✨⭐ 8 stars out of 10 ⭐✨
I've seen reviews saying this book is all vibes and no plot. It is unfortunately, true :(

Keyword: scifi, space opera, far future, transhumanism, cloning, AI, cyberpunk(?), noir(?)
Trigger and content warning: gore and violence, abusive relationship, suicidal imagery
Representations: sapphics, non-binary, genderfluid

REVIEW
At a glance, The All Consuming World is a story about ragtag team of criminals coming back after disbanded to do their final heist. The setting is in far future where spaceship's AIs has gaining sentience and have a hateful relationship with humankind. Add some space queer in it and sprinkles of badassery to spice it up then you got this book.

At thorough read though, it's more than that. Boy, what a CONCEPT this book is. Transhumanism and noir vibes that reminds me to Altered Carbon. Cyberpunk stuffs. Fun and interesting worldbuilding (for me). But mostly, it's about navigating personal hurts and the relationship between the crews.

I like some of the scifi concepts it bring. Like how the cloning technology has changed human's society and the way they are thinking. How it explore the ethics and humanity aspect of cloning. What it takes to be human. The AIs and their community, how they conflict against humankind. About sentience and power. Lots of interesting ideas packed in a small book.

And the characters intrigued me too. Even the side roles. Too bad some of the most important one are not explored more in the story. And I don't really like how the author treat a certain character without bringing closure to her arc.

The Big Minus
Unfortunately, it's a book that is hard to get into. Alas the big turnoff is the prose itself. It's not your typical third person point of view but closer to the character. The character bled to the prose and as result the narrative is too full of swearing. You can find "fuck" and "fucking" in every page and it could take away reading enjoyment.

The next thing is also the author's way of using big, complicated words in a sentence that totally has no meaning at all. Like it try to be flowery but doesn't hit right. You can get used to it, after a while. But for most people it also hinder the enjoyment of reading.

And the last thing, I think this book reads like a short fiction. The author themselves is notorious for their short fictions and maybe it's why the book feels like all vibes and no plot at all. Typical of short fiction. Some might still enjoy it (like I did) but others might dislike it.

In the end, this is a fun book but also really a hit or miss. If I'm being objective, this would be 7.5 or 7.8 (3 stars). But I am biased because I still like the vibes so I rounded it to 8. I would still definitely read another Khaw's book in the future though.

Thank you Netgalley for lending me e-ARC of this book in an exchange of honest review.

Khaw has slowly been turning into an author I need to read everything they write. Unfortunately, this one just did not do it for me. The premise was A+, but the plot was confusing and I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Sadly, I DNF at around 50%.

DNF - unfortunately I think Cassandra Khaw's writing isn't for me. I love the ideas behind this, and what I read of the execution was well done, but I couldn't focus on it at all. I think this just isn't for me unfortunately!

The synopsis of The All-Consuming World talks about a diverse team of former criminals, on one last mission. It talks about highly evolved AI who don’t want humans controlling the universe again. It even mentions sapient ageships.
All in all, the synopsis says a lot of things that sound really interesting. Things that completely grabbed my attention and made me know I needed to read this. If you’re anything like me, these things all sound super intriguing to you too.

The problems come in when you actually start the book. The synopsis is written in a way that catches you attention, and also make it clear exactly what you’re reading. The book itself? Not so much. I found this to be one of the most unclear, and unnecessarily wordy books I’ve eve encountered. Verbose in such a way that comes across as pretentious. This is not the first time I’ve read Khaw either so this felt very different to read. Normally, Khaw is still verbose, but in a lyrical, clear way, a writing style that manages to draw you in. The All-Consuming World lacked that feel and it someone managed to read like some sat down with a thesaurus and looked up the biggest and longest option for every word.

Based on other reviews I’ve seen, I’m not the only one who felt like this, and I’m also not the only one who felt utterly baffled by whatever the heck they read. I can’t explain what I read, it feels like I didn’t understand the story at all. So I wish I could give more opinion about the book itself, but I can’t. I was baffled, and it wasn’t the fun read I was expecting from the synopsis.

The prose of this one just wasn't for me—made me unable to picture it in my head, but that's totally a personal qualm and others may find enjoyment in it.

I was very excited about reading The All-Consuming World but unfortunately, it failed to capture my interest and I found the world-building very confusing. I'll still try other books from this author!

I enjoyed this debut novel, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the idea of the plot. It was such a great scifi novel and I look forward to seeing what Ms. Khaw comes up with next.

The concept of this novel is fascinating and the cover is absolutely gorgeous. The world in which it is set is super interesting and whilst I enjoyed parts of it, I couldn't ever get properly invested and it took me a very long time get through it. I nearly dnf'ed several times but managed to finish it and am glad I did. The characters all read as very similar and there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary little things happen. Very well written though and I'd check out more Cassandra Khaw in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cassandra Khaw is one of 2021's most exceptional authors. As their first full-length published novel, The All-Consuming World is an astonishing and lovingly written tale that continues to prove Khaw's excellence as a unique and upcoming author.

DNF @ 20%

This book wasn't for me. I really tried to like it, but it was just not meant to be. There were too many words that I didn't understand or words that were kind of unnecessary. I was really tired of googling what each word meant, and that's also the reason why I lost interest in this book.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

dnf @ 21%

While this book has some deft descriptive prose and really interesting vocabulary, I just couldn't get into it. I found it hard to make sense of the plot and the characters. The ultra-dense prose turns into a mushy soup that makes it hard to follow the story.

As other reviewers have noted, this book also features a <i>lot</i> of profanity. I have zero issues with profanity in prose—a well-timed 'fuck' can elevate a dialogue to greater heights—but when I have to suffer through a tsunami of repetitive lines like "what the fuckity fuck is your fucking problem" just to find a tiny morsel of plot, something's wrong with the ratio. Another reviewer used the phrase "profanity-as-personality" and I think that's a very apt description of the character Maya.

I did like the crazy vocab Khaw employs in her prose (my dictionary didn't have some of these words, haha! I never hate learning new words), and some of the vivid description peppered around. I think she did a great job portraying a shitty, dystopian, cyberpunk-esque future that I'd hate to live in. But this book isn't for me, unfortunately.

The blurb of this book sounded right up my alley, and the story would have been, too. If I hadn't been so distracted by the writing.

This book has ... words. So many words. It seems the author lost a bet and now needed to incorporate every single word in the Oxford English Dictionary in this one book. Especially the verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I found this very distracting and, frankly, unnecessary. It took a lot away from the story, which could have been told in have the pages and, if you took away all the overuse of language, was unfortunately not that exciting after all.

Which makes me sad, because I did like the premise and the worldbuilding was super interesting. I wish we would have learned more about that. I also liked getting to know the characters one after the other. Unfortunately, the writing took away from both.

The characters did not seem too different from each other, because they all spoke with the same voice and used the same flowery language. On top of that, they didn't really do much in the story, didn't make many decisions that would allow them to show who they were, so they were not very distinguishable. Or maybe they did and I just didn't recognize it beneath all the words. I can get behind one or two characters speaking like that, but all of them? The no-bullshit, down-to-earth killing machine (who's the POV for most of the chapters) that is literally described as "just a weapon" speaks AND thinks like that? I don't believe it.
There were also a lot of spelling mistakes and parts of sentences that will probably be corrected in editing. The pronouns for two of the characters were all over the place, first they were established and then they were constantly misgendered in dialogue and inner monologue. I hope this will be corrected, too.

The worldbuilding I liked a lot, it was something new and interesting and it excited me. But again, do AIs speak and think in flowery language? All right, maybe those AIs are so far evolved from machines that they developed like that, it's her world, her choice. But then add all the references to current pop culture on top of that and I couldn't believe any of it, it didn't make sense.

The story that was there was entertaning and I wish I had gotten more of the characters interacting with each other and the world around them, going through friendship, love, hate, betrayal, and just basic survival in this strange, dangerous world.
But all in all, the writing took away too much for me to enjoy the experience of reading this book.

Thank you to Erewhon books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t want you to read Cassandra Khaw’s new novel The All-Consuming World. Really, I don’t.
You see, I’m confident this novel will be a science fiction cult classic. Hopefully, 50 years from now, I’ll be sitting in the living room with my robot family, opening a bag of popcorn, and playing the feature film adaptation. To my robot grandson, I’ll leanforward and brag: “I read thebefore it was cool. The book is always better than the movie.” Beeping and whirring, my robot grandson will reply: “please, Grandma, not another story of the beforetimes. I just want to watch a relaxing movie before I go back outside to hunt irradiated rats in the post-apocalyptic hellscape of 2070 USA.”

What can I say? My robot grandson is a real shit sometimes.

This Is Punk Rock
The All-Consuming World stars Maya — a tough-as-shit gunslinger with cybernetic modifications, an itchy trigger finger, and more Trauma than the entire slate of Freeform’s programming combined.
Maya serves as bodyguard to Rita, the former leader of legendary outlaw gang “The Dirty Dozen.” Only Maya and Rita live the criminal life anymore, however. Seven of The Dozen have since died, while the rest scattered to the wind in order to build new loves among the stars. None of them remember Rita or The Dozen fondly.
But things change when the universe’s ruling power, a race of computer beings called The Minds, sets out to eliminate outlaw humans — and maybe all humans altogether. Maya and Rita must attempt to mend shattered relationships and reunite the living members of The Dirty Dozen for one last job. If they fail, all of mankind may be eradicated.

Not only does The All-Consuming World rebel against literary convetions (something Khaw already excels at), it also raises a stiff middle-finger to a society that enables lies, abuse, and manipulation.

It’s clear from the start that Maya’s relationship with Rita is fucky as shit. Rita has the ability to exploit Maya’s hormones remotely. She consistently demands Maya perform tasks that Rita would never do herself — as far as even dying for her (Maya is always revived and placed into a new, vat-grown body — but the process is far from painless). Plus, she’s famously dishonest. Initially, Maya is content to blindly exist in the cognitive maze that Rita has constructed for her — but their dynamic seethes with tension that you just know is going to explode soon.
It’s through this lens that Khaw explores truth, manipulation and contentment with abuse.

The book is primarily about freedom from emotional abuse, but it’s also about freedom from systemic abuse. The novel’s universe is driven by both a literal computer system and a figurative system of oppressive power structures. Its heroes — Maya in particular — want nothing more than to tear that system down. There’s an urgency to The All-Consuming World that feels revolutionary in nature. Every word burns with the fires of social upheaval. It’s without a doubt the most punk rock book I’ve ever read.

Only 90s Kids Will Understand

This All-Consuming World is also controversial as all hell. This is probably the second most pretentious thing I’ve ever said (the first being “Darling, pour me a glass of the 1961 Chateau and set out the Beluga Cavier. There’s a Scrubs marathon on the television, and I intend to bathe in it.”), but I would urge you to stray away from reviews — especially those not written by professional literature critics.

It’s easy to spot origin of the controversy. For the most part, I find user reviews on Goodreads and Amazon reliable. If something has a 3.5 or higher Goodreads score and a synopsis that interests me, I usually throw it on my list and wind up relatively satisfied. Right now, though, The All-Consuming World floats around that line — maybe even a smidge lower if you don’t count reviews from early readers. People who like the book seem to love it, but those who don’t seem to have very loud complaints. Specifically that it’s too vulgar and violent(whatever, Tipper Gore), that the prose is too dense, or that the characters are unlikable.

Ultimately, I think that’s because “The All-Consuming World” isn’t a book for everyone. If you’re offended by harsh language, this book is not for you. If you don’t have the patience to read anything more complex than a John Grisham thriller, this book is not for you. If you have reservations about LGBTQ+ people, this book is not for you (and also, I hope you fall into an alligator pit).

Your pronouns are now “was/were.” (Photo courtesy of Unsplash)
As for prose — it’s true that you’ll need patience and a higher appreciation of language to enjoy this novel (okay, now that’s the most pretentious thing I’ve ever written). Khaw’s signature eclectic voice is firing all batteries here. Their vocabulary could fill volumes. As in their other works (see our review of their upcoming novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth here), every sentence is meticulously constructed and the language is absolutely fucking gorgeous. This book isn’t meant to be downed like a Jager Bomb, it’s meant to be savored like tears of your enemies.
And yes, the subject material is admittedly complex. Khaw has created a far-future world that is almost nothing like ours. There are viewpoint characters made entirely of data, for fuck’s sake. Their chapters are as technical as they are imaginative.

But this universe itself is a stunning accomplishment of worldbuilding. Similar to science fiction staples like Altered Carbon, body modification and the ability to replicate human consciousness in a form of code has revolutionized humanity.

However, unlike those stories, The All-Consuming World deals with a universe that achieved these technological miracles a long time ago. These characters aren’t responding to new changes — they’re living with the long-term repercussions of them. I’m genuinely intimidated by the amount of research, planning, and outlining it must have taken to give this world life. The closest comparison I have is The Matrix, but plugged it into an amp with the overdrive cranked up.

Seriously. Don’t shun this novel just because it’s unfamiliar and challenging territory. Embrace it. If you do, you’ll be rewarded by one of the most engaging reading experiences of the year. This is the next generation of literature as high art.

That brings me to complaints about the characters, some of which I believe stem from the incorrect assumption that The All-Consuming world is a spiritual sibling to something like Star Wars, or maybe more aptly Firefly. The Dirty Dozen aren’t snarky Joss Whedon characters (though they are at times hilarious), and they aren’t stand ins for mythical figures like Luke Skywalker and General Leia. These characters fucking bleed, they scab, and they wound one another.

They’re also super fucking gay.

I think that may have something to do with some people feeling a disconnect from them — but that’s more a reflection on them and not the novel itself.

The All-Consuming World almost exclusively stars lesbians and trans-femme/non-binary people (some minor characters are robots with no gender, I guess). About the only utopian quality of this future world is that homophobia and transphobia have been irradicated. No one blinks an eye at same-sex partnerships or gender identity introspection. In this area, it’s the queer woman’s Star Trek: The Next Generation. There are also no men in this story, so maybe we fixed that problem in the future too.

That the characters are so fucked up makes it all the more rewarding as they journey to better themselves. Despite all the cruelty, gore, and emotional violence, The All-Consuming World is ultimately a manifesto on the nature of true love. Not the kind in you hear about in Disney movies. The kind that lives and breathes in the real world. Love that self-reflects and corrects its toxic or abusive qualities. Love that is happy just to exist with the other party. Love that considers the needs of the other, and is strong enough to let the go if necessary. It’s clear Khaw’s been to therapy. If you’ve ever been in an abusive, manipulative, or possessive relationship — this one will get you in the guts.

Plus, the cover art is absolutely stunning.

This is a fascinating, intricately built novel with some amazing worldbuilding and great representation of marginialized identities. I will say that the writing does take some getting used to (this isn't a book that's easily skimmable, by any means), and it was tiring to read sometimes--you need to stay alert to follow Khaw's blend of complex prose, neologistic slang, and noir-ish turns of phrase. It's a lot, and I might've preferred the heavy style more if it were limited to a short story, but reading this in smaller chunks made it enjoyable.

3 stars just because giving it any lower feels wrong.

I wanted to love this so bad. I really, really did, especially since I've been on a sci fi kick for so long so this just felt perfect for me. Looking through other reviews of this book, I would roll my eyes and scoff, because surely they were overreacting.

They were not.

The good: I enjoyed the characters and their dynamic a lot. Despite my big, big, BIIIG issues with the prose, I can't exactly say it was bad or juvenile or unfitting. Also, anything that's just "queer people... IN SPAAACE" gets big pointers for me. Also, the abuse was real and raw and I really connected to Maya's experience.

The bad: Okay, I don't know if english is Khaw's first/native language, but if you handed this book to me, I would assume it was. English isn't my native language but I'm sufficiently fluent, and usually, if I don't know a word I'll just search and move on, but reading this... pretty much required a thesaurus. It just wasn't accessible to me at all, and I know that's a personal flaw, but it was really disappointing and frustrating because I just couldn't picture scenes half the time.

Also, I'm never one to complain about cursing in books (I wrote a fanfic once that culminated with about 100 'fucks' in it), but wow did the fucks feel strangely jarring in this? I'm not sure if it's the combination of the bombastic prose with the cursing. When the only thing you really understand from a paragraph is a character going, like, "Fucking fuck this stupid fucking ship" or whatever, it's kind of hard to connect.

Definitely not enough of a bust to stop myself from reading more of this author, but this one wasn't for me and I'm so upset about it.

