This book stares into the face of cosmic horror. The cosmos blinks first.

(This is a repeat of my Amazon review!)

Reviewed in Canada on February 11, 2021

An investigative journalist who searches for what he thought was a scoop, and which quickly unfolds to become so much more than he bargained for.

When the journalist, Den, finds Gregor, the reclusive tech mogul everyone has been looking for, the book shifts gears and starts to really dig into the slow dread it's built up to this point The interaction between the two of them, as well as some other entities, is powerfully written and compelling.

I won't give too much away, but the progression of ideas Den and Gregor discuss, coupled with the unsettling implications of what those ideas could mean in reality... this is the kind of work that walks right up to what other cosmic horror stories might leave vague. And then it talks with what it finds on the other side. And builds things with them.

Jones deftly avoids being only an 'ideas' book, of characters just talking and philosophizing. He takes those conversations and extrapolates some truly terrifying realities. Often, this means that this book is excellent and compelling, but also difficult, as you let the ideas and implications roll around in your head. That said, the difficulty didn't reduce the momentum I brought to reading it, which only built up more to the intense conclusion of the story.

The book is also a challenge, because there were parts of me that wanted to join the chat with Den and Gregor, wanting to offer another idea or interpretation. I can't remember the last time I wanted to debate a book, or at least a book that I was also loving the whole way through.

Jones has written a novel that melds so many of it's inspirations into a wholly new thing. It is both a novel, literally, and it is a novel interpretation of the concepts. I'm glad I read it. You should read it too! ( )