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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
medium-paced
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This wasn’t what I thought it was, and after looking at some reviews, I was dubious about enjoying it.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu caught my eye when it was described as a "A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller". I mean, come ON?!
The year is 2047, and something is rotten in Elsinore Labs. Hayden Lichfield has walked into his father's laboratory and found him dead. There are several hours of camera footage missing from Horatio, the lab's AI operating system.
As the building quickly goes into lockdown, shutting the five remaining living people inside, Hayden tries to figure out what exactly happened his father. More importantly, he needs to protect the research that he and his father were working on - The Sisyphus Project could be the secret to eternal life. If someone would kill for it, then everyone there is in danger. He's relying on Horatio (his constant companion throughout the project) and the questionable loyalty of an ex in order to protect his work and avenge his father's death - but does he have enough time?
As the story progresses, we have extracts from interviews given after the event, and a book written by Felicia, the aforementioned ex. This makes for an engaging, yet tense reading experience as we go back and forth between waiting for the characters to catch up with us, and us to catch up with the characters.
The queer element of the story comes from the (frankly adorable) operating system, Horatio. He was such a fantastic character, and I got really emotionally attached to him (I cried 😌)
It's definitely full of action and deception, but it's also full of emotion. If you're familiar with the plot of Hamlet, you'll likely know what's happening from the off - if you're not, I would not look it up. Just go with it and enjoy this for what it is - an unusual, clever sci-fi adventure with a lot of heart.
I did get an advance copy of the book from Netgalley, but I had pre-ordered it the second I heard about it in 2023.
Nonetheless, I sincerely thank @solarisbooks for granting me eARC approval! I read this a couple of weeks ago and it's one I keep thinking about. I really liked it.
#sharonreadthis24 #TheDeathIGaveHim
The year is 2047, and something is rotten in Elsinore Labs. Hayden Lichfield has walked into his father's laboratory and found him dead. There are several hours of camera footage missing from Horatio, the lab's AI operating system.
As the building quickly goes into lockdown, shutting the five remaining living people inside, Hayden tries to figure out what exactly happened his father. More importantly, he needs to protect the research that he and his father were working on - The Sisyphus Project could be the secret to eternal life. If someone would kill for it, then everyone there is in danger. He's relying on Horatio (his constant companion throughout the project) and the questionable loyalty of an ex in order to protect his work and avenge his father's death - but does he have enough time?
As the story progresses, we have extracts from interviews given after the event, and a book written by Felicia, the aforementioned ex. This makes for an engaging, yet tense reading experience as we go back and forth between waiting for the characters to catch up with us, and us to catch up with the characters.
The queer element of the story comes from the (frankly adorable) operating system, Horatio. He was such a fantastic character, and I got really emotionally attached to him (I cried 😌)
It's definitely full of action and deception, but it's also full of emotion. If you're familiar with the plot of Hamlet, you'll likely know what's happening from the off - if you're not, I would not look it up. Just go with it and enjoy this for what it is - an unusual, clever sci-fi adventure with a lot of heart.
I did get an advance copy of the book from Netgalley, but I had pre-ordered it the second I heard about it in 2023.
Nonetheless, I sincerely thank @solarisbooks for granting me eARC approval! I read this a couple of weeks ago and it's one I keep thinking about. I really liked it.
#sharonreadthis24 #TheDeathIGaveHim
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
This book is pretty good. The romance is sweet. It's a quick read; fast-paced. But it was just...good.
I've read Hamlet, and perhaps it's unfair to compare anything to Shakespeare, but sincerely...the play was just better. I enjoyed the complexity and mystery of the characters in Hamlet, and not like the characters here aren't complex and mysterious, but they're a lot...less so. Their motivations are mostly pretty clear, even if their moralities aren't. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, and this book is pretty short and straightforward. There's really only one plotline. Also, I'm not too sure how I feel about the structure. I get that it's part of the whole retelling thing, modernizing the way the story is told as much as the story itself, but I don't know if that made the experience any better. I think I would have appreciated it just as much as if it were a "normal" narrative.
