a gal capable of making the hard calls to get what she wants. It all adds up to a great romp in the desert with well-realized characters. Highly Recommended.

(From my Amazing Stories column: <a href="https://amazingstories.com/2023/02/science-fiction-to-look-for-february-2023/">Science Fiction To Look For – February 2023</a>)

I LOVED this book. It felt very made for me personally? Queer stories, queer joy despite the burden of inaccessible healthcare, a thoughtful AI system that is also adorable, great characters-- basically I've been gushing about this since I was only about 15% in, and already ordered a physical copy from my fav local bookstore. I think in less thoughtful hands the allegory between trans (human) body dysmorphia and an AI shoved into an android body would be too literal and too on the nose but it felt right here-- probably because of the banter between Valentine and Osric, and even when the two of them fought and compared notes on how a similar situation affected them both it wasn't too much at all. It felt right.

As much as I love (Osric) the main characters, definite shout out to the Machine-Women as well, later stage shining stars of the story who kept and held my interest. As much as I'm a sucker for cute robots (/robot-adjacent entities) even beyond that I would read a spinoff of them! And I wanted to know more about the Network and how life was like inside it as a real time thing.

World Running Down is a quick read because it always keeps going and never lingers too much in one place or story beat. There's so much I loved throughout the story as a whole and I'm really happy Angry Robot approved my NetGalley request for the ARC on this one.

The world is broken, and even though there appears to be wealth and opportunity barricaded behind city walls in this future, the price is high and hard to achieve to get past the gates.

Both the main character, salvager Valentine Weis, a transgender man, and Osric, an AI stuffed into an android body, have similarities. Both suffer from body dysmorphia. Valentine wants to get a visa for Salt Lake City so he can get surgery, better work and go back on testosterone. And we’re not told initially what rules Osric broke or what crime he committed to get himself cut out of the friendly and soothing network the AIs of Salt Lake City, called Stewards, live in.

Valentine and his argumentative and abrasive partner Ace, with Osric tagging along, are tasked with recovering stolen androids who worked at a brothel. (Androids have fairly simple programming, compared with Stewards, and are not sentient.) The brothel owner intends to reward Valentine and Ace with visas for the recovery of the androids.

To the trio's dismay when they find the androids, they discover that the androids are becoming sentient, thanks to an accidental restriction removed on their programming during their theft. This places Valentine in a difficult position; as desperately as he wants a visa, he has no intention of sending sentient beings back into a situation in which they don't want to be in, and who will certainly be abused by the brothel owner.

There is community happening amidst the harsh life on the Utah salt flats, and interestingly, the very pirates Valentine was scared of at the book's outset become the people he and Osric must rely on during their scary attempt to resolve the situation with the androids.

In fairly economical storytelling, Al Hess considers identity, gender, sentience, bodily autonomy, and who has rights in this post-apocalyptic society, without resorting to being overbearing. I liked all the discussions Valentine and Osric have about identity, friendship, and kindness, even amidst some pretty awful moments, before resolving to a satisfying conclusion.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Angry Robot for this ARC in exchange for my review.

What an absolutely amazing story, I really enjoyed this one. Valentine and his partner Ace (partner in work not intimacy) are salvagers, people ask them to salvage items, stuff that may have been lost or stolen and they want it back. Valentine is transgender, he binds his chest and uses he/him pronouns, but his partner, who is female, still calls him her or she which irritates him and causes fights between them. Valentine's dream is to become a citizen of Salt Lake City, which one has to pass a citizen exam and pay a fee. Val and Ace are saving their salvage fee in hopes of one day becoming citizens. A salvage job is offered to them from a citizen of Salt Lake, they are approached by an AI in human male form, Osric, who gives them the details of what is to be recovered and what they will get once recovered. The job is a dream come true, they would become citizens and provided with enough money to live comfortably. Only problem is what they have to recover are AI's that were being used in a brothel, and who are becoming self aware. The dilemma of returning the AIs to an environment where they will be forced against their will to perform sex acts, bothers Val. Osric and Val become close and over the course of the story a couple, which was a very sweet part of the story. I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Angry Robot for the ARC.