A week has passed since I finished The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw, and while I initially had some incredibly conflicted feelings about it, the more I think about this novel, the more I have to admit it is exactly My Brand (TM). The mood is bloody and dark and cyberpunk af, everyone is queer in a variety of ways and no one is fully human, it’s raw and messy, and though some may call it purple, the prose in this novel is rich enough to feast on through several re-reads. No one in the entire cast is without flaw, and Khaw unapologetically leans into those flaws with an alluring combination of the elevated and the lowbrow profane.

Maya, who easily gets the most page time in the novel, compelled me from the start. I have a soft spot for the character archetype of relentless bruiser with deep seated self-esteem issues, especially one who has latched on to a toxic figure as their only sense of self worth, and Maya checks off the whole list. “Strobic rivers of booze, blood, and bad decisions” was one of the many, many lines I highlighted from this novel, and its a fitting depiction of Maya’s character. Each time Maya dies and needs to be placed in a new cloned body, Rita oversees the process. Maya’s intense loyalty to Rita, who was the organizer and mastermind back in the days of the criminals known as the Dirty Dozen, juxtaposed with hyper-awareness of Rita’s abuse and her refusal to change her own character or actions makes for a compelling narrative.

Conversely, we have Rita, the manipulative and sociopathic brains behind the operation. Much like Maya, I probably loved Rita too much for my own good. Touch averse, distant, and calculating, Rita leverages her knowledge and position to exploit Maya and other characters with little to no regard for their well-being. The novel does an excellent job of establishing her as a pristine, untouchable, larger-than-life figure while at the same time indicting her relentlessly through the viewpoints of other characters. She’s compelling in the same way as a train wreck or plane crash; you know she’s awful, yet she still demands your attention every time she’s on page.

The other characters we’re introduced to over the course of the novel also shine in their own rights, though for many I wish more time had been afforded to their character growth. Ayane, Constance, and my personal favourite of genderfluid Verdigris are worth novellas on their own. We also get to see the perspective of an AI in the digital sphere known as the Conversation, which made for highly intriguing, otherworldly chapters.

There were a few elements that didn’t quite work for me. The first and the veritable elephant in the room, if you’ve looked at other reviews: the overwhelming usage of the word ‘fuck’. 674 instances in the 288 pages of my ARC, to be exact. Since the advance copy I received came earlier than usual, I have high hopes maybe some of these usages will be trimmed from the final copy. Don’t get me wrong—I swear like a sailor in real life, and I am wholeheartedly here for filthy, vulgar language. My issue comes mostly in dialogue, where several exchanges read almost verbatim as “Fuck you!”/”No, fuck YOU!” instead of utilizing an opportunity for more character-specific dialogue. (Maya should not be counted in this, as I fully believe profanity is 70% of her vocabulary.) The other element I already mentioned above, where I wish some characters had been afforded more opportunities to take center stage.

Aside from this… y’all, this is the first book I’ve read by Khaw, and they have established themself as an author I will be keeping close tabs on in the years to come. A large percentage of this novel could have been plucked out of the deepest recesses of my id and it satisfied me in a way few books do. I am in awe of the range displayed in The All-Consuming World and, while I think this novel’s tone and content will definitely polarize readers, I am glad to be on the ‘appreciative and inspired’ side.

Thank you to Erewhon Books and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

Initially, I was so confused… and not good confused… just confused… but then, I got accustomed to being confused and it all got better. 🤣

Official title: The All Consuming World
My title: It’s Okay to be a Raging Maniac of the Cosmos
Author: Cassandra Khaw
Publisher: Erewhon
Fav character: Ex-Audra
Type: Book
4.7/5

Space, clones, bots and ghosts… 💁 because, why not?! A final mission we don’t fully understand until the last 60 or so pages of the book. Lots of cursing, screaming, shooting and condescending a**holes. Sexless unrequited love and desire is everywhere and you may need access to a dictionary (which I adooooore),

Pretty Ayane, Mad Maya, Puppet master Rita, Special Dead Johanna, Cagy Elise, Super Audra and Staid Constance, were part of the Dirty Dozen; badass females who made the galaxies quiver, the roaming Minds groan and complain, and the Conversation buzz incessantly. That was 40 years ago… before one of them died-died, before another ended up uploading themselves into the conversation like a persistent parasite and before another settled down with a wife and child.