I've never wondered how an AI system (without a body) could fuck a human but I don't think I needed to know.
I've read Hamlet, and perhaps it's unfair to compare anything to Shakespeare, but sincerely...the play was just better. I enjoyed the complexity and mystery of the characters in Hamlet, and not like the characters here aren't complex and mysterious, but they're a lot...less so. Their motivations are mostly pretty clear, even if their moralities aren't. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, and this book is pretty short and straightforward. There's really only one plotline. Also, I'm not too sure how I feel about the structure. I get that it's part of the whole retelling thing, modernizing the way the story is told as much as the story itself, but I don't know if that made the experience any better. I think I would have appreciated it just as much as if it were a "normal" narrative.
I've never wondered how an AI system (without a body) could fuck a human but I don't think I needed to know.
THE DEATH I GAVE HIM is a bold, unique Hamlet retelling that emphasizes its source text’s insular and intimate environment through the form of a locked-room thriller and hinges itself on themes of mortality and mental illness.
The book itself takes the form of a fictional novel written by an unnamed third party attempting to organize public documentation and private speculations into a cohesive tale recounting one particularly tragic and terrible night.
Open on Elsinore, a place of myth and speculation. A place where two men, father and son, play God behind closed doors to achieve miracles that defy life as we know it. A place with as many secrets as the man who founded it.
And that man is now dead. But how, and why?
Enter the suspects, the only other human beings left in Elsinore this quiet night: Hayden Lichfield, the scientist’s son, who would do just about anything to escape death. Charles, the scientist’s brother and Hayden’s uncle. Paul Xia, Charles’ right hand man. Felicia, Paul’s daughter and Hayden’s ex-girlfriend, who happens to be shadowing her father on this particular evening. Gabriel Rasmussen, a young, dutiful security guard. And watching over them all is Elsinore’s advanced AI security system and data interface: Horatio.
The choice to make Horatio the literal sentient security system of this story’s location is maybe my favorite choice I’ve ever seen made in a retelling of anything, ever.
Hamlet is no stranger to surveillance-heavy adaptations. Famously, Hamlet (2009) directed by Gregory Doran and starring David Tennant as well as Hamlet (2018) directed by Robert Icke and starring Andrew Scott, utilize security footage to cast a shadow of scrutiny over the play’s events. Modern adaptations may gravitate towards security systems as a storytelling mode because of how easily they translate into the world of Hamlet, a play riddled with discussions of private knowledge vs public knowledge, a constant occupation with eavesdropping as well as bearing witness, and perhaps mostly: immense amounts of interrogation.
THE DEATH I GAVE HIM, through a surveillance-driven lens, inherently places itself in a difficult position: in company with those two previously mentioned, beloved adaptations. But I think Liu brings the right perspective to this conversation. While these two other adaptations use surveillance mostly to add a contemporary understanding of political, public, and private pressure on Hamlet’s behavior, THE DEATH I GAVE HIM takes this surveillance a step further. It does of course add that atmosphere of claustrophobia, but this version also asks: what if the surveillance is not solely a constraint, but an aid?
As anyone will learn in any kind of academic introduction to Hamlet, Horatio’s role is one of great importance: the storyteller. It is his job, throughout the whole play, to bear witness. In Hamlet’s words, Horatio “hast been As one in suffering all that suffers nothing, A man that Fortunes’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks.” That is to say, a man unaffected. He is not, as the others are, “passion’s slave,” but is rather an innocent witnessing party. His main (and perhaps only) investment is in Hamlet’s wellbeing as his lover dear friend. And at the end of the play, he is the only one left standing, burdened with the task of conveying the events as they played out.
So translating Horatio into this story as not only a sentient building–as the home for the story itself–but also as a data interface and therefore a literal vessel of memory and information, is no less than absolutely fucking genius.
Throughout the story, Horatio’s POV is expressed in a couple of formats, mostly video surveillance and an AI data system log. The data system log is transcribed as a consistent narration, a train of thought replicating that of a human’s, giving him a uniquely biased and yet theoretically objective viewpoint. Who knew AIs could be filled with such queer yearning?
