I wanted to give this a go because I really don't like DNFing review books, but I can't follow the audiobook. I don't know if it's the format, narrator or a mix of both, but I'm not able to absorb what's happening.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ALC

DNF Review: "The Night Field" by Donna Glee Williams

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

"The Night Field" presents an intriguing ecological fable where Pyn-Poi must confront a toxic threat endangering her world. While the premise held promise, the execution fell short for me.

Despite the engaging premise of cultural and environmental conflict, the pacing lagged, and the characters lacked depth. The heavy-handed ecological themes hindered my connection to Pyn-Poi's journey.

Overall, "The Night Field" has potential for readers interested in nature-focused narratives, but it didn't captivate me enough to finish.

I attempted to listen to this a few times but to be honest found it very confusing, to the point that I had no clue what was going on. I don't think the narrator helped as I wasn't a fan and even as I got further into the book I didn't come round to them

My thanks to Quercus Audio for a review copy via NetGalley of the unabridged audiobook edition of ‘The Night Field’ by Donna Glee Williams. It is narrated by Debra Michaels.

I read the print edition of this novel in July 2023. I was delighted to learn that an audiobook edition had been released.

This novel is a beautifully constructed fable, set outside known time and space, that focuses upon the destruction of the environment and humankind’s relationship with nature; contrasting those peoples that honour the Earth with an authoritarian society that exploits and damages it.

In the Real the clans of the People live in harmony with nature until a creeping threat imperils their whole world as the annual rainfalls bring with them a noxious stench that begins to poison people, animals, insects, and plants alike.

The novel’s young protagonist, Pyn-Poi, feels a strong empathy with the trees, having learned from her father how to communicate with them. The distressed trees, who have their own short chapters, reach out to Pyn-Poi and urge her to climb to the land beyond the Wall, where it is believed that the Ancestors live and to seek their help.

Yet what she discovers there is nothing like anything that she could have imagined, a world and people very different to her own. Will she discover what is killing The Real? No further details to avoid spoilers.

Donna Glee Williams moves smoothly between a wide number of points of view, exploring Pyn-Poi’s life before and after her ascent of the Wall. These include a variety of people that she encounters in the town and later on the Farm, where all ‘tractees’ are forced to pick the white bolls of fibre, clearly referencing cotton fields. As noted above even the Trees that have sent her on this quest contribute to the narrative.

I loved the descriptive language used by Pyn-Poi; including of bees as whizzwings, biting insects as nibblers, and the vicious guard dogs of the Farm as fang-foes, though as she becomes used to her new life her language begins to change and she just refers to these as dogs and insects.

In her Acknowledgments Williams highlights the serious nonfictional issues that had inspired her to write ‘The Night Field’. I am very drawn to novels that feature nature, the environment, and trees, so this environmental fable proved a good fit.

With respect to the audiobook edition, this was my first experience of a work narrated by Debra Michaels. I felt that her reading was excellent. Her voice was warm and rich. I felt she especially brought Pyn-Poi and the Real vividly to life and subtly contrasted with those living beyond the Wall. It reminded me what an astonishing novel this was.

Overall, I found ‘The Night Field’ powerful and moving and applaud Donna Glee Williams’ skill in creating such a memorable novel and providing a vehicle for Pyn-Poi’s story.

It's a pretty good fantasy story that I felt was hobbled by the use of time-shifting in the narrative. There is some superb world-building that does a persuasive job of getting across the ecological message of the story.

The narration, for the most part, was excellent though there were some American accents she struggled with.

I enjoyed it but felt like I wanted to like it more than I did. Some the ideas in the book have stayed with me. Well worth listening to.

To be honest I was a bit confused a lot of the time and I wasn't a huge fan of the narrator which didn't help.

I enjoyed this story, the story was interesting and the characters were engaging.

I was swept away whilst being immersed in the story.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

To be perfectly honest, for most of this book, I had no clue what was going on. The time- and perspective shifts were hard to follow in the audio format, though I do believe that that was indeed the main problem here. Still, I felt like this book explained particularly few things about the world that it built up.

I did like the ecological perspective that this narrative focused on, even though I wasn't expecting it...and it did end up feeling a little...forced? Not the best word, but it's the best one coming to mind right now.
I think the many changes in perspective, while aiming to show the inner workings of the characters better, only made them feel flatter, more single-minded than they would have if we didn't get to hear them ramble on about being mad that Pyn-Poi was doing this and that for the third time.

All in all, it was okay, but it's not gonna enter my favorites, not even close.