"World Running Down" is a dystopian story that follows a trans-man who has trouble getting the medical care he needs to fully realize his male body and an AI who was put into an android body as punishment. Both characters are exploring what it feels like to be in a body that doesn't fit who they are. I loved the idea of this story and what exploring it from two perspectives at once could mean. However, for me, the story got bogged down in the characters' feelings, and it started to feel repetitive. The action of the story doesn't start until about the halfway point, and before that focuses on the characters and their feelings of otherness. While this is a worthwhile topic to explore, it was starting to feel like it was done in magic marker instead of a fine-point pen. I prefer plot-driven stories though, and I think someone who enjoys character-driven stories would enjoy this book more than I did. I also think someone going through similar experiences would feel very seen while reading this, and I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing this book in people's favorite lists.

While it wasn't for my personal reading tastes, I am rating it a three because I think the topics are important to see in fiction and because the plot is unique and intriguing.

This book is SUCH a delight, wow. It's a book about queer and trans joy, found family, the euphoria of being at home in your skin, and the quest it can take to get there. It's set against a sci fi desert that reminded me personally of Tales from the Borderlands, and like all good sci fi, it ties itself intimately to modern day concerns - income inequality, inaccessible healthcare (especially gender affirming care), transphobia, and the necessity of community bonds. It also feels like a deeply personal novel, and I'm grateful Al Hess put it out in the world for us.

With a 5 star review, there's obviously not much I didn't love about this book. The villain dialogue was at times a bit cookie cutter, and I wish we'd learned more about the plotline of animal/android hybrids, but those are minor gripes. Overall, I tore through this read from start to finish, and left with a huge grin on my face. I honestly wish I'd taken my time with this one, so that I could spend more time in the world, but I couldn't help myself.

World Running down features philosophical questions about the meaning of life while traveling through a post apocalyptic desert, ADHD rep, a joyful romance between a gay AI and a trans man (with parallels between their dual journeys from dysphoria to euphoria), motorcycle riding Mormon pirates, and more. If any of that even remotely interests you, please do yourself a favor and read this book. Thank you to Angry Robot book and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review; this is definitely one I'll be recommending and revisiting.

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

World Running Down is a sweet, sci-fi set around Salt Lake City featuring trans man Valentine and their fellow salvager Ace. When Valentine is given a job to rescue androids stolen from a brothel, he jumps at the chance to earn a visa to the city where he can get access to testosterone and gender surgery. He meets an AI now trapped in a human body, Osric, and the two fall in love as the three travel across the desert, only to find out the androids don't want to go home. This book explores trans issues, consent, sentience and the importance of being treated well.

This was a nice, easy to read story without high stakes which is part of the reason why I didn't love it. I really liked Valentine and the exploration of his gender dysphoria and how brave but emotional he is. Osric was an interesting character but I felt like his journey as an AI trapped in a human body wasn't focused on enough over the romance. However this was well written and I'm glad I read it.

This book is a gem and a treasure. I am absolutely living for this hopeful, queer sci-fi. I love Hess' writing style and his characters.

Generally speaking, anything that involves post-apocalypse themes has to work pretty hard to interest me. That, or catch me on a really good day when I’m in the mood for this type of story. This one caught me on a good day, and it made that day a little brighter. Mostly because I wasn’t expecting something that seemed post-apocalyptic to be ultimately hopeful and feel-good, instead of grim and full of the worst of humanity.
… Which, to an extent, this also is. But it works for me because it’s in balance with that hopeful goodness. Some of these characters I wanted to yell at. But some of them I wanted to wrap in blankets and protect – which brings me to Valentine and Osric.

I love it when I get to start a new reading adventure with a couple I can ship wholeheartedly. (Which makes the fact that this appears to be a standalone book only a little bit disappointing.) But THIS PAIR YOU GUYS. At first glance, they could not be more different, or at least come from more different worlds. But then we get to see just how much they really have in common – and yes, the romantic tropes show themselves along the way.
Heads up, by the way. If you’re not here for romance in your science fiction, this book is probably not going to be as enjoyable for you as it was for me. However, if you are here for it, then join me as I swoon, because this book has the goods.

