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Hell's Heart
Gideon the Ninth meets Moby Dick in USA Today bestselling author Alexis Hall's science fiction debut, Hell's Heart!
Earth is a ruin, and the scattered remnants of humanity scavenge what they can from the stars under the watchful auspices of a grab-bag of collectives, corporations, and churches which are all that remains of what we once called society. Having long exhausted any conventional sources of energy, life in the solar system is now sustained by a volatile, hallucinogenic substance called spermaceti, which is harvested from the brains of vast cetacean-like Leviathans that swim the atmospheric currents of Jupiter.
Finding herself with no money and little to occupy her groundside, the narrator (“I”) takes a commission aboard the hunter-barque Pequod as it sets out in pursuit of precious spermaceti. Once aboard, however, she finds herself pulled inexorably into the orbit of the barque’s captain, a charismatic but fanatically driven woman who the narrator names only as “A”. As the Pequod plunges ever deeper into the turbulent, monster-haunted atmosphere of the gas giant, the narrator begins to lose herself in the eerie word of Leviathan-hunting and the captain’s increasingly insistent delusions; the only thing that might keep her grounded is the bond she develops with Q, a woman from the wreck of Old Earth whose skin is marked with holographic light and who remembers things otherwise lost.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Earth is a ruin, and the scattered remnants of humanity scavenge what they can from the stars under the watchful auspices of a grab-bag of collectives, corporations, and churches which are all that remains of what we once called society. Having long exhausted any conventional sources of energy, life in the solar system is now sustained by a volatile, hallucinogenic substance called spermaceti, which is harvested from the brains of vast cetacean-like Leviathans that swim the atmospheric currents of Jupiter.
Finding herself with no money and little to occupy her groundside, the narrator (“I”) takes a commission aboard the hunter-barque Pequod as it sets out in pursuit of precious spermaceti. Once aboard, however, she finds herself pulled inexorably into the orbit of the barque’s captain, a charismatic but fanatically driven woman who the narrator names only as “A”. As the Pequod plunges ever deeper into the turbulent, monster-haunted atmosphere of the gas giant, the narrator begins to lose herself in the eerie word of Leviathan-hunting and the captain’s increasingly insistent delusions; the only thing that might keep her grounded is the bond she develops with Q, a woman from the wreck of Old Earth whose skin is marked with holographic light and who remembers things otherwise lost.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2026
225 people are currently reading
28808 people want to read
About the author
Alexis Hall
61 books15.1k followersOne of those intricate British queers.
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
Please note: I don’t read / reply to DMs. If you would like to get in touch, the best way is via email which you can find in the contact section on my website <3
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 321 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for this e-ARC. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a soft dnf @ 30% (ch 25.) I say soft dnf because I was really looking forward to this book and might try the audiobook after release.
(( Update: the audiobook did not save it. Moby Dick isn’t exactly a fast paced book, but this is just…not good. I am incredibly disappointed. The characters aren’t just uninteresting, but are also incredibly annoying. The plot details are all shared though infodumps. The one positive I can give it is that it is giving the promised amount of sapphic, but in the worst possible way. ))
I do not like this main character. Moreover, I feel like I’ve read this same exact character a million times and I haven’t enjoyed it once. She genuinely has zero personality outside of attempts at quirky, wry humor and sex. Not that actual Moby Dick is a fast paced novel, but I am 25 chapters in and nothing has happened. You’re writing sapphic Moby Dick in space? Slay that’s all I want, but by chapter 25 I had better care about the characters or the setting enough to want to hold out for the plot. I genuinely do not care about any of these people except maybe Q, and even then, she’s just not enough to keep me going. I cannot handle another almost 300 pages of tongue-in-cheek humor that repeatedly misses paired with insane info dumps. Don’t get me excited about a Gideon the Ninth comp if you’re not going to give me Gideon the Ninth quality I’m not emotionally stable enough for that with the Alecto release nowhere in sight.
