Thank you Netgalley & publisher for this e-arc of Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson.

This is a sci-fi novel. 3.5-4* so far.

Synopsis:
In "Those Beyond the Wall" by Micaiah Johnson, Scales, an enforcer in the climate-ravaged desert town of Ashtown, faces a daunting challenge when a series of inexplicable deaths rock her community. The peace is shattered when a woman is gruesomely murdered before Scales's eyes, with no apparent culprit. As more bodies surface, both in Ashtown and the affluent, walled-off Wiley City, Scales is tasked with unraveling the mystery behind the killings. Teaming up with a rule-abiding partner and a sharp scientist, they embark on a perilous journey that takes them into the heart of both worlds. However, what they uncover hints at a larger, more sinister conspiracy that threatens the very fabric of their reality, potentially leading to the apocalypse. Scales must confront her past and navigate treacherous terrain to stop the invisible killer before it's too late for everyone."

I had a hard time hooking into this and have only gotten about 5-10% in, but out of time for the arc. I am a mood reader. The writing is good, but I am not feeling it yet. When I finish I will leave an updated review. I love her other book The Space Between Worlds and will finish this; this just did not hook me as quickly as her last.

A very easy 5 stars for me! This book BROKE ME!!!
I read "The Space between Worlds" in 2020 and loved it. In this one, we find the same world and some of the characters that we got to know in the first one. Otherwise the story lines are not directly connected as this book takes place years after the first.

This was an emotional roller-coaster! Firstly, if you start reading this book and think you missed something and have to read back... Don't worry! Just trust the process, it all makes sense eventually. This book tacles SOOOOOO many things! Love, hate, the fine line between both, gender, sexuality, family, found family, loss, racism... I'm probably forgetting many more but damn was it good!
There are many characters involved, most of them morally grey... But that's just the way things are in a tough world!
This is raw, brutal, but also so so beautiful!
Please trust me and read it!

*Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group -Ballantine for acces to the ebook against an honest review."

Those Beyond the Wall was a great follow-up novel. I love Johnson's ability to world build but also make it seem not so distant from our own word.

<b> I loved Johnson's first book set in this complex, futuristic, postapocalyptic world of conflicting classes and disparate privilege, but had difficulty feeling as connected to this story. </b>

I was intrigued and fascinated with the layers of Micaiah Johnson's book The Space Between Worlds, which introduced both the multiverse and the complex character Cara who also appear in Those Beyond the Wall--in Cara's case, as a key player without a lot of page time.

In Ashtown, a gritty desert community, the Emperor rules with a ruthless hand and holds the ultimate power. The only person he can trust is Scales.

Scales is a mechanic, a fighter, and she keeps everyone on track.

But when Ashtown citizens start turning up dead, Scales must team up with a straitlaced Ashtown partner she despises and an abrupt, suspicious, but brilliant City scientist (who also appeared in The Space Between Worlds) in order to try to capture the killers.

Scales isn't sure who she can trust; she is challenged by grasping the time, place, and circumstances of her current existence; and she's keeping some pretty enormous secrets.

I loved the gender fluidity and acceptance; the appropriation of "Mr." as an honorific for all, regardless of gender; the scrappy underdogs who have adapted to difficulty; and the deep bonds between and weighty pasts of the characters.

Yet I couldn't help feeling jumbled. Factors that contributed to my inability to hold on to the story: characters who appear and are doppelgangers of known characters but are not actually the people themselves; various versions of reality that are known to exist, so nothing feels final; and the fact that Scales and her allies spend significant page time trying to figure out what's going on and not being sure.

I wasn't as drawn in by Scales's extended thoughts and reflections as I was by the action and dialogue in the story.

The end sections where events are clicking along, alliances are shifting and changing, and dramatic justice is being sought felt like the strongest and most compelling portion of the book for me.

I was fascinated-horrified by elements such as filed teeth, ruthless fighting styles, and the technology incorporated into everything.

I received a prepublication digital edition of this science fiction title courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group--Ballantine.

Micaiah Johnson is also the author of The Space Between Worlds, a book I loved.

I read this book twice. I read it, didn’t care for it, re-read book 1 then tried it again and liked it the second time around. I recommend that you review The Space Between Worlds before reading unless you have a stellar memory because even though the protagonist in this book is only a minor character in book 1 and the storyline is different, the society and the major characters from book 1 are strongly present in this book. I really needed the reminders to emotionally connect with this story and didn’t feel like they were presented well for a book 2 in a series with recurrent characters.

The multiverse travel present from the prior book, which is what attracted me to the story, is not really at play here except for as a background and catalyst for the mystery, which is not a focal point to this story either. This book is more concerned with addressing the social issues and differences in their world, specifically Wiley City and Ashtown. There is also an argument to be made that you don’t need to read book 1 since most of the information you will glean from it will be new information to Mr. Scales.

This story follows Mr. Scales, a minor character from The Space Between Worlds that appeared in just a few scenes. When I picked up The Space Between Worlds again, I was immediately drawn into earlier protagonist Cara’s story in a way that I didn’t feel pulled into with Mr. Scales. I didn’t find the character all that compelling but after living with her for a while, I did adjust and come to appreciate her.

She’s full of contradictions, both angry and apathetic, which made it hard for me to root for her or even care what happened next. Maybe it’s also in the way that I view violence as more of a masculine weakness than something that a strong woman turns to in times of frustration and/or the need for control and she wields it often and without care all the while justifying her actions to herself leaving those around to either feel vindicated or uncomfortable. There’s also some issues of background appropriation in her history that can really make you reconsider her position in the hierarchy.

Scales is a very complicated character with complicated relationships. I did enjoy revisiting a lot of the characters from the first book including Cara, Dell, seeing Nik Nik in a different light and maybe even other reveals about Adam.

Ultimately, if you enjoy stories about the push/pull of hierarchy and oppression within society and the various ways to address it, you will probably enjoy Those Beyond the Wall.

Thank you to Netgalley and Del Rey Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

Thankful for the ARC from NetGalley on this one.

Seeing the building hubbub over this story, and then getting an ARC, I quickly disregarded the "it stands on its own" commentary and grabbed The Space Between Worlds first. So glad that I read that one first! SO GOOD. Loved the story, the world, the characters, story, pacing, emotions... and ... and... and ...
... and, so glad to have read this one! Those Beyond the Wall is just as rewarding and just as engrossing. Different stories and different approaches, it is just as great. While I can see some of other reviewers' underpinnings for their frustrations, I see both books as amazing and exciting reads. They ARE different. They have different characters and distinctly different styles. and the realities that build their structures and propel their voices, their dispositions, their political diatribes... are vastly different. Took me a while to see how 2 pretty different works and framings can both work so well... and, still thinking and reflecting, not all that sure if I can pick a "best" one, I believe that it is fair to concede that they are two artfully different approaches to the same world and same pocket of characters... and, pretty dramatically succeed in both being outstanding stroy telling.
Loving different aspects of each and different delivery of each-- along with pretty wildly different handling of the social turmoil at the time... this reader can emphatically appreciate both works of art. Enjoy both of the stories. and look forward to more from Micaiah coming in the future!! It is not every day that a writer can craft different experiences and different characterizations in the same exciting world without fracturing the potential. Johnson not only manages it.. but triumphantly thrives in both of these endeavors.
Here's to more from her soon!

Do you have a day pass?"
That question is gonna haunt me for a while.

Here's my review for "Those Behind the Wall" by Micaiah Johnson

We start out with some mysterious deaths and ends with a revolution of sorts. Micaiah weaves alot of different themes seamlessly thru the story, such as classism, love, loyalty, environmental and friendship, and it doesn't seem heavy handed at all. I enjoyed the sibling dynamics of a rather ruthless family, especially the different ways they dealt with trauma/abuse. The friendships/relationships were very realistic and heartfelt. I will say the ending left me satisfied and rather weepy. One of the best endings I've read.

Thank you NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

For starters, I loved The Space Between Worlds. Truly one of the best sci-fi novels of our time, in my opinion.

That said, the premise of that novel leaves a lot of potential for this one, that left me massively confused in the beginning. (Admittedly I did not do a reread though, so maybe if I had been freshly familiar with the story, it wouldn't have been so bad.) Either way, by the time this story was rolling, it didn't matter.

Topical, fascinating, brutal, and surprising, this novel hits it all. If you liked Johnson's previous novel, you need to pick this one up.

I struggled with this book. It had way too much male machismo chest beating for ne.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC

Micaiah Johnson has seen some things. My understanding is that this book was written after she participated in some of the protests during COVID that were brutally squashed. At the beginning of the book, she notes that her editor told her "I didn't realize that you were this angry" after reading her manuscript. All this is to say that this book is quite a mood and it wasn't one that worked for me right now.

It has been a bit since I read The Space Between Worlds, the first book in this series. Our POV character is Mr. Snake (Mr. is a rank in the gangs of Ashtown, not a gender designator, and it seems like Mr. Snake sees herself as female) and I don't really have a memory of them in the first book. The book opens with a gruesome death due to someone coming through from a different dimension. This leads Nik Nik, Mr. Snake's brother and the leader of the Ashtown gang, to reach out to Adam Bosch and start some missions that lead to something big.

Mr. Snake loves the gang life. The violence doesn't bother them and they see order in the brutality of the rules. They have nothing but contempt for anyone who lives in Wiley City and are more than ready to burn it all down, more than ready to die to show that they're down for whatever the gang asks of them. While the first book in the series had Cara, the protagonist of that book, sort of walking the line between Wiley City and Ashtown, that balance is nowhere to be found in this book. The emotions are all turned up to 11 and those emotions tend toward rage, contempt, frustrated love, and hate. This is why I ended up skimming through the book. It's a rough headspace to be in and I'm sure that Mr. Snake would have nothing but contempt for me and my soft, privileged ability to just shut the book instead of living it.

At one point, Nik Nik slowly beats a woman to death to simulate the breaking of every bone and twisting of insides that happens when someone tries to travel dimensions incorrectly. All approved and condoned. Again, I'm just too soft or privileged or maybe just not willing to see that extreme as a desirable outcome. Did not like.

This was a decent book. I really enjoy the world created by Micaiah Johnson. However, this did not live up to her previous book for me. I failed to ever get fully invested in the story. I think this was very much a problem of trying to read it when I was not in the right mood, so I will still recommend to fans of the author's previous book.

Oh my, this was gut-wrenching and marvelous. First, I must say that I did not read the first in the series, The Space Between Worlds, and reading the blurbs about both, it did not look like it was the same characters and took place considerably later, so went ahead and gave it a try. I was able to gradually comprehend the world and characters, but the light began to down midway that yes, I should have read the first one first. But that did not detract from this one at all, this one is so good, so very, very good that I will most definitely be going back and reading the first, even knowing what I know now. I never do that with series. The writing and characters are so emotionally powerful that I will be grabbing everything by Micaiah Johnson I can get my hands on.
This is an apartheid world of city comfort and desert hardship, the haves and the have-nots, the light-skinned people and people of color, Wiley City and Ashville. Mr. Scales (a sign of respect in Ashville for male or female) is a confident and talented enforcer and fixer for the Emperor who sees a dear friend butchered right in front of her, yet there is no murderer in sight. When similar deaths occur in Wiley Town as well, Scales is called on to lead an investigation into what is going on, and it turns out to be far worse than a serial killer. The World as they know it is itself at stake.
The story is complex and the characters even more so. They are all damaged souls in one way or another, and each finds their own way to live with it, scars and nightmares and rage and all. The writing is vivid and powerful and beautiful, and you feel it through and through. I haven't read anything this potent in ages. Describing it doesn't do it justice. Read it. You won't regret it.
Now I've got to get me hands on the Space Between Worlds....

- I never thought we’d get to return to Ashtown and Wiley! THOSE BEYOND THE WALL brings us back to the universe of THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS about ten years after the events of the first book, and things are different yet completely the same.
- The crew of the first book is back, this time with Mr. Scales as the narrator. She’s smart and hardheaded, but sometimes more ruthless than Cara was in the first book, which leads to a few good shocks in the story.
- Overall, I don’t think this was as tightly plotted as the first book, and occasionally heavy-handed in drawing parallels to our world. Still, I enjoyed being back in this world and Johnson’s mind, who somehow found even higher stakes for this book.

This book is a perfect sequel to the much acclaimed The Space Between Worlds. If you haven’t read that book, please read it before this one as it’s a direct sequel. Most characters are coming back, and knowing their back story is really important. Those Beyond the Wall is from the perspective of Mr. Scales, a runner and mechanic that we have encountered before. Travel between worlds plays a part, and so does Cara, Adam, Nik Nik, the Ruralites, and so on. Since the point of view is one of a type of character we have found frightening before, you can expect more violence and more justification of it. In general, the book is a radicalized version of its prequel. At one point, Mr. Scales says that Cara only wants the city to love her, whereas she herself wants to destroy the city. At that point I was a bit afraid of a terrorist / freedom fighter trope, but the book stops short of that. It’s very angry, as the author herself says in the foreword, but the conflict resolution leaves things in a hopeful way.

You want Everything Everywhere All at Once with more sapphic storylines and a social justice angle, then this is your book. This is the second part in an a personally highly anticipated duology by Micaiah Johnson. In "Those Beyond the Wall" we get a closer look into Ashtown and the dynamics and history between the wastelands and the city of Wiley. This time, Ashtown, the emperor and his army is dealing with a mass unaliving event that has large ramifications.

The author said she wrote this in 2020 and you can really feel the social justice notes and her critique of classism and elitism and how it impactst he characters. This is a must read for sci-fi lovers. You have to take your time with it. The worldbuilding forces you to slow down, and that's a good thing.

What a ride Micaiah Johnson's Those Beyond the Wall was, not from a plot perspective but for me as a reader. Here we follow Scales, an enforcer and mechanic from Ashtown, an area outside the privileged walls of Wiley City, where fear and control are the only things that are respected. A series of gruesome deaths set things in motion that barrel towards a reckoning, not only between the two classes of these cities, but with other worlds too.

I read her first book two years ago. In all honesty, while I remembered the general plot points from The Space Between Worlds, I didn't remember much about the specific characters. I felt that hurt me going into Those Beyond the Wall. Reading it more closely after finishing the first book or including some references or reminders in this one, would have been very helpful. Instead, I spent the first third of this book feeling lost, like I was missing something. It was difficult to get my bearings in this story and that is not a feeling I enjoy as a reader. I almost DNF'd the book several times because I wasn't quite sure what was going on and I wasn't feeling connected to the characters.

Then I got about halfway in and realized Johnson was not interested in creating an easily digestible story. The world she created and the premise of her stories are top notch but readers have to work to extract the full depth of her books. Johnson seems uninterested in creating likable characters. She explores the full depth of humanity, including the gritty, ugly parts. Characters are fully fleshed out and almost all have both good and evil in them. Things are never simple or easy. Once I understood this, I flew through the second half of the story.

Johnson has created a genre book that not only contains a fascinating world with complex characters but that also addresses classism and authority. The ending of the book was fantastic and well-earned. I just wish it wouldn't have been quite so arduous to get there. Readers who are willing to work for a satisfying science fiction read will be rewarded here.

Those Beyond the Wall released March 12th, 2024. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

While I really enjoyed jumping back into the world with the characters, ultimately, this fell flat for me. It took quite a while for me to get into the story, but I did enjoy the second half much more than the first half. I also really liked the murder mystery vibes it had going on. I didn't like the writing style; it felt very disjointed and lacking emotion. I usually enjoy a non-linear plot, but this felt very messy. While I think the character development was good, I hated the character dynamics. Overall, the premise was great, but I felt the execution was lacking.