Forty years ago, the 11 marched to the tune of Rita. Rita, who insisted they kill each other repeatedly to ‘bond’; Rita, who used Maya to violently keep everyone in check; Rita, who didn’t try to save the two who died… now, Rita, is sending her rabid dog Maya, knocking. She is pulling the girls who have survived back together for a mission which may mean the end of them all. A mission that is only clear to Rita, the psychopath.

The two-hundred year old clone refuses and criminals come respectables will fight, claw and bludgeon their way to the edge of space after resisting the deadly pull of Rita. They will lose limbs, have their existence questioned by vastness and be pursued by the most dangerous beings in the universe… GIANT SENTIENT SPACESHIPS WITH WEAPONS… wtf Khaw?! 🤣

A fun read for those who don’t mind lot’s of cursing, random people with temper issues, abstract concepts and nice juicy words. 😁

Cassandra Khaw is a name that has lurked in the back of my mind for a long while now, even though I have never read her other works. A review of one of her previous works exists on the site, and though I didn’t get to those stories (yet), those words ring true about her debut novel, The All-Consuming World.

The story follows a now disbanded crew of outlaws, who were once notorious throughout the galaxy, as they get back together to solve the mystery of why their last heist went so poorly. Maya, the crew’s feral gunwoman, and Rita, the mastermind of the group, find out that a long dead comrade may still be alive, and they set out to gather the rest of the crew for one last mission. They will return once again to the forbidden planet of Dimmuborgir and attempt to find the secret that the AIs of the universe keep hidden there. In the background, the sapient AI that call themselves ageships are running their own schemes, making sure the group fails, and that humanity will never have a chance at controlling the universe again. Can Maya and Rita convince the rest of the crew that their comrade is still alive, and keep tensions between them all mitigated enough to complete one final mission?

Having never read Khaw’s previous works, I can say one thing for certain, she has capital S – Style. While it may not work for some folks, I was completely enamored with her mastery of the English language. While this book is short, it is dense with million dollar words that fit oh so perfectly into every nook and cranny grammar allows. It’s also the most times I’ve seen the word “fuck” and probably some of most creative ways I’ve seen it used. While there are a lot of people who might be put off by Khaw’s exponential use of the word, I found it fascinating because it never became a background word and was tied to a very specific character. On top of that, different points of view had different ways of narrating their experiences, switching between a computer that follows branching ideas and a rabid guard-dog of a woman constantly pulling at her chains with ease. It takes a little getting used to, but Khaw establishes a flow early on and I was swept up in her currents without much of a fight.

If there is one thing heists always need, it’s a colorful cast of characters, and does The All-Consuming World blast through that criteria with reckless abandon. Maya, the character we see most of the story through, is unhinged, ready to kill at a moments notice. Her introductory chapter is one for the books, with an absolute blast of an ending that really sets the tone for the rest of the story. Rita is elusive and manipulative as the group’s founder and leader. She always feels there, without necessarily being present, trying to find the weak points in her crew’s psyche to needle them into their next mission. Verdigris is a showy peacock (fitting that they’re a pop star) hiding from their past in an incredibly ostentatious style. There are several other characters that I could just list here, but I feel it would diminish their stamp on the book to just describe them. Each one is fun and interesting in their own weird way, and somehow feels rounded given how short of a time the reader spends with them.

Khaw introduces tension between the characters in natural ways, allowing pots to stir and stews to simmer until the last possible moment when the last thing the crew needs is personal drama to get in their way. It doesn’t feel contrived, as she strikes the right balance of giving them opportunities to relieve pressure, before they double down and just tamp down their emotions one more time. Some of the characters try to ease the pain and burdens of others, only to be rebuked and create distance. Khaw lets this tension play out in the forming of the plan, and the reforming of the group, delivering fast paced plot interlaced with character development that makes the book always feel as if it’s approaching light speed.

