Cover Image: Feed Them Silence

Feed Them Silence

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

This is a sci-fi/horror novella that takes place in the near future and it was odd...like really odd, but it worked! Only being about one hundred pages, we follow main character, Sean and she dives into her research, while running away from her failed marriage.

Highly recommend this one for a quick read!

Was this review helpful?

"Feed Them Silence" by Lee Mandelo is a thought-provoking novella set in the near future. It explores the concept of "being-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal, specifically one of the last remaining wild wolves. Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon, the protagonist, uses a neurological interface to connect her own mind with that of the wolf, allowing her to experience the world through the wolf's perspective.

Was this review helpful?

ahhh!!! I can't believe how much this story has invaded my brain, especially considering it's only just over a hundred pages. This was way sadder than I had anticipated, which honestly sold me. I am a sucker for self torture. But this had so much depth to the sadness! I felt the pain of our main character, could see that she was flawed, could empathize in her struggles. Watching this marriage crack was painful but it was such a nuanced imagining of this situation, ugh cannot say enough good things about this depiction of marriage struggles. And Kate the wolf! Excuse me as I cry. I thought this was such a cool way to write about parasocial relationships because damn, I felt attached to Kate too, as well as Dr. Sean. And alas, those fictional characters will never know the depth of my devotion to their plights *sigh* Ok dramatic review over, thank you to Lee Mandelo for this heart wrenching story, bravo!!

Was this review helpful?

This book skillfully brings together the impending extinction of wolves and the dying of the protagonist's marriage. Centring on a workaholic scientist, this follows the testing of a means of seeing through the mind of a living wolf. Unexpectedly touching and confronting, this story speaks to the slow horror of our current extinction event and the tension of love at the end of the world as we know it.

Was this review helpful?

Mmmm. My feelings on this one are deeply mixed.

On the one hand, I think it mostly sets out what it means to do: Show that you cannot force a two-way intimate bond between two living creatures, especially without consent. Show that there are consequences to treating other people as objects. Show that the idea of a science where one creature can live in another one's brain is inherently changing but also abhorrent.

Unfortunately, it forces us to do this by living in the brain, or at least the POV, of someone who did all these things and all of those mattered more to her on a personal level than the failing relationship with her own wife that it was reflecting. I wasn't meant to like this experience; narratively, if I enjoyed reading this, it would have betrayed its own narrative. Unfortunately, this meant that I basically hated the entire experience of actually reading this very well-crafted story.

The end, also, didn't entirely work for me -- <spoiler>It worked in thematically, by showing that even given the opportunity for change, someone like that will invariably backslide. Yet somehow it feels like this isn't what it had meant to want to do. I felt like it had wanted to say that some methods of interpreting others feelings (fictionally, emotionally) were better than others (literally, as data) but what it DID do was put Sean back in the driver's seat as the self-absorbed rock star who is exploiting others' experiences to put herself in the spotlight. The fact it did this while not actually resolving if she'd actually support her wife and try with her at all was crushing -- especially as I came away with the impression that the person who could do this wouldn't do THAT. So like -- maybe that was the point of it. That people like this will never change etc. </spoiler> But it wasn't something I loved to read and experience.

Very well-written, though, and someone with more of a stomach for bitter narratives may enjoy it more than I did. Horror is one thing, but this feels like something else. Disregard, maybe. A narrative of compulsive disregard.

Was this review helpful?

‘Feed Them Silence’ had an excellent premise - the complexities of a queer relationship paired with the speculative aspect of the wolves made for a really interesting juxtaposition that only heightened the reader’s attachment to Sean. However, I really wish it was longer so that Mandelo had been able to develop the speculative stuff further!

Was this review helpful?

I was really excited about the premise of this book, and overall it was an enjoyable read. Sean, the main character, is complex. I found myself feeling sympathetic to her in some moments and so frustrated by her in others. Throughout the book, Mandelo does not shy away from the more taboo elements of being in the mind of a wolf, however I felt like the book could have explored them even more.

