3.5 stars.
A squad of soldiers emerges from a bunker to find their world silent and weirdly transformed: there are countless objects organized into massive blocks, with each block containing millions/thousands of the same type of object. For example, plastic spoons, wrist bands, watering cans, cricket bats, container ships, skyscrapers, etc. There is no indication of who has done this, and the squad finds no evidence of other humans in the vicinity.

The squad is led by Elsie Sharpcot; she's Cree and has endured years of racism and misogyny in the military. Her secondDorian “Jack” Wakely, is suffering, from PTSD. Both are veterans of Afghanistan, and decide to lead their squad of misfit and malcontent privates back to where their base is, on the way provisioning themselves from items scrounged from the organized blocks.

They need to find shelter before winter arrives, and are discombobulated by the eerie silence around them, the lack of connection to the wider world (their cellphones get no signal).They move through the massive maze, wondering who could have created it, while morale and discipline ebb due to exhaustion and fear.

B.H. Panhuyzen conjures a situation that centers our uncontrolled consumption. Panhuyzen also shows us the effects of the mystery and fear it induces on each soldier, who are at the mercy their memories; for example, Elsie keeps remembering her daughter Lana, a bright girl then a difficult teenager. The others are worn down by the lack of contact with others, and the pervasive quiet. Violence ensues, as the squad continues westward in the hope of finding people and answers.

Panhuyzen’s post-apocalyptic story left me both bereft, and slightly hopeful. The author does not provide a conclusive answer to who organized all the world's objects into a gigantic maze, and where are the people. The soldiers name the unknown actors the Accruers, which is an apt name.

This is not quick-moving story. Instead, it's one of slow, grinding horror, as we move through towering piles of objects, and no evidence of who could have performed this stunning feat.

This book is about survival, endurance and maintaining faith in oneself and one's companions/community. The story is quiet, scary and tense. This book won't be for everyone, but I liked it.

Thank you to Netgalley and to ECW Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

A thought provoking and very unusual take on a post-apocalyptic event. I absolutely loved the description of the strange towers of objects gathered from around the globe, and the way the small band of survivors dealt with with the psychological ramifications. Has a clear environmental message without being preachy and I'm still thinking about the story weeks later. Makes you look at the world in a different way.

How much I enjoyed this book really snuck up on me.

I began A Tidy Armageddon very interested to see how Panhuyzen would execute the very unique concept promised in the description—the world suddenly being organized into a seemingly-endless grid of stacks of manmade objects. The concept can very quickly become silly if not approached carefully, and a careful, though still at times clumsy, approach is exactly what we end up with here.

While initially slow to start, it is genuinely fascinating to see our lovely cast of Canadian Armed Forces soldiers begin to grapple with their new world after emerging from a bunker during a supposed training exercise to find the world transformed. The horror of realizing that each stack contains *every* object of that type that has ever been created, and the implications of that, are portrayed amazingly, even if I think that some of the characterizations do later fall a bit flat.

The implications are truly where Panhuyzen succeeds, setting up a world both familiar and foreign, and exploring the idea of the stacks to their greatest extent, while also simultaneously not providing a lot of concrete answers. You’re right there on the ground alongside the soldiers, and you figure things out at the same pace they do. There’s a passage close to the end of the novel that was terrifying in what it represented for the world, and helped drive home that this book is as much a horror novel as it is sci-fi, in some ways. The greater metanarrative of the stacks also stuck with me, in a way I was surprised to not find cheesy: After reading the book, when I’d go to use a plastic spoon or similar object, I’d think, “Where would this be in the stack of every plastic spoon?” And make a conscious choice to find a reusable one instead.

Not everything is a success, as I mentioned earlier, the characterization can fall flat at times, particularly in the beginning, and there isn’t always great imagery or prose to be found. Additionally, a lot of space gets taken up by long lists of objects in a given stack, which is tiring and leads to skimming. The ending also just kind of….happens, without a lot of buildup. It just ends, and that’s that, and it was a little disappointing.

One thing I’m not going to fault the book for, however, is the lack of definite answers as to the mysterious force behind the arrangement of objects in the first place. The tantalizing clues inferred through observations or mentioned by characters were wonderfully eerie, and I’m satisfied with the amount we ended up getting: we can draw our own conclusions, just as the characters can.

Maybe I just happen to fall in a specific subset of people for whom this type of novel is extremely entertaining, but whatever it was, something really clicked for me with A Tidy Armageddon, and I’ll be watching to see what Panhuyzen does next.

Easy to read and a unique concept forving the reader to confront their ideals of consumerism.
Our protagonist is strong and engaging. She really drives the story.
Worth a read.

This was a bit too strange for me. I made it about 35 percent in, and then I didn't finish. Maybe I'm just not the right audience? If you like the strange, give it a try and see if you like it.

A group of Canadian soldiers are ordered into a bunker. When they emerge a few weeks later into a giant maze, it’s walls are made of stuff eg plastic spoons all gathered together, blocks of machinery, cans of soup, and later they come across helicopters, skyscrapers, telephones, alarm clocks etc etc. Communications no longer work and when they arrive at what should be their headquarters, it’s no longer there. They march through the maze to where a city should be, it’s also not there. It appears that all the human made stuff of the world has been transferred to these walls, the soldiers name whatever has done this the ‘accruers’.
I found this to be an original and fascinating that does get a bit repetitive (each new wall of stuff there’s a list of brands, types etc). Who or what did this? What happened to all the humans? Are there other survivors? These questions (view spoiler). So it’s interesting and also slightly frustrating post apocalyptic fiction.

Mesmerizing writing! Following a band of Canadian soldiers finding stacked rows of items across a destroyed planet, this apocalyptic novel is unique in its contrast to so many novels of this genre. A sharp, edgy book with reference to mass consumerism and resource consumption. Very well written and recommended.

A novel in the vein of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, showcasing the devastating scale of mass consumption while delivering a suspenseful and action-rich tale of human connection, loss, and resilience.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Dystopian novels are generally one of my favorite genres. A Tiny Armageddon just moved too slow for me. The book dragged on and it was a struggle to get through. There were some bright thought provoking moments but overall the book fell flat.

I want to thank @netgalley and @ecwpress for allowing me to review this ARC.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

The book follows the story of a squad of Canadian soldiers who, after ~3 weeks, leave a bunker they have been sent to for reasons that remain unclear only to find a very different world outside. Someone has taken all the products manufactured by humankind, brought the together, and put them together in hyperorganised piles by product. The story follows the squad as they grapple with the new reality, re-establish relationship within the group, and seek purpose.

Despite a promising premise, this book ended up being painfully boring, above anything else. It felt like 50%+ of the text (at least in the first three quarters) was painstakingly detailed description of consumer products, their brands (long long lists...), and their use cases. The only way to read the book, for me, was to skip over these tedious sections. I still don't understand their purpose other than to make a political point (which I personally agree with), but, after reading 2-page long description of the 10th consumer good, one begins to wonder what this all is for.

The characters in the story are also somehow bland and boring. I just couldn't get myself to care enough about any of them. They felt like badly drawn caricatures of soldiers, with a few contemporary issues sprinkled throughout (bi-sexual orientation, racism, sexism, etc). It felt more like a sketch of what protagonists should look like, vs a fully blown portrait.

The last fifth of the book started being more interesting (I'll spare the spoliers), but it felt like it was too little too late, and didn't change the overall impression of the book.

Overall, I can't really recommend it. I'm left with the impression this could have been a very good and successful novella, that got blown out of proportion by bad editing and even worse discipline by the author. What emerges feels far too shallow to be genuinely engaging, and the important ecological message gets lost in the tedium of facts and figures.

Really interesting and thought-provoking. I found the characters to be a bit hard to get to know and I wish we could feel closer to them. There were a few plot holes that would be worth addressing. A cool premise that I would love to see expanded.

This started out great! I loved all the Canadian references throughout and the dialog was mostly well-done, if a bit long-winded.

What I had trouble with was the character development. Sharpcot felt almost clumsily put together, almost a caricature of an Indigenous person. Some of her reactions and responses to events felt wholly unnatural. I recognize the intent to create interesting and diverse characters in stories, but she felt so one-dimensional I would’ve rather she didn’t have that backstory at all. I personally also didn’t love all the military references, but I can recognize the need for something like that given the premise of the story.

I also found the latter half of the book almost painful to get through. While the first half was fun and engaging, the latter part dragged on seemingly forever without reprieve.

Thank you to ECW for the ARC!

I loved loved loved this story, but the ending left me desperate for answers!!!

The detail of the scenes (especially walking through the blocks of items), the characters, and the plot were fantastic and captivating.

Once you start reading, it’s definitely hard to stop. Nothing terribly frightening or gory happens, but I was stilled frightened by the absolute power and bizarreness of the events that had occurred while Section 3 was in the bunker.

I was able to commiserate with the team as had the flu while reading and was so sick of canned soup!! Give me fresh and homemade food any day over another can of anything!!

Really hoping there is a Followup or Prequel novel or even novella as I’d love to read what happens to Sarge & the rest once they reach their destination. Or see the “Event” from the perspective of someone who was there during it; maybe Lana?

Oh, the other thing I enjoyed was the use of cities/places I know (being an Edmonton gal) used in a apocalyptic setting!! So cool!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and ECW press for a copy!

3.5 rounded up.

The first, I want to say, about 150 pages were great, engaging and sometimes really quite anxiogenic (the idea of walking between stories high towers of just stuff organized in categories and holding together in an unknowable way just feels so claustrophobic even for someone who doesn’t struggle with claustrophobia). But after that, I felt that the story started to drag and I struggled to keep my attention on it. The reoccurring descriptions of the piles was probably mean to instill a sense of how oppressive the landscape had become but for me it became a type of filler.
At one point one of the characters thinks of their child's autism diagnosis and something is said to the effect that the puzzle piece has been accepted as the symbol for autism. It hasn't been accepted as such by the autistic community, it's something that is being pushed by Autism Speaks a eugenicist organization that is known for speaking over actually autistic people and to further stigmatize autism. I am well aware that the character might think something while the author knows differently but it made me uncomfortable to see it without the caveat since the autistic community already struggles so much to have its voice heard. The autistic community's chosen symbol is the infinity symbol (sometimes in gold and sometimes in rainbow), in case anyone cares.

after earth has been ultimately destroyed, a group of diverse misfit soldiers band together to search for useful objects as well as meaning within the desolate landscape. elsie sharpcot is a cree woman who has dealt with extreme anti-indigenous rhetoric put forth by the united states military. now that everything is gone, she leads a small group of flawed, odd soldiers across what is left of earth.

this is primarily a story of travel and contemplation. the characters are well written and funny, yet terribly flawed as well. the dialogue flows naturally and each character has a distinct personality. they are traumatized people, diverse in ethnic and racial origin, and they are accessible. bh panhuyzen writes of the remnants of earth in vivid detail, bringing beauty to destruction.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!