The story itself is tight and focused, feeling like the montage scenes of every heist movie boiled down to their essences. It’s fun, it’s furious, it’s also gruesome. Like the writing, it’s packed to the brim with action, dialogue, and tension. Like a perfectly designed roller coaster, the slight moments of calm are just prelude to the next down slope. What I enjoyed most was how much Khaw made the emotional and material arcs fit together. It wasn’t so much that they lined up as much as they were long time dance partners that knew how each other moved.

My only complaint with the novel is that I wish there was more, but really it felt just right. The worldbuilding is just enough to make the mystery of Dimmuborgir worth solving. The characters and their internal dynamics are pitch perfect. The action is well written, fleshed out with colorful language. There are tender moments and there are gruesome ones. It’s the complete package in a small, thoroughly enjoyable book. It’s hard to quantify this sort of thing, but this might be one of the best books I have read this year so far.

Rating: The All-Consuming World 10/10
-Alex

There's only one sentence that can open this review: What the fuck just happened?

The All-Consuming World is Cassandra Khaw's debut novel, and it's a blend of ultraviolent action and post-human space opera that races by in a blur of dramatic heist-y tropes and ornate-but-sweary prose. In this future, humans have ways to control aging so you can live as long as you like, cloning technology if you want that life to involve dangerous life threatening stuff and don't mind the inconvenience of reconstructing yourself. AI Minds also exist, in various generations and societies, most of whom seem to exist and interact through a collective program called The Conversation. We don't see much of what this setup means for ordinary folks of the universe, because the characters we spend our time with are on the unpleasant margins of this world. To survive their mercenary life, Maya and Rita have both been cloned and augmented repeatedly, to the point where Maya's body is degrading from the imperfect technology and Rita is mostly machine. Forty years after a mission which went disastrously wrong, killing two of their former crew (the "Dirty Dozen") and scattering the rest of them, Rita reveals that one of their dead friends, Elise, is still out there in virtual space, and that finding her might be the key to discovering Dimmuborgir, a lost planet with valuable secrets. Why Elise's survival took forty years to reveal is explained in universe as "Rita is a manipulative piece of work with an agenda she isn't sharing with anyone", but it serves as a spur for the pair to get the remnants of their band back together at an interesting time in everyone's lives, and to mount an imperfect rescue, allying with a couple of AIs while avoiding the many, many more who want to kill them.

There's a lot of meaty worldbuilding in that set-up (and shades of Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha and The Stars Are Legion), but The All-Consuming World is mostly interested in the dynamics of its aging cyborg gang, and particularly the relationship between Maya and Rita. We see the story mostly through Maya's eyes (including the prosthetic one she has installed, with no anaesthetic and lavish descriptions of eye socket speculum usage, after the original is gouged out seconds after hatching a new clone body... don't say I didn't warn you about gore). Her perspective is deeply warped by love and codependence for Rita, which is generally rewarded with abuse, manipulation, and speculums to the eye socket. Maya's internal dialogue already acknowledges the gap between her unwavering loyalty and Rita's sadistic responses, but when her old colleagues come back into her life, their reactions to seeing her still in thrall to Rita and the juxtaposition with their own lives provokes Maya to question even more of herself. Those colleagues include popstar and former almost-flame Verdigris, mercenary-turned-law-enforcement Constance, and Ayane, who doesn't really have any identifying features beyond "is hot and violent", which doesn't really work in this crowd (she also did the eye gouging). Maya also connects indirectly, through family, with another member of the Dirty Dozen, and it's through these relationships that the tension of The All-Consuming World builds.

This tension is all quite dramatic, and combined with scenes from AI Pimento (who is working for the AI that gave Rita the information about Elise and holds the location to Dimmuborgir), and from Elise herself, we get a decently three dimensional picture of this gritty, complicated conflict. Unfortunately, the focus on character has two drawbacks: first, because most of the interactions we see involve Maya, and Maya's brain is very specifically wired to care about Rita and almost nothing else, we don't get much character development for anyone other than her and the other two point of view characters. There are a lot of external clues as to how things have changed, and a great deal of information, from various perspectives, about the group's mercenary days and the extent to which that was actually a good time. There are also some identity shifts: notably Verdigris and Constance both come out to Maya as trans in the same scene (Verdigris is genderfluid and uses both he and she pronouns; Constance is non-binary and uses they/them). All of the mercenaries have moved on from, or become stuck on, different elements of their pasts, and while it's interesting to see through the eyes of Maya, a character who is terribly equipped to figure all of this out, let alone show any empathy and insight into what people's pasts mean to them rather than applying it all to herself, it also loses the opportunity to see some of these folks through their own eyes. Most characters feel like they have a convincing inner life that's hidden from Maya, but some (Ayane, and also Rita) just feel two dimensional as a result.