At the beginning of the story, Horatio finds Hayden with his father’s body. Scared, grieving, and uncertain, Hayden decides he needs an ally in his investigation into his father’s death. He needs someone to steady him, but he also needs insurance. Fortunately, his father set up a memory upload system in Horatio years ago, something Hayden had connection to but never turned on, until now. Once activated, this system achieves two things:
The book itself takes the form of a fictional novel written by an unnamed third party attempting to organize public documentation and private speculations into a cohesive tale recounting one particularly tragic and terrible night.
Open on Elsinore, a place of myth and speculation. A place where two men, father and son, play God behind closed doors to achieve miracles that defy life as we know it. A place with as many secrets as the man who founded it.
And that man is now dead. But how, and why?
Enter the suspects, the only other human beings left in Elsinore this quiet night: Hayden Lichfield, the scientist’s son, who would do just about anything to escape death. Charles, the scientist’s brother and Hayden’s uncle. Paul Xia, Charles’ right hand man. Felicia, Paul’s daughter and Hayden’s ex-girlfriend, who happens to be shadowing her father on this particular evening. Gabriel Rasmussen, a young, dutiful security guard. And watching over them all is Elsinore’s advanced AI security system and data interface: Horatio.
The choice to make Horatio the literal sentient security system of this story’s location is maybe my favorite choice I’ve ever seen made in a retelling of anything, ever.
Hamlet is no stranger to surveillance-heavy adaptations. Famously, Hamlet (2009) directed by Gregory Doran and starring David Tennant as well as Hamlet (2018) directed by Robert Icke and starring Andrew Scott, utilize security footage to cast a shadow of scrutiny over the play’s events. Modern adaptations may gravitate towards security systems as a storytelling mode because of how easily they translate into the world of Hamlet, a play riddled with discussions of private knowledge vs public knowledge, a constant occupation with eavesdropping as well as bearing witness, and perhaps mostly: immense amounts of interrogation.
THE DEATH I GAVE HIM, through a surveillance-driven lens, inherently places itself in a difficult position: in company with those two previously mentioned, beloved adaptations. But I think Liu brings the right perspective to this conversation. While these two other adaptations use surveillance mostly to add a contemporary understanding of political, public, and private pressure on Hamlet’s behavior, THE DEATH I GAVE HIM takes this surveillance a step further. It does of course add that atmosphere of claustrophobia, but this version also asks: what if the surveillance is not solely a constraint, but an aid?
As anyone will learn in any kind of academic introduction to Hamlet, Horatio’s role is one of great importance: the storyteller. It is his job, throughout the whole play, to bear witness. In Hamlet’s words, Horatio “hast been As one in suffering all that suffers nothing, A man that Fortunes’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks.” That is to say, a man unaffected. He is not, as the others are, “passion’s slave,” but is rather an innocent witnessing party. His main (and perhaps only) investment is in Hamlet’s wellbeing as his lover dear friend. And at the end of the play, he is the only one left standing, burdened with the task of conveying the events as they played out.
So translating Horatio into this story as not only a sentient building–as the home for the story itself–but also as a data interface and therefore a literal vessel of memory and information, is no less than absolutely fucking genius.
Throughout the story, Horatio’s POV is expressed in a couple of formats, mostly video surveillance and an AI data system log. The data system log is transcribed as a consistent narration, a train of thought replicating that of a human’s, giving him a uniquely biased and yet theoretically objective viewpoint. Who knew AIs could be filled with such queer yearning?
At the beginning of the story, Horatio finds Hayden with his father’s body. Scared, grieving, and uncertain, Hayden decides he needs an ally in his investigation into his father’s death. He needs someone to steady him, but he also needs insurance. Fortunately, his father set up a memory upload system in Horatio years ago, something Hayden had connection to but never turned on, until now. Once activated, this system achieves two things:
- Hayden’s memory is now uploaded into Horatio’s data system. This allows Hayden a narrative POV, his thoughts and experiences transcribed similarly to that of Horatio’s.