(( Update: the audiobook did not save it. Moby Dick isn’t exactly a fast paced book, but this is just…not good. I am incredibly disappointed. The characters aren’t just uninteresting, but are also incredibly annoying. The plot details are all shared though infodumps. The one positive I can give it is that it is giving the promised amount of sapphic, but in the worst possible way. ))
I do not like this main character. Moreover, I feel like I’ve read this same exact character a million times and I haven’t enjoyed it once. She genuinely has zero personality outside of attempts at quirky, wry humor and sex. Not that actual Moby Dick is a fast paced novel, but I am 25 chapters in and nothing has happened. You’re writing sapphic Moby Dick in space? Slay that’s all I want, but by chapter 25 I had better care about the characters or the setting enough to want to hold out for the plot. I genuinely do not care about any of these people except maybe Q, and even then, she’s just not enough to keep me going. I cannot handle another almost 300 pages of tongue-in-cheek humor that repeatedly misses paired with insane info dumps. Don’t get me excited about a Gideon the Ninth comp if you’re not going to give me Gideon the Ninth quality I’m not emotionally stable enough for that with the Alecto release nowhere in sight.
Did not finish
January 11, 2026DNF @ 21%: This is all over the place, random women keep fingering her and I can't be bothered reading infodumps about whales. I'm literally so bored.
February 1, 2026
Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall is a queer space opera retelling of Moby Dick. The narrator, named I, boards a Leviathan-hunting spaceship captained by A and spends most of the book fucking around, both metaphorically and literally, with A and a Latin-speaking harpoonist from Earth named Q. The whole thing feels like it started with learning about sperm whales, realizing Moby Dick is about a whale, making the extremely obvious “Moby DICK / SPERM whale” connection, and deciding to make it sapphic with a side of cosmic horror.
I’ve seen a lot of people say they DNF’d this book, and honestly, I get it. The book never quite decides what it wants to be. It’s written like a memoir, sometimes talks directly to the reader, and moves at a painfully slow pace. The main character is a self-proclaimed intellectual trying to show off and fuck constantly (in short, obnoxiously unlikable), the sex scenes are constant and repetitive (I gets fingered by women she barely knows every five minutes), and the narrator seems to assume the reader is here for sex stuff exclusively. I wasn’t.
Q speaking only in Latin was another thing that wore me down. I get what the author was going for, but it was distracting and annoying. Even when I understood the Latin, I kept thinking: why am I being made to work this hard for a character I don’t care about? She never said anything interesting. Though, to be fair, I don’t think any of the characters ever said anything interesting 🤷♀️ The choppy, uninteresting narration is sort of explained at the end by the narrator saying she didn’t get the implants/alterations to be eloquent and this can work for a novella but this was a long book packed with irrelevant nonsense.
I can see what the book was trying to be, and I don’t think it’s bad, but the execution is terrible. The plot makes sense, and there are tense moments here and there. I just didn’t care about the characters at all. I and A never grew on me, and Q never became more than a gimmick. The characters had no growth throughout the book and seemed to be only there to move the plot forward and have sex, which made it all unexciting and uninteresting after a while. On top of that, there are frequent info dumps about whales and world-building details that only matter for whatever scene is happening at the time. The constant and repetitive sex stuff made the narrator feel very immature. Like, they’re hunting a Leviathan. Why is she making allegories about dildos? Every time I got immersed in the story, the writing would switch tone and start talking about sex stuff that had nothing to do with anything, and I’d stop caring about the scene. Like, we’re hunting a Leviathan and the narrator’s like, “you can skip the next two chapters to get back to the sex stuff,” keeps offering to have sex with people and being like “your loss” if they refuse, sexualizes people and puts forward fantasies constantly “as a defense mechanism,” points out that the ship had many officers and that an officer “is someone else that needs doing,” and speaks about the doctor only at the end of the book because, even though the main character visited him often for issues with the implants, they didn’t fuck, so the doctor wasn’t relevant. It was all a waste of words that cheapened the story. This was obviously intended by the author, but it didn’t work for me at all.
You’d think I’d enjoy a book that mentions Ganymede every five pages. Somehow, I still found it boring. The alien religion stuff from the early chapters was far more interesting to me than all the sperm whale material we got afterwards. All in all, I just think this book tried to be a humorous space opera, queer smut, a philosophical memoir, a retelling, and an adventure cosmic horror thing, and I’m sad to say it was all mediocre and didn’t mix well for me. I hope other readers will find some joy in it, but it was an annoying read for me with a lackluster ending.
ARC received for free. This hasn’t impacted my rating.
I’ve seen a lot of people say they DNF’d this book, and honestly, I get it. The book never quite decides what it wants to be. It’s written like a memoir, sometimes talks directly to the reader, and moves at a painfully slow pace. The main character is a self-proclaimed intellectual trying to show off and fuck constantly (in short, obnoxiously unlikable), the sex scenes are constant and repetitive (I gets fingered by women she barely knows every five minutes), and the narrator seems to assume the reader is here for sex stuff exclusively. I wasn’t.
