Billed as an AI locked room murders mystery retelling of Hamlet - the scaffolding of the play is cleverly used.

What makes us alive? What powers do ghosts (literal reanimated characters) or sentient AIs hold over memories?

I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.

Who murdered Hayden's father - the brilliant scientist whose new formula will prevent death?

I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

Who is the villain? Uncle Charles ? Hayden himself?

The best aspects of this retelling are the characters Felicia, given way more agency here than as Ophelia, and Horatio, the AI who helps Hayden, or does he?

Madness and betrayal and violence. Intellectual Property and morality. Elsinore, the locked down lab. The darkest themes of the play are enhanced and examined in this tale. Bravo!

A locked room murder mystery Hamlet retelling with a wealth of gorgeous phrasing, a fascinating structure and a satisfying ending.

Though this book is short, it’s richly woven – Hayden, the brilliant, moody son of the brilliant Dr Lichfield, recently deceased; Horatio, our narrator and Elsinore Lab’s OS; and Felicia, Hayden’s ex who is much more than meets the eye. Told in a semi-epistolary format, this is a fresh take on one of the most loved Shakespearean plays. Looking forward to reading more from this author!

DNF @ 15%

Unfortunately, this book just did not work for me. I didn't think I could find a Hamlet retelling boring, but alas, here we are. The dual POV wasn't working for me, and I was not a fan of the writing style at all. I think the concept of making Hamlet a locked room mystery thriller is super interesting, but I'm just not sure it really works without the suspense element, because this really isn't much of a mystery at all if you know anything about Hamlet. I think there's definitely an audience out there for this book, but unfortunately, I am just not that audience.

I liked the layout/format of this book. It was definitely unique from that perspective. Also the weird ai/machine x human relationship that was going on, I've not read anything like that before and I enjoyed it. However the actual plot and story fell flat for me. It just dragged way too much with no amazing ending that made it worthwhile.

I really wanted to love this book, one thing everyone knows about me is that I absolutely LOVE Shakespeare retellings no matter what its retelling, I will read it in an actual heartbeat and I was SO excited for this book have been anticipating it for so long but I had to DNF it because I hated the writing style and that made me SO SAD.

This was fine. It's told in a sort of mixed-media and if you know Hamlet the mystery isn't really a mystery, but I didn't expect it to be.

I don't really think it's correct to call this LGBTQIA+ and frankly the relationship between Hayden and Horatio gives me some pause when it comes to consent. Can you really consent to the AI in your head? IDK.

I did like that our Ophelia character gets to be the star and doesn't meet a tragic end.

Overall, it did what I expected it to do (for the most part), I just expected to like it more.

this was a truly excellent book. I havent seen or reads Hamlet but i have a vague understanding of plot, i think this was a brilliant adaptation/retelling of Shakespeare. I loved the sci-fi elements, thought I found it hard to get into / slow to start, it really picked up at 45% and i was hit with so many surprises in the plot. i need a physical copy of this book! this is the sci fi content i have been looking for from a marginalised author! (im hesitant with sci fi due to prejudice and specifically ableism/unanalysed eugenics, so this was a great read all round)

This is one of those rare books that is exactly what the cover copy promises: “A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller.” The Death I Gave Him lives up to this hype, and I can easily see how some people would adore this book. I loved Em X. Liu’s obvious love for Shakespeare, and as far as Shakespearean retellings go, this one is pretty good. As far as thrillers go—well, we all know I’m not the biggest fan of thrillers to begin with. As far as murder mysteries go—well, it’s not much of a mystery, now is it? Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Solaris for the eARC.

Look, I won’t summarize Hamlet for you. Elsinore is a lab rather than a castle; Hayden and his murdered dad are scientists working on life-prolonging serums; Felicia (Ophelia) is an intern, and her dad, Paul (Polonius) is the head of Elsinore’s security. Liu casts Horatio as the lab’s disembodied artificial intelligence. The book opens on Horatio “regaining consciousness” and seeing Hayden next to his father’s body. From there, things quickly spiral out of control. It’s tense; it’s queer; it’s hot and heavy at points (not my thing).

I’m mostly interested in looking at this book and how it represents an evolution of Shakespeare. What I mean by this is that Shakespeare has been reinterpreted from the moment his plays started to be performed. Each era, each society, projects its own ideas on to Shakespeare’s stories and reifies them in different ways. Liu has taken Hamlet and reimagined it as a locked-room murder mystery set in the 2050s—yet it is still definitely Shakespeare. However, I also really like how Liu took liberties with the characters and plot—this is more reimagining than retelling, and that is for the better.