Although I could gush about this book at length, I aggressively do not want to give anything away; I went in knowing nothing about this book other than that it is set in the same universe as The Space Between Worlds, and my reading experience was immersive and captivating. I'll sum it up with this: The Space Between Worlds was already one of my favorite books, which moved me to tears upon my recent reread and astounded me with its wonderfully crafted story that addressed love, injustice, capitalism, resistance, the infinite possibilities of the multiverse. Those Beyond the Wall addressed all the same themes and more and was, dare I say it, even better.

I’m officially obsessed with Micaiah Johnson. Her writing is brilliant and impactful, transcending the sci-fi genre (any genre really), creating a testimony to the greater human experience. It’s incredible.

I didn’t think it was possible to create something as great or greater than book one, The Space Between Worlds, but I am happily blown away. The build on this new and continued story is fantastic. I was slowly and completely (re)immersed in this reality. Heartfelt, brutal, and emotional, it’s a character driven plot with a new lead and new perspective. But there are also a lot of familiar faces (book 1 is a must and you might need a refresher if your memory is thin). The tension grows even as the mysteries and plot reveals itself. Engrossing.

It’s dark, gritty, vicious, political, insightful, emotive, and strangely beautiful writing. All set in a solidly built sci-fi world that feels close to home. I can’t recommend this series enough. Read it.

Those Beyond the Wall is a "stand-alone" sequel to Micaiah Johnson's "The Space Between Worlds". I say "stand-alone" in quotes because to be honest, this book relies too heavily on the character and background setup of TSBW for me to really believe that a reader could skip TSBW and not be very confused here. But well The Space Between Worlds is one of my favorite books of the last five years as it used its story of multiversal travel to tell a story about class, race, family and love, and even included a F/F romantic subplot. So a sequel was something I really was excited for, although I was a bit nervous due to how perfect I found that book's ending.

Those Beyond the Wall warns the reader however that this is a very different kind of book from the start (via an author's note) and that while this is still in some ways a story about love, it is very much also a story about righteous rage. It uses the multiversal-rules of the first book, along with its setup of a rich city with walls and tech that keeps out the poor and undesirable who are thus forced to live in a Mad Max-esque desert land, to tell a story of inequality and rage against injustice, with our main character Mr. Scales meaning well at heart but more and more willing to channel violence towards solving the injustice she and those around her suffer. And the story deals well with issues of love, self-hate, abuse, and more, for what should be a pretty powerful tale. And yet, my feelings towards this book were complicated by how it sort of took apart The Space Between Worlds' happy ending, reinterpreted certain characters from that book in ways that didn't quite make sense to me, and sort of made it hard for me to concentrate on this book's ideas and message.


Plot Summary:
To everyone else, Mr. Scales is just a mechanic who works for Emperor Nik Nik, the warlord who rules Ashtown...even if Mr. Scales is known to some for being an incredibly strong fighter and a loyal runner. But Mr. Scales hides a wild and sometimes tragic past, one that connects him to the Emperor in a way no one else knows. And Mr. Scales also only barely hides a fury within her, a rage that her time living in and working at The House could only temper, one which she tries hard not to let out of control.

But when a House worker whom Scales knows dies horribly in front of her in mysterious fashion, Scales is desperate to find out who is responsible. And that investigation will force Scales to work with a runner whom she can barely stand and to look into the doings of the rich, wealthy and spoiled who live inside the walls of Wiley City...and whose actions might be responsible for dooming them all. And Scales will find out that saving them all from both the murderous force and the ungrateful oppressing bastards of Wiley will require her to grow into a role she never wanted....and to unleash her rage in a way that will change both Ashtown and Wiley....forever.

