HELL'S HEART

Moby Dick, but make it queer SF.

“Call me…call me whatever the fuck you like.” This is the first line of Hall’s latest, and you don’t have to have a master’s degree in American Lit to get the reference. Melville’s magnum opus is one of those cultural artifacts that’s embedded itself in the popular consciousness even if only in its most basic form. Hall, however, isn’t messing around in their reimagining of Moby Dick. In this rather long novel, the author is doggedly faithful to the original text—or as faithful as they can be given that this story is narrated by a queer woman, set in the distant future, and takes place in outer space. Like Melville’s Ishmael, Hall’s protagonist signs on with a ship called the Pequod seeking escape from a conservative background. Unlike Melville’s Ishmael, Hall’s protagonist has sexual relationships that are textual rather than subtextual and also pretty hot. The worldbuilding is strong and—as is the case in the most resonant science fiction—disturbingly plausible. This story is set in a time long after Earth has been stripped of its resources. Humans have scattered throughout the solar system and reorganized into Extraction States and Pharma States. The Aphrodite Pharma State owns every part of the narrator’s body that’s been restored or replaced. The Olympus Extraction State owns the Pequod and claims most of its crew’s profits as they brave the storms of Jupiter in search of the massive creatures hunted for the cerebrospinal fluid that fuels human existence. Hall’s breakout book was Boyfriend Material (2020) and, since then, the author has published a number of wildly popular novels that range from contemporary romcom to romantasy. Readers who loved Mortal Follies (2023) or A Lady for a Duke (2022) may not find what they want from Hall here. That said, readers who appreciate a good old-fashioned space yarn will find a lot to like.

An adventurous departure for a well-loved romance author.