If Shakespeare were alive today, I have no doubt he would write science fiction (and also historical fiction, and let’s face it, he would probably make his living writing erotica or porn or something). The inclusion of an AI main character—Horatio, no less—and the subplot around developing a life-prolonging serum both feel true to ideas that show up time and again Shakespeare’s work. So much of what he talks about, in Hamlet but also in The Tempest and other plays, comes down to ruminating on how well we can really know others (or even ourselves). Horatio and Hayden’s relationship here, the use of a neural-mapping interface to allow them to communicate with each other and know each other far more intimately than would otherwise be possible, is an intriguing reading of Horatio and Hayden’s relationship in the original play. That Horatio is an AI and thus an “other” speaks to the ambivalence with which the play treats Horatio, the way that he always seems to be present yet seldom gets much acknowledgement from everyone else.

I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but let’s just say that I think what happens with Horatio and Hayden in the end is a great change to the original story. The same goes for the fates of Felicia and even the way that Liu characterizes Hayden’s mother—I feel like Liu spent a lot of time thinking about the role of women in the original play. Felicia certainly receives much more depth and time than Ophelia does, and her fate is likewise both more hopeful and more palatable. She is arguably as much of a protagonist in this book as Hayden is, and the story is better for it.

The “lyrical” nature of the book is where The Death I Gave Him loses me. While I really liked Liu’s plot and character choices, I didn’t like their writing style as much. Both the description and the dialogue would occasionally grate on me, and the conceit that the book is a manuscript by a researcher looking back on the entire incident felt unnecessary. There’s a lot of layers here that I’m not sure the story needed.

The Death I Gave Him is creative and original (despite being based on Hamlet). It didn’t land all the way for me, but it came close enough that I know there’s an audience out there just waiting to fall in love with this tragedy. I can’t wait for that audience to find it, for I would like to see more of what Liu has to offer in the future.

I know this book has many rave reviews and I'm happy for everyone who loved this book, but it was not really my cup of tea. I thought it was Fine, but nothing that really drew me in or kept me engaged. I loved the overall concept of ~futuristic AI STEM Hamlet~, I was very intrigued and excited to get a chance for an ARC, but the experience of reading it for me, was more akin to slogging through something that I wasn't super into. I know that the source material of Hamlet is full of antiheroes and that did translate into characters in this that I also found unpleasant and difficult to care about. The book was not bad by any stretch, I just didn't love it.

Spoiler alert below:




I will say that the Hamlet/Horatio AI mindmeld sex was not like anything I've read before and it was interesting. I didn't find it particularly sexy but it was sexually interesting in a way that I appreciated.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Rebellion/Solaris for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: murder, graphic depictions of violence, death, body manipulation, blood, injury, self harm, thoughts of suicide

“The Death I Gave Him” is a queer, sci-fi version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet combined with a locked room mystery. I absolutely love retellings so I was delighted to be approved to read this early and it didn’t disappoint. From the first page, the tension of this book is intense, beginning with Horatio (the AI who runs the building) discovering its creator Graham Lichfield violently murdered in his well protected lab and his son, Hayden, who has found the body. Graham's life work, the Sisyphus Formula, can successfully bring back the dead but Hayden steals it, convinced that his father's killer is still in the building with the aim of luring them out. He discovers a recording where his father predicts his own death and asks for Hayden to avenge him. Forcing a lock down so that no one can leave, Hayden finds himself trapped inside with his uncle, Charles, his former lover and researcher Felicia, the head of security and Felicia's father Paul and a lab technician named Gabriel. As doubt begins to set in around Hayden's sanity and the actions of everyone inside, it soon becomes clear that his only ally is Horatio- an AI who is starting to fall in love with all that Hayden is, this is further emphasised when they create a neural link. Alongside Felicia, they investigate the rooms of Elsinore Labs that no one ever had access to, discovering secrets that Graham had kept long hidden for a deadly reason.