This isn’t going to be any sort of in-depth review full of thinky thoughts, by the way. I’m not here for that today. I only occasionally am but that’s beside the point. LET ME RAMBLE ABOUT CINNAMON ROLLS SURVIVING THE APOCALYPSE. (I want more cinnamon rolls surviving the apocalypse. If anyone knows where I might find more of them, please let me know.)

But what about the sci-fi, you may ask? What about that post-apocalyptic world? Well. I suppose if I must criticise anything here, it could be that. The touch is notably light on the the worldbuilding, which also might be a deal-breaker for anyone who’s more seriously into this particular subgenre of SF than I am. It’s more of a setting than a mood, if that makes sense. There are some interesting ideas put forth here, particularly regarding AIs and sentience, and while these might seem like typically weighty issues, here they’re handled with the same light touch as the worldbuilding. But in its defence, this is a book very much about its characters, and it can be hard to give characters their due if they have no personality and/or don’t interact with others because they’re too busy being philosophical. Or, if you believe that old go-to of post-apocalyptic fiction, ruling their little corner of the burned-out world with a bloody iron fist.

Which, thankfully, these AIs don’t do. Instead, they do bureaucracy. It’s the people who cause the chaos, because who else is going to? But it’s the people who also do the bonding, and the having of personal hopes and dreams, because really there is no good reason for those not to survive the apocalypse. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t.

So to summarise this rambling ramble of a review (sorry not sorry), this was really an ideal choice to kick off my new year, and I hope to continue in this vein – or similar ones. If you like some post-apocalypse but find yourself wishing not everyone in them was hard-bitten or intensely murdery, check this one out. You might just like it.

World Running Down by Al Hess has everything that one could want in a book. Apparently, as a reader, I want adventure, artificial intelligence, androids and LGBT+ romance in a post-apocalyptic world.

Even in my dreams, I don’t get all of that. In my dream last night, my dream-friends and I were trying to fly to Minnesota. However, I didn’t have the correct ID and would miss the flight.

In a similar fashion, our sweet transgender hero, Valentine, is trying to get money together to get citizenship in Salt Lake City. If Valentine becomes a citizen, he will be able to continue transitioning for free. Since he is a scavenger out in the wasteland of Utah, it’s not so easy to raise the money.

One day, Valentine and his partner, Ace, come across a handsome android, Osric, who was not always in a body. He was AI, but more like Alexa. This is his first time in a body. Thankfully, Valentine helps Osric to adjust and they form a special bond. Could it be love? Please, please, please be love and romance!

Osric has come out to the wasteland to deliver a message to Valentine and Ace. A wealthy client would like to pay the scavengers a ton of money and citizenship to retrieve their lost merchandise. They find out soon enough that the merchandise is a group of androids used for an escort service. The other problem is that the androids are becoming sentient and do not want to work as escorts.

So how will Valentine, Ace and Osric deal with the weird wealthy clients? Valentine sees his dreams of transitioning falling to the wayside. However, he is a good human and doesn’t want to exchange his morals for a dream.

If you are looking for a great transgender science fiction book, then look no further than World Running Down. I have also included artwork from the author, Al Hess. Hess is a brilliant artist as well as a brilliant author.

I suppose if you are like horrible humans like the jerkface clients, then you won’t enjoy the romance between two unlikely heroes as much as I did. Please stop being horrible so that you can enjoy this book. I wouldn’t want you to miss the good vibes.

I received this ebook from NetGalley. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own. Obviously.

Lovely queer rep, an adorable AI, and a hopeful futuristic story!

There was a human trans character and his struggles, as well as an exploration of similar struggles through an AI character in a body for the first time. Things like feeling disconnected from your body and being perceived incorrectly. There was a big focus on things like consent and bodily autonomy and being allowed to explore and decide for yourself what sort of form your body should take and what you do with it. There were trans struggles, but also trans joy.

The characters were great. Osric (the AI) was adorable! A little bit disgruntled about his situation at first, naive about some things because he was still learning how bodies worked, but overall such a sweetheart. Valentine was scrappy and determined and so good-hearted. Often going out of his way to help people, even if it meant sacrificing things he wanted. The android women were fun. Cinnamon was hardcore, ready to stab anyone who looked at her the wrong way, but it was pretty understandable given the situation. The other android women were more naive, still coming into their self-awareness, but sweet.

