I let this book sit in my TBR for FAR too long because it was friggen awesome! I've been a fan of the Peridot series for years now and I don't know why I didn't read it immediately after buying it because I've been waiting eagerly for the next book in the series. This does take place after book 2, Salvage, so you'll need to read Peridot and Salvage to avoid some major plot spoilers. However, the characters in this story are not related to the main cast from the series. This is brief, queer, Frankenstien retelling that really threw me for a loop in the best way! What I geeked out about after first reading Peridot (I've read it a couple times now) were the vampiric, flying, "skymerms" as I dubbed them in all caps in my original review. This story centers around one of these skymerms and what a trip it was.

This could have easily been a more fleshed-out novel, I think, because I wanted to know more about our characters, Ada, Elias, and Frankie. But other than that, I think it works pretty well as a novella in the series and gives more insight into the skymerms that I'm so enamoured with. If you enjoy the rest of the series, defeinitely read this, though it takes a break from the focus on a lot of the gods and magic and technology of the world, to focus in on a small part. Though, as I mentioned before, it does take place after the events of book two, so there is some significant impact there. Definitely read this series!!! ( )

I received this as a betaread in exchange for my honest opinion.

This short story takes place directly after the events of Salvage (second book in Theodore's Peridot Shift series) and Theodore describes it as "creepy, moody, mermaid murder." What's not to like?

Ada is upset that her brother, Elias, was killed and his soul returned to her in a jar. In an effort to bring him back, she is doing some questionable alchemy things to put his soul into another being. Ideally, she wanted a simula because those are completely moldable to whatever you want them to be and look like, but Frankie (the captain friend that Ada sent on the mission to find a simula) brings her a mermaid instead for the time being.

Mermaids are soulless (and thus one would be a possible vessel for Elias' soul, however non-ideal) due to how their species was punished by their creator goddess for being inherently violent. (The fact that a goddess made her creations more deplorable by removing their souls altogether is something I chalked up to things-gods-do-that-make-no-sense.)

At this point, Ada creates a self-fulfilling prophecy through a bunch of poor (even illogical and, at times, morally reprehensible) decisions that cause a domino effect, which is sort of when I began to be unable to relate to her a bit. But, I also can kind of rationalize it, given that Ada is desperate and grieving, which can make anyone do stupid things.

Rather than waiting to see if Frankie could still bring her a simula, Ada decides that she has to "subdue" the mermaid. To me, this decision is not adequately justified or explained, for two reasons: 1) Ada (understandably) doesn't want to use the mermaid for her brother who is safe in his jar right now so there is virtually no reason to do anything with the mermaid at this juncture and 2) the mermaid is already subdued in its tank, as long as Ada doesn't mess with it.

But, Ada does mess with it.

Instead of putting the mermaid into a drug-induced coma or something to completely remove it as a threat (thereby "subduing" it), Ada basically does the opposite in a Dr. Frankenstein move by removing its wings and then for some reason replacing its tail with legs. I still don't know why she ever thought this was a good idea, desperate and grieving or not. It is biggest sticking point in this story for me.

Anyway, the legs, of course, make the mermaid more dangerous. While Ada is asleep (thinking the mermaid is also sleeping and recovering from surgery), the mermaid wreaks havoc throughout Ada's house, including eating Ada's guests and knocking over the jar containing Elias' soul. This means that Ada now has no choice but to put Elias' soul into the mermaid; otherwise, the soul will fade away to nothing and Ada will lose Elias altogether. So, Ada forces this bond onto the mermaid through a set of sigils and other alchemy.

Now, the mermaid is not just more mobile, it can talk, has a name (Zhook), and is alarmingly intelligent. It is suggested that these things were brought on by the bonding of Elias' soul to the mermaid, though it isn't clear to me whether Zhook "chose" which bits of Elias' she wanted and suppressed the rest or if it was just chance that all the bits that made Zhook terrifying are the ones that "stuck."

Zhook proceeds to make Ada's life a living hell by eating customers when Ada isn't watching, following Ada around like an eerie puppy dog, sitting uncomfortably closely to Ada and touching her in a lovingly creepy way, telling Ada she adores her one minute and threatening Ada in another, constantly thwarting Ada's plans to get rid of her, adeptly creating a small mechanical being named Widdershins, reading and understanding high-level scientific texts, and displaying a surprisingly good grasp of psychology, motivation, and entrapment (all of which she deftly uses against Ada, along with constant reminders of how Ada used her, which honestly are valid).

