Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 12, 2024 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Those Beyond the Wall is a "stand-alone" sequel to Micaiah Johnson's "The Space Between Worlds". I say "stand-alone" in quotes because to be honest, this book relies too heavily on the character and background setup of TSBW for me to really believe that a reader could skip TSBW and not be very confused here. But well The Space Between Worlds is one of my favorite books of the last five years as it used its story of multiversal travel to tell a story about class, race, family and love, and even included a F/F romantic subplot. So a sequel was something I really was excited for, although I was a bit nervous due to how perfect I found that book's ending.
Those Beyond the Wall warns the reader however that this is a very different kind of book from the start (via an author's note) and that while this is still in some ways a story about love, it is very much also a story about righteous rage. It uses the multiversal-rules of the first book, along with its setup of a rich city with walls and tech that keeps out the poor and undesirable who are thus forced to live in a Mad Max-esque desert land, to tell a story of inequality and rage against injustice, with our main character Mr. Scales meaning well at heart but more and more willing to channel violence towards solving the injustice she and those around her suffer. And the story deals well with issues of love, self-hate, abuse, and more, for what should be a pretty powerful tale. And yet, my feelings towards this book were complicated by how it sort of took apart The Space Between Worlds' happy ending, reinterpreted certain characters from that book in ways that didn't quite make sense to me, and sort of made it hard for me to concentrate on this book's ideas and message.
Plot Summary:
To everyone else, Mr. Scales is just a mechanic who works for Emperor Nik Nik, the warlord who rules Ashtown...even if Mr. Scales is known to some for being an incredibly strong fighter and a loyal runner. But Mr. Scales hides a wild and sometimes tragic past, one that connects him to the Emperor in a way no one else knows. And Mr. Scales also only barely hides a fury within her, a rage that her time living in and working at The House could only temper, one which she tries hard not to let out of control.
But when a House worker whom Scales knows dies horribly in front of her in mysterious fashion, Scales is desperate to find out who is responsible. And that investigation will force Scales to work with a runner whom she can barely stand and to look into the doings of the rich, wealthy and spoiled who live inside the walls of Wiley City...and whose actions might be responsible for dooming them all. And Scales will find out that saving them all from both the murderous force and the ungrateful oppressing bastards of Wiley will require her to grow into a role she never wanted....and to unleash her rage in a way that will change both Ashtown and Wiley....forever.
Let me be upfront here: Those Beyond the Wall is sold as a stand-alone, but I have no idea how it can be read without reading The Space Between Worlds first. Besides the fact that numerous major characters here originated in that book (main character Mr. Scales is a very minor character in that book), a large part of this book's setup requires you to understand this story's take on multiversal travel and its consequences, and the book doesn't ever stop to re-explain it. I suppose you might be able to figure it out from context, but I doubt you will, and certain character relationships here come straight from that book, which took place a few years before this one.
This is, however, extremely awkward because Those Beyond the Wall takes a VERY different tone - full of righteous fury and absolutely against any ideas of reconciliation between the wealthy Wiley city and Ashtown - than The Space Between Worlds and in trying to set this tone, it uses some of the old characters in ways that didn't really seem to make any sense based upon their actions in that first book. It also kind of rips apart some of the hopeful happy ending of that book's main character Cara (who is a major character here), which didn't love, and the inconsistencies in characters from book to book can't really just be explained by the change in first person narrator. For some readers this won't be a problem I guess, but for me this was something that constantly bothered me throughout reading this book as I just had a hard time believing how certain characters were acting. So I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who hasn't read TSBW, but at the same time I suspect TSBW readers are going to have more problems with character actions than nonreaders - which is just awkward.
That's a lot of text in this review for what seems like a negative, and I really don't want to give the impression that this book is a negative, because it's not. The main protagonist, Mr. Scales, is a fascinating character to follow and her character arc is incredibly strong. Scales is a young woman who hides a powerful rage from abuse, and feels constantly overlooked due to her "ugly" looks - one personal issue for her is her crush on her best friend Mr. Cheeks, which he never seems to ever realize and no one ever seems to suggest could become reciprocated seemingly just because he's known for being so pretty, which bothers her even more than the fact that he doesn't reciprocate. She hates those who are privileged and who enjoy protection of the City or who hate on people due to dogma just for being who they are - for being sexually active, for being queer, etc. (Scales takes no preference in the gender/sex of her partners and is very clear about calling people only how they want to be called) - and finds it hard to let go of that hate and anger when dealing with people who were once part of those circles - such as her new partner here, Mr. Cross (a man who used to spread hate filled dogma of the Rurals Church before the church and Mr. Cross changed). And she is desperate to help the Emperor because he, even if he can't show it openly, is the first one to ever make her feel wanted like family. There's also a lot of self-loathing in Scales due to the abuse she's suffered, and the story uses all of the above to tell a tale about love, hate, and learning to both share one's self, love one's self, and be willing to be honest to one's self in terms of what one wants and loves. It's a really good arc.
Also a strong and powerful arc - which fits in with the above even if it is a major tonal shift from TSBW - is the story's plot arc as Scales and the Ashtown characters struggle with first saving themselves from multiversal invaders and from the backstabbing greedy ways of the peoples from the more literal other "world" - those from Wiley who need the Emperor and his allies' help to survive but would sooner then betray them than share the results of such help. Scales and the book comes to realize that the walls that keep Wiley-ites separated from Ashtown and keep its good atmosphere and land in are untenable if justice is ever to be served...there is no way that people can live in the ways they deserve if this segregation and apartheid system is ever allowed to continue. And so the book argues, this system must be torn down, no matter possibly the cost....although Scales and her allies need to find a way to do so without the greater world being so offended at their actions that they bring down unstoppable weapons of war to kill them all.
It's not at all a subtle plot, with its themes of violence and rage being necessary to correct such horrible injustices being worn right on its sleeve, but it mostly works really well and powerfully. The book kind of forgets near the end its issues dealing with the multiversal invaders (who are at times thought of seemingly by the book as refugees from a dying world, but the book never deals with the implications of that or how the characters' react to that) but for what it's going for, the book's themes and powers really work. I just wish the story had been set more clearly in a different setting so that it didn't have the disharmony issues with TSBW to frustrate me. Or perhaps that discomfort is the author's point and the author intended to repudiate TSBW....but it doesn't quite feel like it. All in all, well worth a read, with the above caveats.
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