I loved that there was some angst in the romance. Valentine and Osric had some little mishaps and struggles while getting to know each other. But their relationship was also full of care and understanding, to balance it out. I marked this as explicit sex on my blog, but it wasn’t super detailed and was very brief.

It was fun how the author created a… culture isn’t quite the right word, but the way the AI in Salt Lake did things, how they interacted with each other, how they formed relationships, etc. They were all connected and could sense each others’ feelings and thoughts.

The story was enjoyable and kept me reading. The romance and Valentine’s goal of moving into the city to be able to get hormones and surgery ran throughout the book, but there was also a plotline about running a job to retrieve some stolen androids, but then everything goes awry.

I’m categorizing this as post-apoc, though I’m not sure if that’s super accurate. The setting was a sort of rough but not overly awful future. Rough outside the cities, there are “pirates,” people band together in communities or take salvage jobs to get by, but things seem pretty good inside the cities. There actually wasn’t much explanation about the world, but that was fine with me, there was just enough to understand these characters’ lives.

Overall, I enjoyed these sweet characters, the queer rep, and the hopeful story!

Hess creates a rich and compelling world, but for me, the book gets bogged down by excessive discussion of characters' internal emotional states. I know this is a matter of taste, and a good friend absolutely LOVED this book, but I prefer to infer characters' emotions rather than have them described to me.

World Running Down is character-driven SF at its very best! Queer romance in a richly evocative dystopian setting perfect for fans of Becky Chambers. A thought-provoking, heartwarming LGBTQ+ read exploring gender, identity, and sentience.

This was a really interesting and involved story, thoughtful in its themes of identity and community, and with a hopefulness at the end that left me happy.

I especially liked the discussions of AI and humanity, and the complexities of emotion sharing. Also, I found the depictions of big city life very well done, as it showed how both the negative and positive aspects of being such a well provided source of benefits- a boon for residents but at what cost to those excluded from the city walls?

This was a really good read, my first by this author, and I'll definitely look out for more by them in the future.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*

World Running Down

5 stars

-Dual POV
-ADHD rep
-Trans FTM MC
-Queer Romance
-Speculative SciFi/Post apocalyptic
-Found Family
-AI, Robots
-Character driven

‘Wasteland Road Trip’

What a wonderful read!

Valentine, a trans man, dreams of raising enough money to afford citizenship for Salt Lake City in order to gain free gender affirming health care (and lots of food). In this wasteland of a world Valentine and his new bestie (Ace) run errands in their old van, all while avoiding Mormon ‘Pirates’ in the desert.

Osric is a powerful AI of Salt Lake City who has been forced into an android body and tasked with tracking down Valentine and Ace with an offer they can't resist. Recover the merchandise and they BOTH gain citizenship. Yet the merchandise are android escorts who are becoming self aware, and don’t want to return to their abusive patrons.

As Valentine wrestles between his morals and dreams, a beautiful relationship grows between him and Osric. The way they bond over shared feelings to do with their own bodies is really beautiful to see on page.

I really loved the way Osric at first saw the world as an AI. He would look at colours as their HTML code and notice the musical pitch of someone's voice. As time goes by he appreciates touch and the use of facial expressions.

It wasn’t enough to bring the rating down, but I feel like the author left out a whole plot line to do with animals. So we’re presented with this interesting fact: Valentine is shown the problem by another character, but we don’t ever get any answers as to how or why.

Even though I loved that this book read so quickly, I wish it were longer, just so we could explore the world more and see more interactions between Osric and the sentient androids.

Considering its a speculative SciFi it was very easy to picture the world and characters. In such an ugly world that Valentine lives in, he finds so much beauty in friendship and community. If you want a queer book with empathy, found family and adventure, then I highly recommend picking up this book.

Thank you to Angry Robot book and NetGalley for a eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings (from author’s website)
Language, M/M open door sex and sexual elements, brief violence, brief misgendering, body dysphoria

User added
Kidnapping/Trafficking, off page SA, Emotional abuse

How I rate books
1- I disliked this book very much. Highly unlikely to read this author again
2- Eh. I didn't hate it. Might give the author another go
3- It was fun
4- Amazing and would read again
5- I'm in love. Give me more right now!

