The lives of Huff’s well-drawn but damaged characters quickly collapse into desperate actions. Isobel has three weeks to find Aeter before she’s forced into conversion therapy and an arranged marriage, and Fisherman—whose outer layer that enables them to shapeshift was removed by Isobel to ensure their compliance—is equally frenzied and enraged that their skin has been stolen. The story unfolds from Fisherman’s tortured perspective, delving into issues of control, sexual autonomy, and distorted views of cultural conformity, all against the background of a frantic race to find a god who can grant both freedom and destruction.
Huff (author of Free Burn) incorporates erotic sexual descriptions and subtle elements of retribution into the storyline, as Isobel is as much a shapeshifter as Fisherman in many ways, a prisoner of a culture forcing her to give up her identity. Still, her treatment of Fisherman—who assumes the form of a female human to please Isobel and keep her sexually satisfied—echoes her own subjugation at the hands of others. As the plot morphs into a weighty examination of humanity’s greed and brutal disregard for divergence of any kind, Huff’s characters undergo their own transformations, leaving readers with a profound reflection on what truly defines a monster.
Takeaway: Stirring tale of the depths of love in an unforgiving alien world.
Comparable Titles: C.L. Clark’s The Unbroken, Kameron Hurley’s The Worldbreaker Saga.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
“Fun is just another moniker for inefficiency.”
📚
On the moon of Europa, the crew of the E.N.S. Princess seizes a Fisherman from their underwater Home and tears off their skin — a shapeshifting hide containing millions of genetic memories — forcing them to assume human form. They believe the Fisherman’s god has the ability to grant wishes, and they’re determined to force the Fisherman to help them find it.
Dame Isobel, a mad heiress, is at the forefront of the operation; she’s desperate to heal her girlfriend, who was lobotomized for the crime of homosexuality, and she intends to have her wish granted, no matter the cost. Can the Fisherman work with the humans, or will violence be their only chance at freedom? The clock is ticking, and time is running out.
Mesmerizing from the first, Landlocked in Foreign Skin seamlessly constructs an intricate universe that, though entirely unique, remains very much rooted in familiar flaws and failings. In a reality where knowledge is valuable currency and humans breed terrible ideas, the Fisherman’s struggles, pleasures, and frustrations are visceral and tangible, the cosmos utterly spellbinding, the danger and tension wholly palpable. These elements generate an atmospheric storyline jam packed with character, plot, and mystery, a toxic tale of
- appearance, reputation, wealth, and power;
- hunger, greed, vanity, and privilege;
- vengeance, penance, use, and abuse;
- variance, change, insanity, and autonomy;
- compassion, codependence, self-reliance, and adaptation;
- mayhem, carnage, cruelty, and prejudice; and
- resources, lies, conspiracies, and deceptions.
One where true faces are hidden and real monsters are selfish, careless, petty aggressors who exploit, antagonize, judge, destroy, and villainize, burying grisly truths beneath fabricated legend and lore — conveyed through a layered and elaborate narrative that’s as deeply relatable as it is completely alien.
Thank you to Drew Huff for sharing an eARC of this fantastic novella, which is scheduled for publication in January 2025. It’s an immersive and mind bending experience sure to captivate both horror and science fiction fans alike.
❤Amanda
