Strap in because Metal From Heaven by August Clarke is one dark, mean, but spirited fantasy novel that takes a swing at capitalism and lands its fists.
Marney Honeycutt just watched everyone she knew get cut down in the streets of Ignavia City. Industry Yann Chauncey heard the workers cry out for better conditions and to have their “lustre touched” condition researched. He answered the only way he knew how, with death and violence. Marney is the only survivor, and happens to be lustre touched herself, making her escape on a train outside the city with the help of bandit women calling themselves the Choir. A decade later Marney is known as the “Whip Spider,” and has the opportunity for revenge. Chauncey’s daughter is looking for a suitor, and Marney will pretend to be an aristocrat just to get a shot at Chauncey. But will she do it before a war that will change everything?
Metal From Heaven snuck up on me. I was enthralled by the idea, but since I had no expectations from Clarke, I was worried it would fall into a cookie cutter “romantasy” with trappings of industrial worker action. While the bombastic start chipped away at my cold heart, it wasn’t until Marney was pulled into the sway of the Choir that I began to be swallowed by Clarke’s narrative. Her entry into the life of crime, becoming one of the most notorious brigands in the industrialized world was seductive, though harsh. Clarke pulled down my defenses with ease and panache, to the point that I forgot they even existed. It helped that most of the story leads up to the synopsis, building up Marney and the many men and women of the Choir and its allies.
It also didn’t hurt that Clarke is just a damn good writer. I don’t know what’s in the sauce these days, but I’ve read quite a few books this year from newer writers who have amazing prose. Clarke gets you to really feel how Marney feels through the story. Her cynical view, but deep abiding love for the women she fights with and for. The gritty world in which they exist ventilates off the page like smokestacks without a filter. A second person perspective was employed to incredible effect, giving Marney a real voice, and implicating the reader within her life, and the world she lives in. It really pays off in big ways as the story continues, and Clarke absolutely destroyed me with its implications. The slow burn of its use, the perfectly timed and inconsistent reminders that Marney is talking to you, and where it ultimately leads, left me speechless. I want to hug Clarke for it.
The worldbuilding is complex and rich, though it may leave some confused. Clarke employs a vagueness to a lot of the cultural worldbuilding. I don’t mean this in the sense of they wave their hands and it’s just “that’s how it works.” It’s more that they approach it from the character’s perspective in their own world. The religions and cultures that intertwine have their surfaces scratched in a way that someone who kind of knows the tenets would. It makes navigating their differences an interesting problem, and forces Marney to truly read her opponent’s and friends on a deeper level. It avoids generalizations and plays with the idea that these systems and beliefs have changed over time and influenced each other. Marney clearly understands her own religion and the ties that bind her to it, but has a spectrum of knowledge around the others, depending on her closeness to those who practice. It feels fresh and exciting having to navigate the world and understand how it would make one’s head spin. The various faiths and cultures are also described deliciously with Marney’s calculating attention to detail too. As the reader, you feel like you’re inside her head as she decides her next move.
That’s not to forget the gender and sex politics that grow between every crack in the book. They pop through in beautiful and gritty ways. They feel lived in, explored, and fluid. I don’t know if they used historical vocabulary or invented their own (rudimentary searches yielded nothing), but it really drew me in. I’m a sucker for these kinds of things because I was raised a particular way, despite the lack of religion in my life. But watching Marney come into herself, have relations with other women, and navigate her friendships was as delightful as it was heartbreaking. I also really adored that it didn’t feel like it “got in the way,” in the sense that Marney was able to have room for her romantic, sexual, and political interests. They didn’t confuse each other. They weren’t clean-cut either, but neither of them hampered the progress of the story in a way that one could expect in a story billed as a sapphic revenge romance. Again it wasn’t pretty, but it really pulled me in to see it so up front. Also, easily some of the most exhilarating sex scenes I’ve read in a while.
But Clarke doesn’t just stop their worldbuilding there. After all, their world is on the cusp of an industrial revolution. Industry Yann Chauncey wants to be the sole provider of Ichorite and the progress it promises, and boy, does Clarke indulge the reader here. I will preface this by saying I am a certain type of freak. I love seeing someone build a system, describe it, and set it into motion. I want the details, the academic understanding coated with a venomous loathing for its processes, and by god did Clarke deliver for me. Your mileage may vary, but if you want an intimate fictional look at how land possession, industrial processes, capital accumulation, and the rigidness of landed aristocracy all clash together, then Metal From Heaven is for you. The dance that the Choir and its allies have to perform in order to maintain their secret while preparing for a war they know is coming is captivating. They take their enemies seriously, plan accordingly and don’t take any half-measures. These aren’t plans made by children in the vague hope that something will work out. They are prepared to slap the lion in the face with their bare hands and keep fighting after it’s awakened. And it works so well because Clarke has built a material world in which these different ideologies and ways of living exist. There are no maps, but you can feel the geography, feel the resources that are being described, and know the elites who won’t give them up to some upstart. It made my heart sing to read the descriptions Clarke gives of this world, and the kind of progress that Chauncey and his protege are planning to rip from the ground and the hands of their workers.
Those things would make a good book on their own, and I’d be satisfied, but Clarke had to go and write an excellent character in Marney Honeycutt. Characters for me are usually just a good vehicle for the story, allowing me to delve through the themes an author wants to present. But on rare occasions, I really latch onto a character, and Marney is one of them. She’s badass, smart, notorious to her enemies, and reliable amongst friends, but most of all, she is truly devoted. She does it for her loved ones and the promise of the hereafter. Every obstacle is just another chance to rededicate herself to the cause. It is both some far-off idea that she will never obtain, but also just within grasp if she reaches far enough. Her own well-being is a chip to be played, not one to hold onto dearly. It’s inspirational and heroic in a very specific sense, even though it’s portrayed as what one does.
The last thing I want to mention, even though I could wax on and on about this book, is Clarke absolutely delivers on the ending. I want to talk about it so badly, but it’s something to behold. Clarke uses everything they have set up through the rest of the book to tell a truly unique ending. A beautiful conclusion that is borne through suffering and perseverance. It’s something to aspire to.
Metal From Heaven is one of my top books of the year. It’s well-paced, filled with character, world, emotion, grit, sex, pulp, and the promise that there is work to be done, just not the work you’re told to do. It’s deliciously written front to back and owns its premise. The acknowledgments were a real treat, and Clarke wears their influences with pride. Pick this up. It’s brutal, but it punches up while showing you there is still a fight worth winning.
Rating: Metal From Heaven – Divine.
-Alex