And Hayden is a fascinating character and a truly brilliant interpretation of Hamlet. As I mentioned earlier, Hayden’s foundational character trait is his desperate fear of death, to an irrational point. He is constantly spiraling down rabbit holes about bodily deterioration, regularly checks his pulse to ensure he’s still alive, and has spent years working incredibly hard on a formula to eradicate death altogether.
But fascinatingly, at the same time, Hayden does not want to live. He spends much of the book fairly suicidal (which is probably unsurprising to anyone who knows anything about Hamlet, the “to be or not to be” soliloquy being literally just Hamlet philosophizing over whether or not he should kill himself). I can not give enough praise to Liu in creating such a juicy character conflict: desperately not wanting to live but endlessly haunted with a phobia of dying. It allows Hayden to feel full of friction and narrative tension even in stillness, an ever-swirling storm. But, it, more than anything, perfectly represents these core pillars of Hamlet as a character, though put through a pressure cooker. Hamlet may be preoccupied with the memento mori, but Hayden becomes memento mori, straddling life and death in every constant moment. - Now connected to Hayden through his nervous system, Horatio is actually able to… occupy that system.
This, of course, meaning that Horatio can read Hayden’s mind, so that they’re able to communicate through thoughts alone.
For many, many reasons, Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is one of my favorite parts of Hamlet. We see this concept of bodily occupation and ownership between Hamlet and Horatio in the text of Hamlet itself: “I will wear him. In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.” Hayden may not literally wear AI Horatio in his heart’s core, but he certainly does wear him in his mind.
And Liu’s tangible representation of their intertwined hearts, minds, and beings is so well done. Having Hayden inside Horatio and Horatio inside of Hayden produces an inherent eroticism as tenants of each others’ bodies, and a constant intimacy to their relationship despite the distance created by the epistolary format. And this of course, helps the queer romantic element of the book to really pay off. I won’t go into too much detail, but I was not expecting this book to get remotely as spicy as it did. (I would’ve loved some eroticism with the surveillance elements and the fact that Horatio’s body is the building, but I did really like what was done on page!)
And then we have one more POV in this book: Felicia. Felicia’s narrative format, rather than memory data, is featured through interviews and writing of her own, discussing the events in retrospect. This provides a really interesting relationship between her POV and that of Hayden’s and Horatio’s. Theirs are told in third person present tense, offering a sense of distance to the reader but an immediacy and intimacy to the circumstance, while Felicia’s is told in first person past tense, providing the audience with the feeling of being close to the narrator, but distance from the circumstance.
Felicia is a really brilliant Ophelia. Liu takes the bare bones of Shakespeare’s character and adds so much meat to them. This Ophelia holds so much agency, adds a really crucial perspective to this chaotic environment, and truly balances out this world and this cast. And on top of her characterization, her POV being through her own chosen words and through a more traditional format grounds the reader, adding a sense of relatability in this high-stakes futuristic environment.
Now, here is where I do have a bit of a gripe. While this book’s strengths lie in its choices, its weaknesses lie in the utilization of them. Liu meticulously carved themselves a literary tool belt of pure narrative gold, but sometimes used a chisel when a mallet would’ve covered more ground. It wasn’t that they used a less effective tool, as all their tools were highly effective and well-prepped, but that they just struggled to know which tool to use at what time in order to optimize their craft.
Because when I explain these different POVs, you would likely think that Horatio’s POV–as the sentient setting of the story and famously being titled The Storyteller of Hamlet, therefore being in the best position to be narrator both in terms of the retelling and in terms of the story at hand–would dominate the text, with Hayden and Felicia’s POVs to flesh the narrative out when necessary. Because one of the characters is literally a sentient security system who can read the mind and feelings of one of your other characters, so why would you not try to get as much mileage out of that as physically possible? Plus, since there are parts of the building Horatio couldn’t see into, it would make those moments outside of his POV feel all the more impactful. But that is tragically not the case.