The tension level of this book is incredible, it's so easy to read and absolutely sucks you in from the first page while also urging you onwards with your heart racing; the language is scientific in nature, which makes sense because of the characters' personalities, but that makes it all the more stark and sharp. I found Horatio's perspective to be the most engrossing, I loved the gradual growth of the AI's feelings as the book progressed, especially when you consider the original inspiration of Hamlet. I also enjoyed the perspective of Felicia, who sees Hayden so clearly because of their previous relationship and how she describes what happens in the aftermath. Hayden's father absolutely haunts this narrative, there's one particular scene that will stick with me for a long time because of the sheer horror of it. The style of the writing was also fascinating, with a combination of autobiography extracts, police interviews, security footage and computer records, all following on from the events of the lockdown. I'm so glad I decided to pick up this book, especially because it's so unlike anything I've read in the past. To describe this solely as a retelling of Hamlet is a disservice, it's a study of humanity, science and what could happen if one person in the world could prevent death from happening.

Wow! This book was unlike anything I have read. It's a very cool concept and well executed. It's also very different from what I usually read so it challenged me a bit (also, a lot of blood and some gross body stuff, which was not my favourite part). In summary, it's a thriller, sci-fi, Hamlet retelling in a found files format. And even though I haven't read Hamlet in more than two decades, some cultural consciousness and a quick Wiki plot summary review gave me a sufficient foundation to find the parallels just fine although I certainly do not feel qualified to offer an in-depth critique. I ended up listening to the audio and it was well narrated. I'm still not sure how I feel about the characterization of Felicia (the Ophelia character) or Hayden's mother (the Gertrude character) although I kind of admire that these women are not very likable characters. Hayden's portrayal is complex and intriguing but less deep than Felicia.

My favourite thing about this book was Horatio. His love for Hayden is palpable and both this and his sensibility feel very true to the inspiring story of Hamlet. And for the only non-human in the story, his feelings are somehow the most complex and fascinating. And the intimacy in their relationship - wowsa - that was unique and memorable.

A dynamic and wildly inventive take on Hamlet. I was obsessed with this one from the blurb, and this is the kind of structural play I'd love to see more of in the current vogue for retellings, which are getting stale. This book genuinely surprised me, which not many do anymore.

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Death I Gave Him (published 12 September 2023) is a Sci-Fi thriller that leans towards the hard side of Sci-Fi. The prosaic, matter-of-fact style of writing, using chat excerpts, transcripts and third person POV narration, poignantly conveys the story’s topics of depression, fear of death and guilt.

The main romantic relationship is between a man and a genderless AI. This offers an interesting new view on how human-AI romance might work; yet, anyone who expects “a gay Shakespeare retelling” might be disappointed.

I enjoyed reading this novel. The mixed-media format helped me get through some of the slightly denser chapters. It’s definitely a book I’ll recommend to other readers.

This book being described as a "lyrical, queer sci-fi" retelling of Hamlet immediately had me interested and I believe this is one of, if not the most unique book I've read this year.

In "The Death I Gave Him," we follow our main character Hayden who works as a research scientist with his father. The two have been working on a formula that is meant to reverse death. One late night at the lab, Hayden steps out for a minute and comes back to find his father murdered. There are only five people in the lab, including himself, so Hayden shuts down the lab and is determined to find the murderer with the help of his AI friend, Horatio.

The way this book was structured was my favorite part about it. I loved how it was written almost as a research paper/narrative (though still traditionally a novel, with dialogue, etc.). All of the footnotes were a really good touch and the excerpts from different sources gave it a really interesting way to tell a story. The characters were very intriguing as well, particularly Hayden, Felicia, and Horatio. I also loved the forced proximity of it all, what with it being in one location in one single night.

Overall, I had a very unique and good reading experience with it. I don't read much sci-fi so I went in hesitantly, but it was such an interesting story and was written very well.

This bored me to tears! Took me better part of the month to finish reading.

The premise of the story sounded so amazing but ultimately I was not able to connect with any of the characters or invest myself in the mystery, which to be honest isn't really a mystery. And, this coming from someone, who has no clue about The Hamlet. The mystery was so predictable and while the author tried their best to make the story edgy, it just didn't work for me.

I did like the way it was written and thought the writing itself has a lot of potential but I don't think this book was for me.

3/5


thank you to the publisher and to netgalley for allowing me to read this early.

