I started reading this book as part of my effort to decide how I was going to vote in this year’s Hugo Awards. It wasn’t a nominee (although it probably should have been) but rather it was one of the books edited by one of the nominated long-form editors.

It is kinda hard to describe what this book is about because, quite frankly it is an ✨experience✨. Loosely speaking, this book is about a novel virus that infects people in strange ways and the impact that it has on society. It is both a book with a very large focus but also a very intimate story as we are following the ways that three women’s lives were changed. It gets pretty weird.

I loved how unhinged this story is and it does a really good job of never shying away from the truly brutal body horror that results from the virus as well as really leaning into the cosmic in cosmic horror. I don’t think the point of this book was really to hold a mirror up to society but at the same time it was hard to ignore the social commentary in each woman’s story with the first story being around unequal healthcare and just sexism in gender, the second looking at sex work (I really enjoying the sex work positive rep) and the ways that stigmatising it can lead to increased trafficking, and then the final story was a story about forced birthing. Honestly, having written all of that out, I am doubting my initial assertion and think that was exactly the point. Horror has always been a tool for creatives to explore issues within society and shine a light on them so this book is following in a grand tradition.

I think perhaps I would have liked a less abrupt ending to the story but I think leaving it somewhat open felt tonally correct for how otherwise bleak the situation felt.