In fact, this book doesn’t even have equal balance of the three narrators. I’d actually estimate that about 2/3 of the book is from Felicia’s POV, gaining frequency as the story goes on. Which is SO infuriating. Because though she is a great character, I unfortunately became sick of her, especially with her textual format being the least interesting conceptually of the three. Not that her POV is bad by any means, but it is set up to be–as I said–a great grounding element, something to bring us readers back down to earth. But her reflective tone, her distance from the core conflict, and her lack of a relationship to surveillance, inherently makes her less useful as a dominating narration. Being in her POV limits our access to the absolutely scrumptious elements at play, so I didn’t understand why she is our primary voice. I found myself groaning when I saw her name at the top of chapters, starving for an insight into Hayden’s ever-shifting mood or begging for a crumb of the delicious nectar of Horatio’s POV (again, GAY SENTIENT SECURITY SYSTEM OCCUPYING ANOTHER CHARACTER’S MIND). This didn’t ruin the story for me by any means, but as I think back on this book, this grumbling of frustration sits deep in my stomach, and I think it is the book’s biggest failure.
This issue also comes into play with the use of the setting. Again, absolute raw genius on Liu’s part in dreaming this up. What better playground for Hamlet to take place in than a scientific lab focused on the manipulation of life and death, a lab built by a dead man, a treasure trove of secrets and power. And then of course, putting that space into lockdown, creating an urgency and constraint to the story. I will say, I feel like this book uses the claustrophobic elements of this setting to its benefit, but not so much the secretive elements. There are a few rooms that had been previously unknown to the characters left among these halls (including Horatio) until the start of the book, but those rooms are explored fairly early on and everything is divulged to the audience quite quickly. I think there were a few different ways these elements could have been elevated. Some of the events that take place in these rooms could have been held from the audience until the end, or the rooms could have been used more like escape room obstacles with the characters needing to find information to get inside, and one could have been really hard to get into until the very end of the book. It was just such a delicious and well-crafted environment that it felt almost wasteful to use it as this story did.
I also felt like at some point, we lose the thread of Hayden’s dad, Graham. With his death being the inciting incident of the story and his looming presence functioning as a driving force for so much of the book, it was odd to have his influence peter off at the end. There are a couple of moments where he “haunts” the characters towards the beginning, and I would have loved some return of this somehow at the end of the story. I do think there is some meaningful strength to be found in a growing absence, but with the entire book taking place in a building made of his dreams, secrets, and fears, I wished for just one more narrative punch from him (beyond the grave), even thematically, to carry out the end of the book.
The last thing I’ll mention about this struggle of tool usage is in relation to the frame of the story. Again, a REALLY cool idea. I loved the idea of this being a work written by an external party, cataloguing bits of information. There are scattered footnotes that add an extra textural layer of sci-fi world-building, and I would have liked some more context at the end of the story to help tie this all together, giving us some understanding of the impact of these events on the world and the scientific community. So much is teased through these footnotes without actually adding anything.
Lastly, I feel mixed about the ending. I won’t spoil anything, of course, and I’m running out of space here so I’ll keep it short. I like the commentary it left the story with. It thematically holds the right notes and is narratively satisfying, but I felt like there is more it could do in conversation with the source text. There are some stunning parallels I anticipated that never end up playing out, and maybe that’s just me being set up for disappointment by my own imagination, but it did partially let me down in that way. That aside, I found it to be an unexpected and interesting ending, one with a lot of loss but also a lot of hope, and it works really well for the narrative at hand.
Overall, despite my gripe and its manifestations, I actually really recommend this book. I don’t rate books often, but this would likely sit near a 4-star for me. At the end of the day, it is a great read, a riveting and unique Hamlet retelling, a profound story about self-actualization and mental health, and I could not put it down. And I’ll say it again: despite them not necessarily always being utilized to the greatest benefit, every single choice made was nothing short of PURE. FUCKING. GENIUS.
Anyway, if you made it all the way through this review, comment what star sign you think Hamlet would be, because he was a Scorpio in this. I say Sagittarius, Aries, or Aquarius.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Members of The Library of Arden get early access to my full-length reviews!
CW: blood and gore, death, death of father, dead body, suicidal ideation, suicide (mention), anxiety/panic attacks, needles, medical content, self-harm (CW on-page), gun violence
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes