2030. The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent ahead to set it up in disarray.
In the four years since they arrived, the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each robot must be interrogated. But one of them is missing.
As the astronauts close in on the truth, it dawns on them that in this barren, hostile landscape – where even the machines have nightmares – none of them is safe.
🧡🧡🧡.5
Hi and welcome to my review of Exiles!
I always knew this was a risk, as I’m not that much of a sci-fi reader, let alone a space opera reader, but I do like to expand my horizons and I loved this author’s William, so I decided to go for it anyway. I ended up with mixed feelings.
Exiles takes us to Mars, alongside a crew of three humans (one of which the woman from whose POV the story is told) and three robots, who were sent ahead to get things ready for the humans. But apparently, things started going wrong before the human crew even get there, and it’s clear that the mission won’t be going as planned.
As I’m mulling it over, I think I appreciate this story more in hindsight than I did when I was actually reading it. It took me a while to get into the story, to get a sense of what I was dealing with, of what the author was trying to do. I think I expected more action, or more creepiness. Now I see that the author was very subtly building up to that, that it was more of a psychological game than I realised at the time. There were also a couple of things that bugged me while I was reading, because I kept thinking they made no sense at all, but in the end, they made perfect sense, I’d just picked up on the clues that something (and someone) was off, I just failed to put two and two together.
Overall, while Exiles didn’t quite deliver all I’d hoped it would, I did have a good time with it and if you’re at all curious about it, I’d urge you to give it a try.
Exiles is out in digital formats, audio and hardcover on 18 September.
Thanks to John Murray Press (Baskerville) and NetGalley for the DRC. All opinions are my own.
Fab review! I’ve been reading more sci-fi this year than usual, and that premise definitely has me curious. The fact that it is more psychological has me a bit worried though, because Fickle Frieda is never far away and I tend to prefer more action-focused books at the moment. xD
Thank you 💜 I agree, your Fickle Frieda might not be happy with this one 🙈😂