Eventually, Frankie returns with a simula, but, of course, Ada can't use it until she removes Elias' soul from Zhook (which she hasn't figured out how to do safely or reliably yet) and they can't just outright kill Zhook for being a pain because the artificial bonding of her with Elias would also kill what is left of Elias (as I understand it, if this bonding had occurred naturally, as it would have with a simula or other willing host, this would not have been an issue).

Realizing she can't stay where she is anymore (for her own safety and the safety of everyone in the city), Ada agrees to Zhook's plan to return to the mermaid territory with her, and Frankie agrees to take them in her ship. Unfortunately, when Frankie tells her crew they are bringing the mermaid on board again they abandon ship (as it were) and Frankie is forced to sell her big ship to get a smaller ship that can be crewed by fewer people.

They wake up the simula and use a special device to activate it so it can help sail the ship and perform other tasks. Ada reattaches Zhook's wings and her tail, and makes mechanical wings of her own to convince Zhook of her sincerity to live with her and the other mermaid people. Frankie and Ada also spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to deal with Zhook, and how to traverse the poisonous gas. This is made more difficult when they realize a sigil they paid handsomely for, which would have protected them outright from the gas without the use of masks, is incomplete and unusable.

When they get to the part of the flight through the poisonous cloud, Frankie dies because Zhook switched her own sabotaged mask with Frankie's healthy one. Frankie, now a soulless monster, is tossed overboard by Zhook before Ada can think of a way to try to fix her, but monster-Frankie's soul transfers into the willing host of the simula who turns into a sort of Frankie avatar. All of this gives Ada an idea and she, avatar-Frankie, and Widdershins go below while Zhook (who conveniently seems to have forgotten her distrust of, and bizarrely codependent relationship with, Ada) navigates the ship closer to the mermaid territory. Ada uses the incomplete sigil as a basis to carve complete alchemical symbols into Widdershins that turn him into a suitable and desirable host for Elias' soul.

While Zhook, in her first show of weakness in the story, is busy reveling in being so close to her home again, Ada sneaks up behind her and distracts her while Widdershins flies into her mouth to try to draw out Elias' soul into a more willing and pleasant host. This only partially works and, after Ada injures Zhook and incapacitates her, Zhook's mermaid brethren descend on her in a fight to get other soul bits that are floating around in the nether, killing Zhook and the parts of Elias that did not go into Widdershins in the process.

In the end, we're left with Ada, the avatar-Frankie, and Widdelias, sailing off together in non-avatar Frankie's ship. It is implied that Ada is going to try to continue her (and Elias') work to understand quintessence and prevent any others from being reduced to a soul in a warded container.

Aside from what I've already mentioned, there were some other things I wasn't sure about:

-Why mermaids have wings. Mermaids don't have wings in any lore I've encountered and presumably these would have been aquatic before the planet split (or else why would they be called "mermaids" at all?), so how did they get wings and how can they now live in air/outer space instead of water?

- Zhook learns alchemy and sigils just by reading about them, then successfully performs feats in this area that even Ada isn't sure she could have done. This implies that as long as you can copy a sigil correctly with no idea of what you are doing, it will work. Training or experience, an understanding of the nature or purpose of sigils in general or a particular sigil, or intention in making them have no bearing on a sigil's effectiveness. I wasn't sure how likely that would be.

- Some things that are transferred don't seem quite right to me, like memories, skills, experience, and intelligence, which aren't a part of the soul to me, but rather a part of the brain. I think instead of referring to it interchangeably as a "soul" or "quintessence," calling it only the latter may have helped because it is more open to interpretation.

- Zhook is an interesting, formidable, and grotesque adversary. She is like an emotionally abusive and manipulative boyfriend who is also a cannibal and really an alien in disguise trying to be human but failing miserably. At times she was a little too infallible, almost venturing into omniscient territory with how inexplicably and annoyingly one-step-ahead she is. Instead of a Mary Sue, she was a Scary Sue, LOL. Though at one point I began to wonder if my annoyance over this was more due to Ada and Frankie's inability to stop underestimating her.

- I felt context was missing in some areas (such as how Ada and Frankie became so close, some parts of Elias' backstory, and some other contextual things), but that may have been because I have not read Salvage yet. This did not diminish my liking of this story, though, and I was able to understand the characters' motivations and the plot. I won't know until I read Salvage what spoilers I will have introduced myself to by reading Hunger first, but I don't think it will diminish my enjoyment of Salvage when I get to it.

Despite some of the issues I had, I did enjoy this book and I would read the next one if Ada has more adventures (it seemed like it was left open for more stories). It was a fun read for this time of year and certainly different from anything I've read before. It was dark and morbidly fascinating and steampunky, Widdershins is adorable, and there were some very funny one-liners and descriptions. ( )