Title: The Fall is All There Is
Author: C. M. Caplan
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Science Fantasy / Post-Apocalyptic
Format: Paperback / Audiobook / Ebook
Release Date: November 7, 2022
Star Rating: 8.5/10
*Disclaimer*
Everyone is different and likes and dislikes different things. Reading is no exception. One person’s all-time favorite might seem too bland or too high stakes for another. That being said, the opinions of our judges in this contest are just that, opinions. Just because we let a book go, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It could be your next favorite, who knows?
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more about the contest here.
Today we are reviewing The Fall is All There Is, which was Becky M’s pick for this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. You can read their review here. And you can see the finalist spreadsheet here.
Summary
All Petre Mercy wanted was a good old-fashioned dramatic exit from his life as a prince. But it’s been five years since he fled home on a cyborg horse. Now the king—his dad—is dead and Petre has to decide which heir to pledge his thyroid-powered sword to.
As the youngest in a set of quadruplets, he’s all too aware that the line of succession is murky. His siblings are on the precipice of power grabs, and each of them wants him to pick their side.
If Petre has any hope of preventing civil war, he’ll have to avoid one sibling who wants to take him hostage, win back another’s trust after years of rivalry and resentment, and get an audience with a sister he’s been avoiding for five years.
Before he knows it, he’s plunged himself into a web of intrigue and a world of strange, unnatural inventions just to get to her doorstep.
Family reunions can be a special form of torture.
Our Thoughts
Here are our thoughts:
Adawia
(This isn’t as proper and thorough a review befitting SPFBO as I would have liked, but rather some cobbled together thoughts.)
This book is really, really cool. The prose is solid and at times quite lovely, with lots of quotable moments. The dialogue is easy and natural and contributes to making the very well-thought-out characters both relatable and intriguing. There’s a fair bit of angst and antagonistic behaviour between the ruling and dueling quadruplets with emotions portrayed beautifully.
The story takes place in a truly awesome genre-bending mashed-up world of steampunk, sci-fi, dystopia, mystery, and epic fantasy (yes, I could have thrown in a few more appropriate subgenres, but these will do for now). The characters are diverse and fascinating, as is the whole concept of the book—I mean the ghostfog alone is absolutely inspired. There are so many unique and intriguing aspects to this story, I often found myself with eyebrows raised thinking, “wow, that’s different.”
Although this world is fairly harsh and the story quite deep, it is also fun and, at times, a little bit silly—in the best possible ways.
Julia
A neurodivergent main character, who is also gay, already was a great change of pace! The story is an absolutely weird and chaotic mix of post-apocalyptic fantasy with some remnants of technology being around, like the half cybernetically enhanced horses and science based drugs, but it also feels more medieval in the way of life. There are fantasy aspects and a lot of mysteries thrown in as well, and somehow this doesn’t lead to a big mess, somehow it all comes together nicely and makes for a very fresh take!
I really enjoyed the tone and voice of Petre, our main character, and was easily hooked by him.
He has a very disjointed and complex relationship with his family, where everyone seems to equally love and hate each other. On the one hand this did feel like a realistic dysfunctional family, and Petre being neurodiverse made the confusion about this feel even more authentic, but his other siblings seem to be more neurotypical, and yet they all have super complex relationships with each other as well.
Being completely stuck in Petres head might not be ideal here, as they did feel kind of immature and just off at times, having no idea what happened to get them to this point. I mean, being autistic myself, I absolutely get how he might be hard to handle and annoying, while still loving him. I just would have liked a bit more background and fleshing out of these dynamics for myself, even if Petre is very much confused by them himself.
It also felt a bit weird that these royals all went about doing all the things themselves instead of having servants or such do any of it. I wouldn’t send actual royalty on a scouting trip for example. I felt the same about the politics that just weren’t really explained well, it just felt a bit underdone in those categories, while the worldbuilding and tone were excellent. It might have been a conscious decision to leave the reader as confused as the main character is about all these social interactions that come with family and politics, but it hampered my enjoyment somewhat.
Overall, a really great read that was standing out from the crowd very well, which is something I’m always especially happy to find, as there’s so much of the same-same out there already!
Kerry
I’ve read this book a couple of times (when it first came out and again due to its placings in SPFBO 9 and SPSFC 3*).
My recollection of that very first read is some tremendous worldbuilding and a lot of chaos; plot and character wise.
Rereading the novel the second and third time around and taking notes I appreciated the worldbuilding even more, and though the plot remains full of chaotic moments, it didn’t excite me. I can look forward to family Christmas’s for the same type of family squabbles. I did enjoy all the action that went on however and the reverse engineered technology mixed up with ghosts and “zombies” was so much fun.
I do have to say, being inside Petre’s bisexual, neurodiverse head I often felt “seen”; but even though at times it was unnerving, it did make his character more relatable.
I did like this book, and I can honestly say even if I do forget the plot, I won’t be forgetting the Mercy family. (I’d also like to read a story based on Petre’s parents. There were glimpses of a good storyline there.)
- The Fall is All There Is is also a semi-finalist in the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition.
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And again, you can see the list of all the finalists and their scores here. Our judges are Adawia Asad, Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Kerry Smith, Lana Taylor, Robert Max Freeman, Yaniv Rosenfeld Cohen, and Jennie Ivins (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at me, Jennie Ivins, via DM on Facebook and Twitter.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene