THE DEATH I GAVE HIM is a locked room retelling of Hamlet; and more, with changes to character that come into their own with echoes of the play, while always asserting a wholly new voice, and setting the reader up for thrilling story apart from its inspiration. Felicia is active, and doesn't hold back. The tension and chemistry between Horatio and Hayden is just a joy to read. Hopefully without giving anything away, some of their encounters reminded me of the elegance of RED SCHOLAR'S WAKE. I especially loved that the Sisyphus formula is itself a metaphor for the grief and death that haunts this work. How do we regenerate, make ourselves whole again from what we have left? Such a great read on so many counts.

In Em X. Liu’s Hamlet retelling, The Death I Gave Him, there is little surprise in plot but a lot of atmosphere to keep readers invested. I quite enjoyed the story, especially the ways in which the classic plot points were modernized (futurized?) to fit the new setting. The scene reflecting Hamlet’s father’s plea for revenge was particularly cool and eerie. The narration style took a moment to get used to, but in the end, I liked how it was pieced together. It feels almost academic, as intended, but written for someone like me who finds academic writing dry.

This is a great book for people who like Hamlet or anyone up for a wild murder/revenge story set in the near future.

Actual Rating: 3.5

The thing that immediately grasped my attention upon reading the blurb was the sci-fi contemporary setting — like a realistic dystopian — and that’s exactly what I got.

The Death I Gave Him is marketed as a “locked-room thriller;” it takes place entirely inside a science lab where Hayden Lichfield’s life revolves around one main goal: to live forever. In their lab, he works with his father to perfect a secret chemical called the Sisyphus Formula. When Hayden suddenly stumbles upon the dead body of his father and the camera logs erased one day, his entire life is upended and he now has a new goal: to find and avenge the murderer. With the help of a trusty AI named Horatio, Hayden sends the lab into lockdown and starts investigating the only four other people who are in the lab with him: his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia, and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul.

I really liked the world that this story took place in, simultaneously wanting to learn more and also being satisfied with how it was both dystopian and almost realistic.

I think this book kind of bounces between being a whodunnit at the start and a suspenseful story of revenge. I think it probably should’ve leaned towards the latter sooner; maybe it’s the fact that this was marketed as a retelling of Hamlet or just the nature of the writing, but the killer was pretty clear and I was more intrigued in the main character’s development and newfound vengeance.

Other than the main character, I don’t think I clicked that much with any of the other characters; even though there’s a small ensemble, I think this is one of those books that focuses very much on a singular perspective as opposed to how books like One Of Us Is Lying were told from one perspective but still gave each character backstory.

The writing style was also really great overall, though I definitely still had my preferences between Hayden’s perspective and the after-the-fact recounting of it by another character.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this but wish I clicked with it and the characters a little more. I think this is probably a good read for anyone who likes sci-fi mystery.

An electrifying reimagining of the classic Shakespeares Hamlet — with all the nuance, blood and betrayal as the original but with a joyously queer, futuristic and with a wickedly devilish streak.

Structured like a locked-room murder mystery but in a world of chrome and neon, this is a fast-paced thriller that carefully created an aura of fear and distrust, leaving even those familiar with Hamlet eyeing everyone with suspicion and discomfort. It quickly becomes chaotic, blurry and feverish, with explosive scenes juxtaposed against dark and silent slow stretches that keep a very interesting, if not erratic pace.

I absolutely loved the poetic flow of the narration — modern and almost formal at times, but with moments of lyrical language that nods towards the source material in a brilliant homage.

The world building was vibrant and intense — a world of scientific advancement and futuristic society but full of dark secrets to create something that feels almost familiar but almost unrecognisable at the same time.

Reimagining a classic like this is never an easy feat — so I’ll leave you with a word from the bard that sums up this novel “though this be madness, there is method in’t”

After taking some time to fully process this incredible book, I am ready to share my thoughts. As someone who considers Hamlet one of my favorite written works, I was instantly drawn to this locked room, queer, sci-fi retelling. And let me tell you, it exceeded my expectations and then some.

In my opinion, a good retelling stays true to the themes and story beats of the original while offering a unique and refreshing take. This book accomplishes exactly that. Despite my familiarity with Hamlet, I couldn't predict how events would unfold in this retelling. The story kept me on edge throughout, aided by the locked room setting and the narration style. The book is written in the future by a researcher documenting past events, creating an outsider perspective. The narrator pieces together the truth from a single written account, scraps of video footage, and leftover data, resulting in an intriguing storytelling method that leaves certain information uncertain and incomplete.

The depth given to the characters is one of the highlights of this retelling. Felicia (Ophelia) stood out to me, as she was given agency and nuance beyond her original counterpart. I have always believed that her character deserved more complexity than being simply Hamlet's girlfriend who meets a tragic end, so seeing her make a significant impact in this story was refreshing. The relationships between the characters were also written with complexity and nuance. I was particularly struck by Hayden's relationship with his parents, which showcased levels of family dysfunction despite the clear love between them.

However, I must express some disappointment regarding the romance aspect. As a book that promotes itself as a "queer" retelling, I wished for more depth in that area. The romance felt somewhat out of place and abrupt. Flashbacks or further exploration of Hayden's queerness could have added much-needed development to the relationship and helped it feel more organic.

Overall, this creative retelling of Hamlet honors the source material while offering something entirely new and unique. I highly recommend it to both Hamlet fans and those who are unfamiliar with the original. If you enjoy a good sci-fi thriller, this book is definitely worth a read.

The central plot of _The Death I Gave Him_ by Em X. Liu starts with a murder mystery. This occurs in the near future in a large laboratory complex that is immediately locked down. This has the advantage of narrowing down the suspects. What follows are notes and transcripts, some liberally converted into prose, from records of some of the people involved. Here and there are footnotes from the person transcribing these passages in their relative comfort of some hundred or so years hence.

The book touches on the nature of sentience, the nature of immortality, and the nature of obsession. These get inextricably intertwined in some of the characters. There are relationships between family, between former lovers, and between artificial intelligence. Some of it gets to be a little intense and somewhat reminiscent of sado-masochistic relations. That really isn't my thing, so it brought my review down a peg.

Unfortunately, I felt the culprit was a little too easy to identify for the reader. There just weren't enough people with any real motive from the outset. Even though we don't get a real confession until the end of the book, it's still pretty obvious from early on.

The main character seems like a whiney little child in a man's body. It doesn't say exactly how old they are, but they behave younger than I would have expected. Perhaps that's part of the point, but it was a detraction for me.

All in all, I didn't dislike the book, per se, but it certainly wasn't something that I'd read again or necessarily recommend to most people.

NOW THIS. THIS IS HOW YOU DO A RETELLING.

Not only is the writing and characterization absolutely superb, but the construction of the plot and the way the narrative is set up as a post-event research project is just so completely up my alley of ‘favorite thing to be in a book’ I am just speechless. This book is so impressive, it grabs hold of you and refuses to let go until the very last page.

The Death I Gave Him, by Em X. Liu, delivers a compelling fusion of Hamlet and Joaquin Phoenix's film Her. Liu masterfully weaves a complex narrative, skillfully utilizing different points of view and time periods to immerse readers in a thought-provoking and intelligently crafted story. With its blend of forced proximity and closed-door narratives, this sci-fi tale takes on an eerie and haunting atmosphere, reminiscent of a horror narrative.

The novel revolves around three central characters: Hayden, Felicia, and Charles. These individuals, portrayed as highly intelligent, are plagued by their own personal flaws and ambitions. Liu's exploration of their inner lives creates a sense of ambiguity, making it difficult to fully like or root for any of the human characters. However, it is the artificial intelligence character, Horatio, who emerges as the most relatable and understandable figure, adding an intriguing dynamic to the story.

From the very beginning, The Death I Gave Him captivates readers and keeps them engaged throughout the narrative. Liu's writing style is phenomenal, displaying a command over language and an ability to evoke emotions in the reader. The author's choice to incorporate elements of horror within the sci-fi genre adds depth and tension to the plot, making it an even more gripping read.

However, where the book falls slightly short is in its ending. While the story maintains its strong momentum and the writing remains impeccable, the conclusion feels incomplete. It leaves the reader with lingering questions and a desire for a more definitive resolution. This aspect may leave some readers feeling unsatisfied and craving a more conclusive ending to tie up loose ends.

In summary, The Death I Gave Him is a remarkable book that skillfully merges elements of Shakespearean tragedy and futuristic science fiction. Em X. Liu's intelligent storytelling and unique narrative structure make for an enthralling read from start to finish.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

I took some time to think about the book before writing this because I just needed time to fully process this incredible book. Anyone who knows me is aware that Hamlet is one of my favorite written works so the moment I heard there was a locked room, queer, sci-fi retelling I had to get my hands on it. It met my expectations and then some.
It did what every good retelling (in my opinion) does and stayed true thematically and in story beats to the original while also expanding it in a unique way into a refreshing new work. Even knowing Hamlet as well as I do it was impossible to fully predict how events would play out. The entire story keeps you on edge and was further aided by the locked room setting and the narration. Written in the future by a researcher who is documenting the past events of this tragedy (though their past is still in the future for the current reader) our narrator is an outsider to these events. They have attempted to piece together what happened but their knowledge is incomplete as they put together the truth from a single written first hand account, scraps of video footage, and leftover data from that one night. I found this to be a particularly unique and interesting story telling method. Even though we have a complete book there is still information that is left uncertain and incomplete.
As for the characters, I loved the depth they were given. Particularly Felicia (Ophelia) and how she was given so much more agency compared to her original counterpart. She has always been the character in Hamlet that I believed deserved more nuance than just Hamlet’s girlfriend who kills herself so it was refreshing to see her making such an impact in this story. The various relationships were also written with an interesting complexity and nuance. I was struck in particular with Hayden’s relationship with his parents and how it’s obvious he loves them it’s also clear that there are also levels of family dysfunction.
Though I will say that I was largely disappointed by the romance. For a book that one of its selling points is being a ‘queer’ retelling I do wish that here had been more depth to it. It felt kind of out of place and abrupt. Perhaps some type of flashbacks could have aided in developing the relationship further to show how they got to this point. Maybe some more exploration into Hayden’s queerness overall could also have helped.
Overall this is a truly creative Hamlet retelling that does an excellent job of honoring the source material while also creating something entire new and unique. I would recommend it to both Hamlet fans and those who aren’t alike if you are interested in a good sci-fi thriller.

A closed circle queer retelling of Hamlet, a tense thriller. It's a fast paced and gripping novel, good storytelling and a solid plot.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

This retelling of Hamlet was very enjoyable.

Horatio was my favorite character here, and I like that he gives Hayden motivation to be present in the story world. Their relationship took me by surprise in a delightful way.

The subversion of the Ophelia character, Felicia, was well done. She became more authentic and I honestly connected with her more emotionally than the others.

Thats probably my only complaint. I didn't get enough time in Hayden's head to really feel all of his emotion the way I wanted to.

Still, it was artfully done and a great version of the story. Would recommend.

This was a beautifully written book!

The concept was very unique - a queer retelling of Hamlet that is a sci-fi locked room mystery. It was fast paced and really fun to read.
I loved the themes of morality and revenge and the characters
It was intense but I enjoyed reading it!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Death I Gave Him.

I'm not a fan of science fiction and fantasy but I was drawn in by the premise and the title.

First, a retelling of a classic tale is nothing new now.

The growing trend is retellings of classic stories, fairy tales, Greek myths and on and on.

On one hand, I'm intrigued by retellings because I'm curious to read an author's original take on a classic story but at the same time, I think, "Why mess with a good thing?"

That applies to The Death I Gave Him.

First, I didn't like the tone and writing style; it was cold, emotionless, and apathetic.

The writing is good, but unnecessarily wordy, almost flowery.

Second, readers are told what transpired in the form of interviews, and excerpts from a memoir written by one of the primary players, Felicia.

Third, you know who the murderer is.

Fourth, I didn't like anyone; well, maybe Horatio, but character development is poor. You don't know anyone, why they care so much about this formula, what their motives are, so you don't care about them.

Fifth, the science jargon went over my head and also didn't make sense. At first, I thought maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it but then I realized it didn't make sense because nothing is really explained.

I think what made it more difficult to become engaged in the story is that it's a locked room mystery, yet the world building is poor.

What's the outside world looked like, the current social climate, why is Hayden's dad obsessed with this formula, is he doing this for altruistic reasons or just playing God?

Readers are stuck in a cold, sterile, hostile environment (the lab) with potentially hostile staff (great!), but the lab is portrayed as a boring, bland space for interactions. It could have been turned into a part of the mystery.

This had potential but I didn't enjoy it mainly because not the right audience for this genre but I think some readers would enjoy it.

The description of this book felt like it had been scientifically tailored to match my exact tastes: science fiction Hamlet? And it is QUEER? Unfortunately, the execution of the novel did not live up to its stellar premise. I loved a locked room thriller, but the setting of this was terribly hazy, with the author skimping out on descriptions in favor of the creepiness of white-walled oblivion. While this played into the tone of the novel, it gave me no grounding sense of location and made it feel like the characters were drifting around in empty space. The plot also moves distractingly fast, which I suppose fits with the character of the play itself, but left little room to get to know the characters outside of their archetypes. Liu does a good job with the character adaption, elevating certain characters like Ophelia (Felicia Xia) while giving more depth to two-dimensional villains like Claudius (Charles Litchfield). However, on the other hand Liu's dedication to retelling the plot of Hamlet occasionally made the actual story suffer: it is easy to pass off convenient coincidences and silly leaps of logic in a Shakespeare play, less so in a science fiction novel. The actual science of the Sisphyus Serum, etc. was not believable in the slightest and made the adaption feel like a thin veneer over the original story. Paradoxically, this loose usage of science did actually make it feel more like a stage adaption, and made me appreciate some of the more clever translations, such as Horatio being an artificial intelligence tapped into Hamlet (Hayden's) brain.

I was expecting so much more... There were a lot of great elements in the book, but none of them were developed enough, even though this is not a short book.

The structure and pacing were decent, however, the tension was not enough for a Sci-Fi mystery. Plus, there was not a lot of focus on the science and I had a lot of questions that were not answered properly or were in the end very underwhelming.

The characters were alright, but I wish we dived deeper into their past and relationships because, in the end, I didn't care about any of them.

The writing was great; maybe if I were a bigger fan of Hamlet, I would've enjoyed it more.

The Death I Gave Him was a good book. It was an engaging book, one that kept me entertained for the time it took me to read it. Beyond that, though? I felt little more than enjoyment of it — which, let’s be clear, is a good thing — and hence a 3-star rating.

This is a Hamlet retelling crossed with a locked room (lab) mystery, framed as a nonfiction book. Hayden, our Hamlet-esque main character, finds his father dead in a lab and, realising it to be murder, elects to investigate on his own. Also at stake are the plans for a formula akin to an immortality potion. On Hayden’s side is Horatio, the lab’s A.I. Trapped in the lab too are his uncle Charles, his ex-girlfriend Felicity, her father Paul, and the lab technician, Rasmussen.

Much of this review will probably be taken up with reasons this didn’t quite work for me as well as it might have, so I would like to take this moment to point you towards my first two sentences. I enjoyed this book! Yes, I would have liked to have enjoyed it more, but I still enjoyed it! I didn’t hate the experience of reading it by any metric.

But if we’re looking at reasons this one didn’t quite do it for me, we might first look at the use of the present tense. I don’t automatically dislike present tense books, but I do feel that, for me, its use is better in contemporary fiction. When it comes to genre fiction, the book has to be really good for me to overlook it. And this book did actually do quite well in making me forget it was in present tense, but I have to say I still wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Of course, YMMV, so take this bit with a pinch of salt.

The second point is that this isn’t really a locked room mystery. It’s blindingly obvious who’s done it and why, even without working knowledge of the play it’s based on. Now, if you don’t come here for a mystery, that’s perfectly okay! I didn’t come here only for that, but I would have liked a bit more put into that aspect of it, if I’m honest. As I said, with any sort of knowledge of Hamlet, you know exactly where it’s going to go still. But. Give me some more tension to it, please!

However, as I said, and will keep stressing, I enjoyed this book. It was an entertaining way to pass a morning, if a little melodramatic at points (but isn’t Hamlet too, anyway?). One I’d recommend on the balance of things.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC!

The Death I Gave Him is a queer Hamlet retelling with a locked room mystery, sci-fi thriller twist. I haven’t read Hamlet but am familiar with the story and I think if you go into this book with prior knowledge of it, there probably won’t be many surprises. But that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book at all and I appreciated the author’s take on the classic story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! While it’s a retelling of a classic, it still felt new, fresh, and innovative. I loved the sci-fi elements and thought they were well integrated without being too scientific or complicated. I especially loved the structure of the story and how it was told through multiple POVs (including the AI Horatio), essay and interview excerpts, call, text, and video transcripts, letters, etc. I thought the writing was great though I wasn’t a fan of all the footnotes throughout, a lot of them just didn’t seem necessary. I also didn’t really feel connected with the characters and wish there was a little more character development.

But I really enjoyed the book and am excited to read more from this author in the future! I highly recommend this book especially for fans of Shakespeare and/or retellings and fans of the show Black Mirror.

Content warnings: death, self harm, suicidal thoughts

Thanks so much to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this book!

I have scheduled promotional posts around release day for this book and I will provide a full review on my Instagram once I am able to get to this read.

Rating 5 stars on Netgalley as a placeholder for me to update later once the review is complete.

Will also complete a review on Goodreads once read.

Thanks again!

“How terrible death is, Hayden thinks, to take vibrant, vital people, and render them into nothing but their component parts, all greying flesh and hissing gas and frayed, useless nerves.”

A glorious, terrifying mix of cleanly rendered prose and fierce poetry, this is a potent combination.

“Queer, locked-room, sci-fi Hamlet” were the buzzwords that made me pick this up: but I was enthralled from the first chapter. The tale is told in a number of voices and ways, including the narration of the sentient AI living within the building, phone transcriptions, excerpts from a memoir. The conceit is that the book in its form has been compiled by an historian, first investigating the incident as part of a thesis, coalescing into the story presented. The narration is thus punctuated with explanatory footnotes, which only add to the foreboding and anticipatory horror.

Anyone familiar with Hamlet knows the nature of this catastrophe. The author does not match the Bard beat for beat: there is still room for unfamiliar scenes and surprises in this retelling. Liu’s skill is in unspooling the tension, thread by thread, until the inevitable tapestry of tragedy is woven.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this e-ARC.

I was intrigued by this book because of the promise of a sci-fi thriller, and while it turned out to be different from what I expected, I still highly enjoyed it.
As a character-driven reader, I enjoyed all the different POVs equally. These are messy and flawed characters, and I loved exploring the complex relationships they had with each other. I especially loved seeing the depiction of depression through one of the characters.
The building of tension was also well done. I was anxious the whole time reading this, and it made me want to turn the page to get to the end.
I did find the ending to be a bit underwhelming, but overall, this was great.