Let me be upfront here: Those Beyond the Wall is sold as a stand-alone, but I have no idea how it can be read without reading The Space Between Worlds first. Besides the fact that numerous major characters here originated in that book (main character Mr. Scales is a very minor character in that book), a large part of this book's setup requires you to understand this story's take on multiversal travel and its consequences, and the book doesn't ever stop to re-explain it. I suppose you might be able to figure it out from context, but I doubt you will, and certain character relationships here come straight from that book, which took place a few years before this one.

This is, however, extremely awkward because Those Beyond the Wall takes a VERY different tone - full of righteous fury and absolutely against any ideas of reconciliation between the wealthy Wiley city and Ashtown - than The Space Between Worlds and in trying to set this tone, it uses some of the old characters in ways that didn't really seem to make any sense based upon their actions in that first book. It also kind of rips apart some of the hopeful happy ending of that book's main character Cara (who is a major character here), which didn't love, and the inconsistencies in characters from book to book can't really just be explained by the change in first person narrator. For some readers this won't be a problem I guess, but for me this was something that constantly bothered me throughout reading this book as I just had a hard time believing how certain characters were acting. So I wouldn't recommend this book to someone who hasn't read TSBW, but at the same time I suspect TSBW readers are going to have more problems with character actions than nonreaders - which is just awkward.

That's a lot of text in this review for what seems like a negative, and I really don't want to give the impression that this book is a negative, because it's not. The main protagonist, Mr. Scales, is a fascinating character to follow and her character arc is incredibly strong. Scales is a young woman who hides a powerful rage from abuse, and feels constantly overlooked due to her "ugly" looks - one personal issue for her is her crush on her best friend Mr. Cheeks, which he never seems to ever realize and no one ever seems to suggest could become reciprocated seemingly just because he's known for being so pretty, which bothers her even more than the fact that he doesn't reciprocate. She hates those who are privileged and who enjoy protection of the City or who hate on people due to dogma just for being who they are - for being sexually active, for being queer, etc. (Scales takes no preference in the gender/sex of her partners and is very clear about calling people only how they want to be called) - and finds it hard to let go of that hate and anger when dealing with people who were once part of those circles - such as her new partner here, Mr. Cross (a man who used to spread hate filled dogma of the Rurals Church before the church and Mr. Cross changed). And she is desperate to help the Emperor because he, even if he can't show it openly, is the first one to ever make her feel wanted like family. There's also a lot of self-loathing in Scales due to the abuse she's suffered, and the story uses all of the above to tell a tale about love, hate, and learning to both share one's self, love one's self, and be willing to be honest to one's self in terms of what one wants and loves. It's a really good arc.

Also a strong and powerful arc - which fits in with the above even if it is a major tonal shift from TSBW - is the story's plot arc as Scales and the Ashtown characters struggle with first saving themselves from multiversal invaders and from the backstabbing greedy ways of the peoples from the more literal other "world" - those from Wiley who need the Emperor and his allies' help to survive but would sooner then betray them than share the results of such help. Scales and the book comes to realize that the walls that keep Wiley-ites separated from Ashtown and keep its good atmosphere and land in are untenable if justice is ever to be served...there is no way that people can live in the ways they deserve if this segregation and apartheid system is ever allowed to continue. And so the book argues, this system must be torn down, no matter possibly the cost....although Scales and her allies need to find a way to do so without the greater world being so offended at their actions that they bring down unstoppable weapons of war to kill them all.

It's not at all a subtle plot, with its themes of violence and rage being necessary to correct such horrible injustices being worn right on its sleeve, but it mostly works really well and powerfully. The book kind of forgets near the end its issues dealing with the multiversal invaders (who are at times thought of seemingly by the book as refugees from a dying world, but the book never deals with the implications of that or how the characters' react to that) but for what it's going for, the book's themes and powers really work. I just wish the story had been set more clearly in a different setting so that it didn't have the disharmony issues with TSBW to frustrate me. Or perhaps that discomfort is the author's point and the author intended to repudiate TSBW....but it doesn't quite feel like it. All in all, well worth a read, with the above caveats.