Thursday, January 19, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC Audiobook (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 27, 2022 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.

The Genesis of Misery is the first full length novel from author Neon Yang, who previously wrote the Tensorate Novellas - which began with the acclaimed The Black Tides of Heaven. Those novellas were fantastic stories dealing with queer East-Asian (silkpunk) inspired settings and fascinating and often morally questionable characters and I was really excited to get an early copy of The Genesis of Misery to read as a result.

And The Genesis of Misery is a fascinating science fantasy space opera-y novel, although it kind of feels a little incomplete as the first novel in a trilogy. The story follows the origins of Misery Nomaki (She/They), who believes herself to be infected with a deadly void disease causing delusions but has made others believe they are a prophecized messiah, one who will break the stalemate in a fight betweeen faithful believers and heretics. Along the way we have love, sex, mecha fights, magic-like use of "holy" materials, giant space battles and more as Misery begins to believe in her own divinity...before things obviously go very wrong. The story works thanks to how entertaining its main character is, the irreverent, cynical, and fly-by-the-seat-of-their pants character of Misery. It's also really interesting as it deals with ideas about truths, beliefs, and faith, and how even one who doesn't believe can blind themselves by tricking themselves into it. However, the book ends its run just as revelations were finally being made about what was really happening, which left me not quite fully satisfied, although I desperately want for more.



--------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------
Misery Nomaki (She/They)'s mother died due to Voidmadness, and as a result Misery is familiar with the signs of being Voidmad. So Misery believes that the delusional being that only she can see, a being called "Ruin", is a sign that they are voidmad, with Misery's death a certainty. But following Ruin's advice resulted in her triggering an alarm that saved her poor outer colony of Rootsdown from an attack by Heretics, and led to Misery being called by others the prophecied ninth Messiah of the Larex Forge.

Now Misery finds themself caught up in a conflict between the Throne - which has established a tenuous truce with the Heretics - and the Faith of the Larex Forge, who believes the truce unwise and that Misery can end the conflict. And after a flex of Misery's ability to control holystone results in hundreds dead, Misery finds themselves part of a seditious movement to take down the heretics, through the use of Misery's powers as channeled through a holy mecha, a Seraph.

But Misery knows that she must be a fraud, with Ruin being nothing more than a delusion like the ones her mother suffered prior to her death, and that the strange dreams she has of various people are only further delusions that will be revealed the moment Misery fails to be able to lead her team of Seraphs to victory. But as Misery begins to succeed over and over, she starts to believe in her own divinity, and starts to ask the question: If she really is a messiah, what does that mean for herself and the universe?

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The story of this book is told by an unidentified non-human narrator (until the end) to another unidentified character, albeit human, with the narrator largely following Misery's story and perspective, except in Interludes where the narrator starts talking in third person from a distance, hinting at what will play out. It's a really effective style of writing that allows for the narrator to set up this world's background and to hint at events not quite being as true as the people we see really believe (a central theme of this book). And that background setup is really interesting and cool - as explained in an early Interludes - the book takes place in a distant future after a generation ship of humans had to cast off its AI before it froze them possibly forever, and were seemingly saved by a godlike being or object that conveyed powers over certain holy types of material....and different beliefs about that godlike entity resulted in the conflict between the Faithful and the Heretics, whose views are only hinted at (that the godlike being or object is not godlike but is of more technological origins).

In that story we have our heroine, Misery Nomaki, and the other characters she meets along the way. Misery is not a believer of the Faith at first, believing herself to be Voidtouched and doomed to die, and that her powers - seemingly unheard of control over Holy Stones/Materials - are just the short term result of that. She thinks of herself as a con-artist doomed to be exposed, who at first is desperate to get away from it all before people of power grab at her and force her to be their messiah, even as she sees this supposed genderless angel in "Ruin". Misery has a good reason for this non-belief, she comes from a poor outer colony far away from power, her mom was seemingly delusional before dying due to voidsickness and her brother grew up devout and was basically an abusive parent towards her due to how Misery was a burden. And yet Misery has a more than a bit of righteousness to herself despite her seeming non-believing, especially at seeing the hypocrisy of those in power, who are led by a ruler who isn't a "Saint" chosen by the holystone (a fact that is hidden from the populace) and whose rich people are trying to manufacture their own saints rather than letting the Larex Forge naturally choose...And Misery isn't a good person necessarily, she doesn't really care about the well beings of others she doesn't know, she just wants to survive and hates hypocrisy and others' who claim to be devoted but not acting upon it, and combined with her power this leads to some pretty monstrous and brutal actions.

And that may be hypocrisy in and of itself, except that Misery WANTS to believe; wants to believe there is some divine destiny for herself when things keep coming true as Ruin tells them to her and coincidences pile up. With the world so shitty as it is, who wouldn't want to believe there is some divine destiny for herself? And that leads her to imprisonment then freedom and into a divine mecha alongside a team of similar people whose faiths were shattered and find it in Misery to regain it, believing once more than their hardships were simply part of some divine plan that they are now going to get satisfaction from. The characters and their portrayal, starting with Misery, work really well at illustrating this belief, with Misery sharing platitudes even as she remains cynical and irreverent in her internal monologue, even if she claims she hates the bullshit she's spouting. And of course in the bit parts where Misery is given hints of truths that might contradict this worldview, that she is a divine messiah meant to fight Heretics who MUST be wrong and evil and not people, her belief is so strong that she cannot shake such beliefs - as one character puts it in the end "No one can convinece her of a truth she doesn't sell herself."

And the world that this book takes place in is highly innovative and really fun to see even as it deals with all of this, from the Seraph Mechas, to Misery's power over holystone, to the space battles and more. The book is dedicated to "fellow EVA copilots" and well you can see the Evangelion influence here, and its an influence that's done incredibly well, such that you can see it but it never feels like a stale copy. This is cool and fun and interesting, with strong characters in Misery and her supporting cast, and a really interesting universe to see how things turnout.

The only problem really is that, like a lot of books I complain about, the book uses as a cliffhanger a moment that you know is coming, and so it's not satisfying for it to turn out that way. Without spoiling, I will just say that you the reader have to know from the intro and just how the book is told that Misery's belief in her own divinity is wrong and that something is going to go horribly wrong when she continues to follow the being known "Ruin" - and well it does, but the book ends before we really get to see the implications of that ending. How is Misery wrong and what's really going on? We only get glimpses, with that saved for book 2, and that makes things quite frustrating and unsatisfying. The Journey here is excellent and plenty happens, so this is not some first novel that is completely unsatisfying (like in the worst examples of books I complain about) and I'm happy to continue this series and find out but I kind of wish we got like 2-3 more chapters before this book ended, to get more clarity on the reveals.

But other than that I really liked the Genesis of Misery and would definitely recommend, so I do suggest it for readers looking for really interesting space fantasy opera or EVA like books, who want fun different action but also some underlying ideas behind it all.

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