Q speaking only in Latin was another thing that wore me down. I get what the author was going for, but it was distracting and annoying. Even when I understood the Latin, I kept thinking: why am I being made to work this hard for a character I don’t care about? She never said anything interesting. Though, to be fair, I don’t think any of the characters ever said anything interesting 🤷♀️ The choppy, uninteresting narration is sort of explained at the end by the narrator saying she didn’t get the implants/alterations to be eloquent and this can work for a novella but this was a long book packed with irrelevant nonsense.
I can see what the book was trying to be, and I don’t think it’s bad, but the execution is terrible. The plot makes sense, and there are tense moments here and there. I just didn’t care about the characters at all. I and A never grew on me, and Q never became more than a gimmick. The characters had no growth throughout the book and seemed to be only there to move the plot forward and have sex, which made it all unexciting and uninteresting after a while. On top of that, there are frequent info dumps about whales and world-building details that only matter for whatever scene is happening at the time. The constant and repetitive sex stuff made the narrator feel very immature. Like, they’re hunting a Leviathan. Why is she making allegories about dildos? Every time I got immersed in the story, the writing would switch tone and start talking about sex stuff that had nothing to do with anything, and I’d stop caring about the scene. Like, we’re hunting a Leviathan and the narrator’s like, “you can skip the next two chapters to get back to the sex stuff,” keeps offering to have sex with people and being like “your loss” if they refuse, sexualizes people and puts forward fantasies constantly “as a defense mechanism,” points out that the ship had many officers and that an officer “is someone else that needs doing,” and speaks about the doctor only at the end of the book because, even though the main character visited him often for issues with the implants, they didn’t fuck, so the doctor wasn’t relevant. It was all a waste of words that cheapened the story. This was obviously intended by the author, but it didn’t work for me at all.
You’d think I’d enjoy a book that mentions Ganymede every five pages. Somehow, I still found it boring. The alien religion stuff from the early chapters was far more interesting to me than all the sperm whale material we got afterwards. All in all, I just think this book tried to be a humorous space opera, queer smut, a philosophical memoir, a retelling, and an adventure cosmic horror thing, and I’m sad to say it was all mediocre and didn’t mix well for me. I hope other readers will find some joy in it, but it was an annoying read for me with a lackluster ending.
ARC received for free. This hasn’t impacted my rating.
Currently reading
September 23, 2025A pub assistant reached out to ME about reading an ARC of this book and I have never felt so special in my WHOLE LIFE.
September 4, 2025
Hell’s Heart wants to be a lot of things a space-faring fever dream, a queered-up Moby Dick, a poetic meditation on obsession and survival. And maybe it is, in a way. But mostly, for me, it felt like being stuck in a long, winding conversation with someone who loves the sound of their own voice.
There’s a ship. There’s space. There’s ruin. There’s a narrator who watches everything and feels very little until suddenly she’s supposed to feel everything. I kept waiting to be pulled in. To feel the weight of Jupiter’s storms in my chest. But all I found were words. So many words. Describing, explaining, telling. Never quite letting me breathe.
I wanted to care. I really did. But caring requires connection, and this book never stopped long enough to make one.
I suppose some people will find it brilliant. I wanted to like it. I just found it exhausting. Thank you to the publisher and author for this ARC.
There’s a ship. There’s space. There’s ruin. There’s a narrator who watches everything and feels very little until suddenly she’s supposed to feel everything. I kept waiting to be pulled in. To feel the weight of Jupiter’s storms in my chest. But all I found were words. So many words. Describing, explaining, telling. Never quite letting me breathe.
I wanted to care. I really did. But caring requires connection, and this book never stopped long enough to make one.
I suppose some people will find it brilliant. I wanted to like it. I just found it exhausting. Thank you to the publisher and author for this ARC.
Read
February 7, 2026PSA: This👏Book👏Is👏Horny👏
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I've never read it, but the narrator in this is so horny that I fully forgot for the first 30% or so that this is a Moby Dick retelling.
...unless Moby Dick has always been really raunchy? lol I assumed not but I could be wrong.