THE DEATH I GAVE HIM was my most anticipated book of the year, and while it didn’t end up being a new favourite of mine, i still really enjoyed a lot of the parts of this book—hayden lichfield’s anti-hero, a refreshing take on queer yearning that i doubt has ever been published in a mainstream book before, and the way it is written (transcripts, letters etc.). em x liu’s prose is beautiful, and the way scenes are described is *chef’s kiss*

i do believe that the climax lets this book
down. if you are familiar with the story of hamlet or any other retellings (which i have recently read), the whole mystery of it becomes obsolete. this book may work better for those who are unfamiliar with the shakespearean, though i do still believe this book to be predictable.

overall i enjoyed it and i can’t wait to see how EM X LIU grows as a writer!

One sentence synopsis: A whodunnit locked-room retelling of Hamlet set in the future where 'Hamlet'/Hayden tries to figure out who killed his scientist father with the help of Horatio, the lab's AI and his closest companion.

Wow this was great! Hayden was a very complicated, sometimes unlikable protagonist but those tend to me my favourites. His motivations were always clear and understandable IMO, even if you didn't always agree with his actions. I also really loved Felicia's character and her past relationship with Hayden + complicated feelings towards the lab because of it made for a very interesting dynamic. Hayden and Horatio's dynamic/relationship was definitely my favourite part, I'm a sucker for mind-melds in ships (see: drift compatibility in Pacific Rim) and I loved getting to see each of them through the other's eyes.

The writing was really good and the story was paced very well, I was almost hoping it wouldn't end! Also absolutely loved the structure of this novel, love the idea of an academic dissertation of sorts being written years later about the events that take place over the course of the novel. Interspersing Hayden's diaries, Felicia's post-canon published article retelling the events, and Horatio's transcriptions of security cam footage kept it very fresh and fun, and I loved the footnotes.

All in all a great sci-fi read that I whole-heartedly recommend! I'm not a huuuge Shakespeare fan (I think the last time I read Hamlet was when I was 15) so I can't speak much about the retelling aspect, but even without the Hamlet inspiration I think this book stands really well on its own. Definitely a new favourite of the year!

It's been a while since I read Hamlet, but I was still really excited when I heard about this book. Everything about it sounded intriguing, so I was all too happy when I got the chance to read this arc.
And damn, that excitement was warranted. "The Death I gave Him" is an amazing sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's play and some parts of it really hit hard.

Liu is clearly a very skilled writer, and their prose is just delicious (though not really lyrical as such, as the synopsis wants us to believe). To the point, straightforward, but with love for all the intricate details of their story they introduce us to Hayden Lichfield, our new Hamlet, on the very day he finds the dead body of his father in the Elsinore labs they both work at. Who killed his father? Well, only a few people have been at the lab at the time of his death, so suspects are sparse and Hayden goes on his quest to solve his father's murder and also, maybe save his chances of immortality. He's helped by his most trusted friend, the lab AI Horatio. Their relationship is one of the most intriguing concepts added to this retelling. Then there's our Ophelia, Felicia, who is just incredibly well written and complex and much more important to the plot.
Now, obviously most of the readers of this book already know who did it, and for those who don't it gets revealed rather early on. This is not a whodunnit, but more of a character study of broken people in broken circumstances. It's told in a mixed media kind of way, with snippets from interviews, chats logs, transcripts of video footage adding multiple perspectives to what is happening. It's cleverly done and I really enjoyed it.

You should be aware that while this is marketed as a queer, Gay Shapespeare kind of retelling, this might raise expectations that aren't met. There is a queer relationship (between bisexual Hayden and the genderless AI Horatio), and there are queer characters, but you might expect something else. It's great the way it is, though. They made me cry ugly, ugly tears, and both of their journeys are very emotional and deep.

All in all, this is a fantastic and unique retelling that will stay with me for a long time. 4,5 stars (because I felt there were little instances of dragging that could have been avoided by editing down some of the chapters, especially in the middle), easily rounding up to 5.

I was really excited to get into The Death I Gave Him since I love scifi and I really enjoyed Hamlet.

The beginning was fantastic, very addicting, especially since we have a couple POVs and we were aware of every inch of the story. Both Hayden and Felicia turned out to be very interesting characters, except for a couple of instances where it seemed like they were acting on their own instead of following the story so far. It was strange since it felt like it came out of anywhere, and I was only able to follow it by having read the original.

The plot overall was good. The sci-fi elements were there but there were some really weird sex scenes (fi we can call it that) that I still feel pretty weird out about.

I would recommend The Death I Gave Him with a grain of salt since a couple of things were a little weird but overall it was a good ride, specially at the beginning.

Art be it theatre, film or in books has a important and symbiotic relationship with the reader. That’s how we can have so many different reactions when we consume it and when people build on and play with the source material. I never have a problem with a remaking or re-imagining of a tale I just ask that it brings something new to the table. In Em X Liu’s great The Death I Gave Him we have a tense poetical SF thriller that uses Hamlet as inspiration and we have a fascinating set of meditations on the meanings of life and death with compelling characters having a night that will transform their futures.

In 2047 at the mysterious building the locals often mutter about is Elsinore Labs is trying to change the laws of biology. Under the supervisions of the genius Dr Graham Lichfield and his smart yet chaotic son Hayden a experimental technique is looking very successful. But then Hayden finds Dr Lichfield murdered in his own lab. The building’s AI operating system Horatio cannot remember what happened or who last saw Dr Lichfield. The building goes into lockdown as now Hayden swears revenge on his father’s murderer. The suspects are (as well as himself) the scientist Rasmussen, Dr Lichfield’s brother Charles, Hayden’s estranged girlfriend Felicia and her father the security manager Paul. Hayden decides to do whatever hit takes to find the truth and seek revenge, but he will find his own hopes and fears tested to their limits in the process.

You may already spot the parallel with the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays but importantly Liu has made a number of decisions leading to diversions from the play in order to create something startlingly refreshing, powerful and beautiful to read. The tale of power and corruption in a royal court neatly transferred to a tale of corporate greed, obsessions and bad decisions that will have consequ3nces for all. It is delivered with style and Liu uses biological and scientific language as dark poetry always capturing the story’s themes of life and death and how these concepts are two sides of the same coin.

Felicia takes the role of Ophelia but while in the original tale she is just the innocent woman turned mad through what is done to her here Felicia is an active dynamic character in her own right. She is already over Hayden and knows this young man and his obsession with death is a bad thing. She is following her own path of ambition and makes decisions to protect her father and her career. We get felicia telling us her tale looking back on the events the story is about to tell us. A smart device to build tension and give us one character’s perspective on events (another key theme of the tale) Will she be Hayden’s ally or accuser. She is a fascinating character who can be vulnerable and strong at the same time and Liu pays with our sympathies towards her as events transpire. I loved trying to guess what she would do and felt all her conflict as she debated who she can trust.

In the role of Hamlet, we get Hayden, and I loved how Liu keeps the core character’s unknowability throughout the story. In the many versions of the tale Hamley can be mad, super smart, vulnerable or a pain in the neck thanks to their constant lack of decision-making. Liu conveys all of that often at once. What Liu does do brilliantly is show Hayden’s fragility. A young person fearful of failure, desperate for a father’s love and a person for whom death and self-harm offers a dangerous attraction. Hayden is less here the poster-boy for angst but with 21st century eyes someone with depression, deep loneliness and probably the events of his father’s death are pushing him closer to self-destruction. At the same time in the role of Horatio’s who is traditionally hamlet’s friend and confidant we have an AI intelligence. This version is loyal to the Lichfields and via a neural transmitter Hayden attaches to himself Horatio gets to see the person behind the many masks Hayden adopts as he investigates witnesses. This viewpoint I think gets to reveal Hayden’s true self to us as the story unveils but also unusually offers Hayden for the first time someone who understands him and just possibly loves him for who he is. It’s a developing AI/Human relationship I was not expecting and it’s a powerful bond that develops as both offers the other something they did not know they needed.

The central plot does follow standard lines as Dr Lichfield’s death is murdered. Liu does a great task of making everyone a potential suspect and our suspicions are raised that this will not end quite like the original story. What Liu brings is the power of obsession. Dr Lichfield casts a long shadow while dead but everyone is touched and in cases harmed by his lack of caring about anything else. The goal of beating death is a theme of the story. Being afraid of it; turning it into AI, reanimating corpses and more are all explored with a dark biological poetry that makes the tale gleam like a scalpel. That the take is being explored after the events gives us all sorts of near and future history notes which also brings the tale to life. We get to hear that this story sets many things in motion and has implication for everyone left alive. The final results are keeping us on the toes until the memorable final acts.

The Death I Gave Him delivers a powerful mix of compelling characters and brilliant SF ideas combined with a glorious use of language and construction that create a darkly entrancing tale. It respects the core material, builds on it and in places importantly challenges the material and in so doing creates a fresh and absorbing tale even those who have not seen Hamlet should enjoy. I loved it and strongly recommend that you pick it up!