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A review by horrorbutch
Lilith by Wine Lo Borgias, Wine Lo Borgias
5.0
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.
This story follows a Zek (a genetically engineered non-human being) who is send by the HIVE (a totalitarian Asia that holds the secrets to bioengineering) to Amirkha (a dystopian USA that has separated even more along class lines than ever before) to sleep with an influential man, steal his sperm and kill him. Her mission should be simple, but then things go wrong. She finds herself unable to return to her base, but instead ends up stranded in Dizzy-Land, where she finds community with a group of women, who have survived as princess-prostitutes.
This is an interesting dystopian sci-fi apocalypse and definitely works better if you are able to immerse yourself into a strange experience and accept that many new words and concepts will play a role in the story. Since I enjoy sci-fi like that, I really liked this story. There’s also a glossary in the beginning, which really helped when I got confused while reading. I also quite enjoyed the world-building and learning about this new post-apocalyptic world and the few humans that managed to survive it.
It is dark and fast-paced and while there are some moments of relative calm, there is never really any moment where our MC Lilith really gets to feel at peace. She begins the story knowing she has to fulfil her mission or the cyanide in her system will be released and that pressure never really lets up for her. This means that everything has to move pretty fast and that threat to her life always hangs over her. It certainly does not make for a relaxed read, but to me personally it was something I enjoyed.
This also is a very dark read. It deals with the fetishisation that women, particularly trans and asian women, face by powerful and rich men and how rarely they are able to actually rebel against it. It deals with that absolute powerlessness and the various ways women deal with it (by accepting it, by stepping on other women to get ahead, by rebelling against it, by burning it all down). This conflict and especially Lilith‘s own experiences with it and reactions to it are really very interesting.
Lilith herself was also a really interesting character! She was created to be an Assassin, with the ability to steal rich men’s sperm, but unable to get pregnant, fetishised for her bio-engineered status, but also dehumanised for it. Her finding of community and love with other women is both incredibly sweet and yet also fraught with tension, due to her having to hide her Zek-Identity.
If you like dark sci-fi, women rebelling against the system that tries to keep them powerless, murdering annoying rich tech-bros, dealing with some of our current societal issues, but worse (mainly the fetishisation and disposability of certain women), some delicious gore and transfem pregnancy and you don‘t mind having to immerse yourself in new sci-fi terms to experience a story, please check this one out! If there‘s a sequel planned, I will certainly read it!
While I did enjoy the framing device of the teenage girl, who had a psychotic break, after taking LSD in DisneyLand, I do wish that part of the story had been explored further (also the Eldritch Creatures rising from the depths. What‘s that about? I need a sequel!). I also found it a bit weird that all the rich tech-bros where „a bit Aspergy“. While I do think that was dealt with fine in the end, it is something that confused me a bit.
Tw: sexual assault, rape, forced impregnation, prostitution, murder, violence, fetishisation/objectification, drugs, slurs
This story follows a Zek (a genetically engineered non-human being) who is send by the HIVE (a totalitarian Asia that holds the secrets to bioengineering) to Amirkha (a dystopian USA that has separated even more along class lines than ever before) to sleep with an influential man, steal his sperm and kill him. Her mission should be simple, but then things go wrong. She finds herself unable to return to her base, but instead ends up stranded in Dizzy-Land, where she finds community with a group of women, who have survived as princess-prostitutes.
This is an interesting dystopian sci-fi apocalypse and definitely works better if you are able to immerse yourself into a strange experience and accept that many new words and concepts will play a role in the story. Since I enjoy sci-fi like that, I really liked this story. There’s also a glossary in the beginning, which really helped when I got confused while reading. I also quite enjoyed the world-building and learning about this new post-apocalyptic world and the few humans that managed to survive it.
It is dark and fast-paced and while there are some moments of relative calm, there is never really any moment where our MC Lilith really gets to feel at peace. She begins the story knowing she has to fulfil her mission or the cyanide in her system will be released and that pressure never really lets up for her. This means that everything has to move pretty fast and that threat to her life always hangs over her. It certainly does not make for a relaxed read, but to me personally it was something I enjoyed.
This also is a very dark read. It deals with the fetishisation that women, particularly trans and asian women, face by powerful and rich men and how rarely they are able to actually rebel against it. It deals with that absolute powerlessness and the various ways women deal with it (by accepting it, by stepping on other women to get ahead, by rebelling against it, by burning it all down). This conflict and especially Lilith‘s own experiences with it and reactions to it are really very interesting.
Lilith herself was also a really interesting character! She was created to be an Assassin, with the ability to steal rich men’s sperm, but unable to get pregnant, fetishised for her bio-engineered status, but also dehumanised for it. Her finding of community and love with other women is both incredibly sweet and yet also fraught with tension, due to her having to hide her Zek-Identity.
If you like dark sci-fi, women rebelling against the system that tries to keep them powerless, murdering annoying rich tech-bros, dealing with some of our current societal issues, but worse (mainly the fetishisation and disposability of certain women), some delicious gore and transfem pregnancy and you don‘t mind having to immerse yourself in new sci-fi terms to experience a story, please check this one out! If there‘s a sequel planned, I will certainly read it!
While I did enjoy the framing device of the teenage girl, who had a psychotic break, after taking LSD in DisneyLand, I do wish that part of the story had been explored further (also the Eldritch Creatures rising from the depths. What‘s that about? I need a sequel!). I also found it a bit weird that all the rich tech-bros where „a bit Aspergy“. While I do think that was dealt with fine in the end, it is something that confused me a bit.
Tw: sexual assault, rape, forced impregnation, prostitution, murder, violence, fetishisation/objectification, drugs, slurs