The second drawback is that, while it's interesting to get invested in these characters, their problems and the extent to which they are too old for this shit, there's a whole lot else that could be going on in The All-Consuming World and just... isn't. While we're watching the old comrades of the Dirty Dozen argue in space, there's this sense of a huge world full of AI-clone conflict and space exploration and histories and secrets of this universe that are beyond the grasp or interest of Maya and her cohort and, therefore, don't really appear here. In a weird way, this isn't a book that's very interested in what the characters themselves would identify as the story: their goals, the reasons behind the AI attacks, the importance of Dimmuborgir and the results of their finding it (this, in particular... well, you'll see when you get to the end). Once you're clued in to the fact that this stuff doesn't really matter, then it's easy in some ways to sit back and enjoy the ride, but I can't help but feel a sense of wasted potential that we didn't, at least, get more of a balance. It doesn't help that The All-Consuming World is pretty short, when it feels like there's enough to carry a much longer story here (then again, Khaw usually writes at novella length or shorter, so this being a short novel is in-keeping with their storytelling style).

We also need to talk about the writing. The story of The All-Consuming World is told in lavish, almost purple prose interspersed with regular swearing, as for example with Ayane's introduction from the opening chapter:
"[Ayane's] casual numinosity is frankly offensive. It is empirical, how stunning she is, a fact that exists external to the hypothesis that beauty is qualified by the beholder. Maya had not consented to having her breath shanked from her by something as egregious as Ayane retreating into a halo of artificial light, and she is pissed at this misstep by the universe, pissed she hasn't become inoculated to such bodily treason, that Ayane after all these years could still have such an effect."
There's a ton of interesting choices being made here which add to the characters being developed: Maya's weakness for physical beauty, even as she only has the capacity at this point to love Rita; Ayane being hot and dangerous (note how her beauty "shanks" Maya); the juxtaposition of an academic register, talking about hypotheses and empirical facts, with the religious notes (halos and numinosity) and then with slang like shank and Maya describing her emotional state as being "pissed". It's evocative stuff! But it's not a choice that's going to work for everyone, and to be honest, it's not a style that worked well for me. The All-Consuming World's expansive vocabulary it's not particularly accessible (I had to go and double check what "numinous" meant and that's nowhere near the most obscure word in this book), and it's also kind of relentless, even in pacy action scenes. It has the effect of either slowing the reader - and therefore the book - down, or making you feel like you've missed context by going along with it. At the end of reading, there are elements of the plot, especially the parts involving AIs, that I'm really unclear about, and I have no idea if it's because it was left mysterious or because my comprehension went on holiday at key moments, and while I fully accept that that's a me problem, it's a sign of this book and me not quite gelling.

All of that is quite a lot of negativity for a book that, actually, I liked reading a lot and think is objectively kind of amazing. Khaw's books have always almost worked for me, and after seeing their talents on such strong display, I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I enjoy the idea of them more than the execution. Still, The All-Consuming World is going to have lots of fans out there among those who really gel with Khaw's work and those who are looking for some grim, femme-led space opera - if that sounds like you, this is one to look out for.

This novel was a mess. There is nothing to like here in terms of story or characters, that I found myself dropping this one after about half the book. I just couldn't care any more.

It feels like the author set out to use the word fuck in a novel more times than it has ever been used in a novel before. Ever. I swear, every second word was the word fuck. It started out as a specific character trait, but then bled into every character where it was no longer a unique trait and just every few words of every character. I like the word fuck and definitely have no problems with it in the books I read, but in this case it was annoying as fuck. When the author wasn't using the word fuck, it seemed like she was just throwing in the most obscure word for what she was really trying to say. To the point where this book became a confusing mess full of flat one dimensional characters that I just couldn't bring myself to care about.

I honestly couldn't tell you what this story was supposed to be about. I just don't fucking care.