Novic reads like competent world-building that works better as supplementary material for existing fans than as a standalone experience. It's the literary equivalent of a deleted scene - interesting for completists, but not essential. If you loved Claiming T-Mo, this will likely satisfy your curiosity about Novic's origins. For newcomers, you might want to start with the main novel instead.
Not bad, not great. Just sort of there, like an immortal who's seen it all before.

I’ll start this review by saying I’ve never read the other book which the main character in this novella features in, so take my review with that in mind.

I found the format of this novella to be confusing at first with it being numerous short stories that ended up forming a larger story.

Whilst the overall writing style was beautiful, I really couldn’t get involved in the story as I found every time we changed to another short story I lost interest.

3.5. A short story organized into very short chapters following Novic, a mysterious and seemingly immortal figure. The story follows the testing of Novic’s immortality as well as some of his time with his family. Bacon’s writing is gorgeous as always, and here she really strikes a good balance between letting Novic’s backstory unfold and not revealing too much too quickly.

I read this novelette without having read Claiming T-Mo, the novel in which the character Novic first appears. An excerpt of Claiming T-Mo is included with this novelette but I opted not to read it, as I intend to pick up and read the full novel at some point.

Content warnings: death, violence, pregnancy, death of a parent

Thank you to Meerkat Press, NetGalley, & the author for providing me an ARC to review.

It took me a few chapters to understand the narrative timeline. Taking in that it's a prequel / introduction of a character in another book that I haven't read fully. Just the excerp at the end of this novel. It's a short stories so I took the time to reread the first chapters. It's an interesting story. The main character is not really likable but I kept reading because I was intrigued about what was going to happen to him next.

I was approved to read and review Eugen Bacon's Novic yesterday. I haven't finished the book yer, but want to say about what I've read so far: this writing is absolutely stunning. The imagery, the use of language and the unusual storytelling are really gorgeous. Will say more when I finish reading.