I quit World Running Down at 41% – much later than the 20% that is my usual deciding point (ie, if I don’t care how a book will end by the time we hit 20%, I Do Not Finish it) – because I kept hoping it was going to get better.

It didn’t.

A fair bit of my critique is actually aimed at the publisher: the blurb/synopsis of World Running Down gives far too much away, undercutting the book’s attempts to surprise. The narrative frames the nature of the ‘merchandise’ the main characters are hired to retrieve as a Big Reveal…but we already know the merchandise = androids, because it says so right on the back of the book. That’s not Hess’ fault: that is squarely on whichever idiot wrote the blurb. I feel pretty sorry for Hess, having his story spoilered like that on the freaking back cover. It definitely doesn’t help with the reading experience.

That doesn’t make me inclined to go any easier on World Running Down, though: the fact is that the writing is extremely basic, the prose plain and blunt and direct. It’s easy to read, but it’s also kind of mind-numbing, simplistic to the point of being urgh. The story itself is also, in my opinion, far too straightforward and eye-rollingly predictable: of course the city is disgustingly rich and decadent; of course the Al begins to appreciate being humanoid and also catch Sexy Feelings for the only person who treats him like a person; of course the villains are cartoonishly evil and awful. The instalove is actually pretty believable under the circumstances – Valentine and Osric have a lot to commiserate about and bond over, and they’re each the first person to ever really ‘get’ the other – but that doesn’t mean it’s not also boring.

There’s definitely ‘an attempt was made’ vibes: bits and pieces of almost interesting ideas are scattered about, like the comparisons drawn (very, very unsubtly) between Valentine’s body dysphoria and Osric’s distress at having a body at all; or the glimpses we get of Al culture and the societal dynamics of AI/human interaction. But none of it was enough to get me to the halfway mark, never mind the ending.

I truly think World Running Down needed to be a lot longer: the fact that Valentine and Ace receive their marching orders at 40% of the way through the book means – thanks so that too-revealing blurb – that the reader already knows almost the entire first half of the story before ever opening the first page. And that’s simply ridiculous. Either finding-out-the-job needed to be a much smaller part of the book – not by cutting anything that comes before it, but by adding a lot more after it – or the synopsis desperately needs rewriting.

Or, you know. Both. Both would be my vote.

This next part is not intended as objective critique, but is just my personal preference: I’m tired of queer suffering. I’m agender; trust me, I get how much it fucking sucks to be misgendered, and have people thinking or insisting that you’re a woman when you’re fucking not. But equally? I don’t want to read about it. And some of that is on me: the synopsis of World Running Down is very clear about how Valentine is Not Having A Good Time, and I went ahead and (tried to) read it anyway. But some of it is also on the marketing (so, again, not the fault of the author) which has been pushing this book as cozy feel-good queer scifi. It’s really not. It’s not Trauma Porn – Hess is very clear on the distinction and good at staying on the right side of that line – but you should definitely be braced for trans misery, transphobia ranging from big and blunt to micro-aggressions, and lots of fun dehumanisation (though that’s reserved for the Al and android characters).

Overall? I don’t think World Running Down is a bad book. But it’s so simple, so obvious, so basic. There’s nothing to sink your teeth into. The things it has to say are not new, the interesting ideas/topics within are touched on only superficially, and the plot is too predictable to hold the attention. So, it’s not bad? But it’s not especially great either.

3.5
I will preface this review by saying that your enjoyment of the book will likely come down to how much you will care about Valentine/Osric as a couple. While I objectively think that they are well-developed and realistic in their conflicts and relationship I just didn’t emotionally care. But I think that is a problem I had with the whole and that is that I wasn't emotionally invested in it. It seems like a me thing so I expect a lot of people to enjoy this book more than I did.

As a transmasculine person, Valentine voicing his dysphoria and doubts in a relationship was relatable and while the emotional dilemma of the story rests on his ability to transition or not I am a bit disappointed that the book did not push the scifi transness thoughts further.