Was this review helpful?

This is a shorter story so I did push through until the end, however, it just wasn't for me. From the characters to the storyline I just struggled to connect with this one.

Was this review helpful?

I didn’t realize this one was a novella until I started listening to it. I pay attention to some things, I promise!

Feed Them Silence is the story of Sean, who is a scientist living in the near-ish future where something has happened that has endangered almost all of the remaining wild wolves in the world. Her research has helped her bring about a technology that allows her to more or less be in the mind of a wild wolf, to see if she can figure out what is happening with them. She can see through the eyes of an adult female wolf. However, her research and the long hours of obsession that it has caused in Sean has made her relationship with her wife very strained, and so Sean must make some tough decisions.

I quite liked this novella. I listened to it in just two sittings, which is really good for me, these days. I liked Sean as a character, and I often understood where she was coming from, and related to her pretty hard. This story was extremely easy to fall right into, much like Sean falls into the mind of a wolf at times, and I found it really hard to put this one down to do things like sleep or eat.

The narrator, Natalie Naudus, did a fantastic job, and made each character come to life for me. Her narration definitely made a wonderfully written story into a great experience for a couple afternoons. I’d recommend this one to anyone who wants something unique, with interesting characters. 4/5 stars!

Was this review helpful?

having liked mandelo's debut i was really looking forward to this novella but feed them silence didn't keep me engaged all that much.

Was this review helpful?

I enjoyed reading this book, if only because I got a new perspective about the lives of wildlife and the lengths scientists go to for their research sometimes forgetting that animals are feeling creatures. The end was sadly logical, and it adds to the existential pain that lingered in the end. I give this book 4/5 stars just because there was no clear conclusion to the MC's struggling marriage, and also because there was an infidelity that was never really addressed. Because it's a short read, I really recommend all sci-fi and animal lovers to read this book. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to have access to this title.

Was this review helpful?

I'm not going to be able to finish this one. I love a well-written bad character but I do not want to spend the next 100 pages with this selfish egomaniac. I feel for her wife and the wolf she's strapped herself to. I don't want to know where the journey leads.

Was this review helpful?

This short sci-fi novella merges a character with whom I feel sorry (the wolf) with a character who kind of drives me nuts (Sean). Despite this, it is Sean's behavior that provides the conflict to the tale, so very necessary. This story brings up a lot of deeper topics to consider and discuss in a class or book club, including human selfishness, anthropomorphism, and the power of ambition.

Was this review helpful?

In a near future world, people have the possibility to communicate and understand animals. But is it worth it to pursue? That's one of the main questions Sean faces on all fronts as she is struggling with colleagues, a frayed marriage, big corporations and lack of connection overall.

To be such a short novella (where it is almost incredibly impossible/hard to have a well-developed plot and/or characters) it is incredibly well written and developed. It wasn't a fun read by any means, but the portrayal of emotions felt is extremely touching: loneliness, lack of feeling, etc.

At the same time, it manages to make some short but accurate commentary on scientific fields and bias: women in STEM (mainly how they have to work harder because they are seen as "emotional"), the workings of big corporations (rendering and profiting of life), conservation efforts, racial bias (within a marriage) and certain implications that could happen within research (although a bit weird to be honest).

Overall, it has a cool-weird dark sci-fi vibe, and I definitely recommend it!

Thanks to MacMillan-Tor Forge for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

“What else was she, really, but another animal body afraid of being alone in the cold?”

I will never say no to fucked up sapphics communing with nature, but Lee Mandelo has me shouting HELL YES. FEED THEM SILENCE is a novella about Sean, an ambitious, mid-fifties researcher who has finally received funding for the project of her dreams: inserting twin neurological interfaces in herself and a wolf’s brain in order to feel everything the wolf feels. Sean gets more and more enmeshed in the life of Kate (her chosen wolf) as her pack struggles to survive the frozen Minnesota winter in an increasingly barren ecosystem, neglecting her already fraught relationship with her wife and ultimately sacrificing her work in her pursuit of that which she has always desired: a sense of belonging.

I really liked this book. I’ve been mildly obsessed with Mandelo ever since I read his debut SUMMER SONS, and this novella pulls on many of the same threads: the horrors of academia, racial tensions between queers, powerful feelings of isolation even when community is seemingly there for the taking. Mandelo isn’t afraid of leaning into messy, primal sexual desires and their connections to other aspects of life. This novella also touches on the ethics of research and the broader interplay between humanity and the environment we live in and so often, irreparably corrupt. As with many novellas, this one only scratches the surface of big concepts, and at the end I found myself still wanting more; the narrative arc feels unresolved. Will definitely continue to read absolutely anything that Mandelo publishes. Thanks to Tordotcom and Dreamscape Media for the review copies!

Content warnings: animal injury and death, medical procedures, blood/gore, infidelity, racism/sexism

Was this review helpful?

Thank you so much Tordotcom for sending me an ARC!
.
Lee Mandelo is one of my favorite authors and when it comes to their works, it is a no-brainer for me. There is just something about their writing that does it for me and I can’t wait to read more from them!

Was this review helpful?

I never read from Lee Mandelo before and I really did enjoy this short sci-fi. The premise was simple to understand, the characters were the perfect amount of morally grey! Overall the short length was perfect for the story to feel told in its entirety.

Was this review helpful?

HIGHLIGHTS
~complete failure to Spouse (that’s a verb now)
~time to mind-link with a wolf
~have you considered, Not Doing That
~an unexpected bear
~NO ONE CARES WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THINK, SEAN

Just in case you missed or misunderstood the description, Feed Them Silence is not another Summer Sons. Fans of the one are not at all guaranteed to be fans of the other; they are two very different books!

Although in my opinion, Feed Them Silence is just as excellent as Mandelo’s debut. Just very, very different!

Here’s the situation: glory-hound scientist Sean is about to embark on a pretty groundbreaking project; a one-way empathic bond with Kate, one of the last living wolves, facilitated by neural implants and a machine that connects one to the other in real-time. But her marriage has grown strained under the pressure of Sean’s hunt for funding, and her neglect of her wife becomes even worse once the project gets underway. It all comes to a breaking point, and honestly, it looks like Sean herself is the one who’s going to break.

This is a fascinating, addictive novella that I kind of adored, even though it’s nothing like my usual reads. Sean is an unambiguously terrible person – not in the ‘lock her up and throw away the key’ sense, but if her (amazing) wife wrote an AITA post, everyone would definitely be telling her to file for divorce, because Sean definitely doesn’t deserve her. And although Sean insists the point of her research is conservation, Rita does an excellent job tearing that argument to shreds – leaving only Sean’s hunger for fame and personal interest (not-quite-obsession) with wolves as her real motivation.

“If the fact that we’re destroying every habitat on this godforsaken planet hasn’t stuck with the corporations whose money you’re begging for by now, then you doing some brain-in-a-jar bullshit to say how a wolf feels about dying won’t matter either. This wolf can’t consent to being studied by you, which involves a nonconsensual surgical procedure. The presumption you’re making in claiming to report on its real feelings, so you can make a name for yourself, violates its sovereign dignity. It can’t correct you when you put words in its mouth. So, yes, as an ethnographer I fucking disagree with this entire premise.”

Which is probably the motivation of quite a lot of real-life scientists too, but that doesn’t make it feel any less slimy.

Maybe that – finding it slimy – is kind of unfair – what’s wrong with wanting to be famous, really, and would we judge so harshly if Sean were a man? I’m not sure. I do think that Sean’s general indifference to other people would be equally awful in a man – and in fact, as Rita points out, Sean’s overall problem is that she’s behaving like a very particular kind of White Dude. Is that a side-effect of trying to make a name for herself in a field dominated by men? Did she become like this because she was trying to be like them? I don’t know, and I don’t know if it ultimately matters- especially when it’s extremely clear that she has no real interest in putting the work in to be (and do) better.

Wasn’t it enough at their stage of life to be decently matched in their careers and able to function within one another’s orbits?

No, Sean. Wtf? Of course it isn’t. What is wrong with you?

Feed Them Silence would be terribly dull if this were just literary fiction about a failing marriage, but it’s not, and Sean’s relationship with Rita is far less interesting than her relationship with Kate. Not, though, because Kate is more interesting than Rita – it’s not about comparing wife to wolf (even if that’s definitely what Sean does), but about comparing Sean’s ability to connect with wife vs ability to connect with wolf. And let’s be super clear about this: it takes experimental surgery and full on science-fiction levels of technology to make Sean capable of empathising with Kate! This is not a case of someone who has an easier time with non-human animals than with humans; this is a case of someone who needs semi-magical mind-fuckery to care about anyone.

And once she does, she absolutely cannot handle it. Easily the most interesting part of Feed Them Silence is the way in which Sean loses herself in Kate; something which starts slowly, but almost immediately becomes an addiction for her. And having spent time in Sean’s head, it’s not hard to see why; Sean is so dead inside that experiencing the full, unfiltered emotion of Kate’s life – even in the tiny sips mandated by the machinery instead of the devouring gulps Sean would much prefer to be taking – is like moving from black-and-white silent movies to orchestral technicolour. Mandelo depicts this beautifully, not just via the story but in the actual writing itself; bit by bit, Sean goes from referring to Kate as ‘the wolf’, to ‘her wolf’, to ‘them’ (meaning Kate + Sean), to ‘herself’ (meaning Sean). It’s a neatly subtle, but powerful, way of underscoring Sean’s freefall into Kate.

The first bite of chicken-flesh and grease filled her mouth while she saw herself, or her wolf, on video: brindled coat, shaved scalp now furry again, huge ears and paws. An unexpected dislocation, far worse that hearing her own voice speaking back to her on her phone’s answering message, smacked her across the face.

(Is it good or bad that Sean comes to care more for Kate and her pack than other humans? Is it terrible that she requires such drastic measures to be able to empathise at all? Should we be horrified? Is this a horror story? WHY IS SEAN LIKE THIS?)

Ultimately, this is a weird but brilliant book that manages to be about (semi-)psychic bonds with wolves, toxic academia (is there any other kind?), gender roles in same-sex marriages, and a critique of ‘feel-good’ scientific research. There’s more than a touch of climate fiction in there too, and all of it wrapped up in prose that is sharp and deft, where each word feels powerful because each word is exactly what it should be. Another author would need 300-odd pages to tell this story; Mandelo fits it into a novella because their use of language is so precise it makes every sentence throat-grabbingly potent. Feed Them Silence is distilled down to its purest form, pure concentrate, and it’s enough to make you deliriously dizzy.

I loved it, but I do hesitate to recommend it – it’s fairly bleak, and although the ending is clearly meant to be hopeful, I wouldn’t call it happy.

This is not a book meant to comfort, but it is most certainly a book to make you think, and if you’d like a quick, gut-punch of a story that dissects a very messed-up woman’s addiction to wolf-thoughts, then this is definitely for you.

Was this review helpful?

I unfortunately did not have a chance to finish this title before it was published despite having an interest in it. Rated 5stars, did not finish.

Was this review helpful?

Lee Mandelo’s Feed Them Silence blends the methodology of real world science, the foreboding dread of horror, and a complex queer relationship to create an engrossing near future sci-fi novella. Short enough to be read in a single sitting yet layered enough to inspire thought and discussion for days afterward, I would recommend Feed Them Silence to anyone looking for a story that raises and answers a plethora of ethical questions through its character work—even if neither are easy or straightforward.

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

Was this review helpful?