The premise of this book was that in the future the super rich left the Earth, the rest of the rich built utopian cities and everyone else live in arid or inhospitable lands and struggle to survive. This is a classic dystopian setting but the originality here was a transmasculine protagonist who cannot access testosterone and medical transition due to financial gatekeeping. His dream is therefore to move to a city to get free healthcare and transition. As this kind of utopian scifi city setting is often used to make a commentary on class divides as well as the evolution of our society and morals post apocalypse I was expecting this book to have a social commentary on transness. There is indeed some commentary on AI and androids but it is nothing I haven' seen before. I was disappointed to find that there is almost no trans worldbuilding and that the world is extremely similar to ours in how it views transness.

In the desert there are conservative settlements (Mormons or others) that reject transness and queerness (like Valentine’s father). I thought “okay in extreme situations people fold on themselves and extreme values are exacerbated. I wonder if the city by opposition will advertise their trans friendliness to distinguish themselves from the low and uneducated masses”. Nope. While we barely see the city, I struggle to make sense of the setting. AI and androids which regulate most of the city are trans positive (AI changing genders is widely accepted and androids introduce themselves with their pronouns). However we meet an asshole character and to prove he is an asshole he is sexist and transphobic.

In conclusion, transness and its perception does not seem to have evolved from our time. What we do get however is a tired (spoiler) androids get consciousness trope and a trans metaphor about relating to your body which would not have seemed as shaky if transness had actually been explored in worldbuilding. (spoiler). I do read dystopian scifi hoping it will explore modern concepts. It would have been cool to have a trans take on how an apocalypse would affect gender perspectives.


(spoiler) Also we get a weird Horizon Zero Dawn moment with machine animals that does not really serve a point? not sure what that was. (spoiler)

Also I guess you can read Osric as being on the aromantic spectrum. Not sure that was on purpose but I appreciated how he voiced all of that.

It’s a dirty dusty dystopian future and you feel the grime as you read and get to know the protagonists.

Valentine and his business partner Ace are scavengers on the salty dirt crusted American hellscape, doing odd jobs in the hopes of saving up enough money for citizenship in one of the remaining cities with resources. Dreaming of stable food supply and good enough health care for Valentine to get back on T and get chest surgery- they take on a job that promises
Everything.

All they have to do is track down and return some stolen merchandise to an elderly business owner with the funds to asay any concerns. Should be easy.

Would be easy too, if it weren’t for a charming sentient AI in a handsome body, salt pirates, giant all knowing eyes, transphobes, androids and mutant coyotes. Oh and that pesky thing known as self awareness.

Valentine and Ace have bitten off more than they want to chew with this mission, tensions are rising between the friends and between Valentine and Osric the big brained big “boned” AI sent to find them.

Valentine is definitely on the overly angsty end of the trans man spectrum but I recognize that my own experiences in trans-ness and those of my loved ones are each unique and Valentine is a valid representation of what so many people feel about their bodies regardless of how they identify.

All the major plot points of the book were predictable but that could just be me, the thing with the Androids was visible a mile off, Ace, the will he/won’t he keep the body and just about nothing surprised me except the Mormon pirates - tho I’ve known some very resilient Mormons so it makes sense. The story and characters were still fun enough though and knowing what was coming didn’t stop me from reading.

A big old “Thank You” to Netgalley, the Publisher and of course the author for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. Your efforts are in good hands and I appreciate the trust.

Title: World Running Down
Author: Al Hess
Genre: sci-fi, dystopian, LGBTQIAP
Publisher:
Pages: 312
Format: ePub
Publication Date: Ebook: 14th February 2023
UK & US Print: 14th February 2023

I hate giving DNF's for debut authors but I couldn't get past 40% of World Running Down. This makes me so upset as the premise seemed incredible and I loved the idea of the world that Al Hess has created I was so excited.

However the reason I can't carry on is the World Running Down is the writing it is very basic and feels like it is on its first draft. I felt it was such a chore to pick the book back up after putting it down. I would love to see what else Al Hess has written in the future but I just cant make myself finish World Rinning Down.

Again the premise is wonderful but the execution lacked the finesse and language I need to read a novel and when there are so many wonderful books out there, there is no point trying to force yourself to read one.