4/5
The Writing:
This book is mostly written in first person, but isn't averse to breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly with some frequency. As the book itself puts it, it's full of "weird chronality and constant digressions," and I imagine that that style of writing could be quite off-putting to some readers.
Also I just really cannot underscore the horniness here. If there's someone introduced to the story and they have 2 or fewer legs, odds are the narrator has already or will want to bed them. I didn't find the sex scenes to be overly titillating like an erotica? But their mentions are copious.
The Queerness:
I believe the narrator refers to themself as a young boy but as a woman now, and they make several references to overhauling their physicality such as: "this body is basically a rental anyway." So I'm fairly certain they're a transwoman and predominantly entering sexual relationships with women? I don't recall if the text is explicit or just heavily inferred (gender and sexuality are a spectrum, but at the very least the text is incredibly, incredibly queer).
The World-Building (Religion/Enterprise):
My favourite part of this novel were the little world-building nuggets that were never in the forefront of the story, but always building a bigger picture in the background. In particular I found it really entertaining the way that the fervent Christian dogma of modern America might be spun if its only progenitors were the ultra wealthy who destroyed and fled Earth then convinced themselves of their righteousness. I'm mostly saving these quotes so I can look back on them myself, but also I know some of my friends will be put off by the sex in this novel and might want to see this tiny slice all the same.
Overall:
This book was a lot but I appreciated that it was voicey and had something to say. I find the Classics very dull and difficult to get immersed in, so this was probably my only shot at ever engaging with Moby Dick and I think it's pretty neat that this exists.
Audiobook Notes:
I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator and their decisions throughout the entire novel. Very clear quality and distinct voices, too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for granting me an audio ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
-----------------
I've never read it, but the narrator in this is so horny that I fully forgot for the first 30% or so that this is a Moby Dick retelling.
...unless Moby Dick has always been really raunchy? lol I assumed not but I could be wrong.
"As you might've worked out by now I'm an erotic, chaotic slut with so many issues I could write an allegorical novel about them."
4/5
The Writing:
This book is mostly written in first person, but isn't averse to breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader directly with some frequency. As the book itself puts it, it's full of "weird chronality and constant digressions," and I imagine that that style of writing could be quite off-putting to some readers.
Also I just really cannot underscore the horniness here. If there's someone introduced to the story and they have 2 or fewer legs, odds are the narrator has already or will want to bed them. I didn't find the sex scenes to be overly titillating like an erotica? But their mentions are copious.
The Queerness:
I believe the narrator refers to themself as a young boy but as a woman now, and they make several references to overhauling their physicality such as: "this body is basically a rental anyway." So I'm fairly certain they're a transwoman and predominantly entering sexual relationships with women? I don't recall if the text is explicit or just heavily inferred (gender and sexuality are a spectrum, but at the very least the text is incredibly, incredibly queer).
The World-Building (Religion/Enterprise):
My favourite part of this novel were the little world-building nuggets that were never in the forefront of the story, but always building a bigger picture in the background. In particular I found it really entertaining the way that the fervent Christian dogma of modern America might be spun if its only progenitors were the ultra wealthy who destroyed and fled Earth then convinced themselves of their righteousness. I'm mostly saving these quotes so I can look back on them myself, but also I know some of my friends will be put off by the sex in this novel and might want to see this tiny slice all the same.
Overall:
This book was a lot but I appreciated that it was voicey and had something to say. I find the Classics very dull and difficult to get immersed in, so this was probably my only shot at ever engaging with Moby Dick and I think it's pretty neat that this exists.
Audiobook Notes:
I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator and their decisions throughout the entire novel. Very clear quality and distinct voices, too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for granting me an audio ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Want to read
July 3, 2025 “Gideon the Ninth meets Murderbot”????
Well, I mean, flamin' sign me up!
Well, I mean, flamin' sign me up!
Did not finish
March 1, 2026I'm an Alexis Hall fan and I really wanted to love this one. Lesbians in space? Sign me up. Unfortunately, I had to DNF this one. This just wasn't for me. I enjoyed the beginning, but got so bored after only a few chapters. The plot was all over the place and I couldn't bring myself to keep reading. :/
This book comes out on March 10th, 2026.
Thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book comes out on March 10th, 2026.
Thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 8, 2026
Unfortunately climate change did not destroy the Earth fast enough to spare me from having read this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the ARC of this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the ARC of this book.
January 20, 2026
This was so epic; a sapphic sci-fi retelling of Moby Dick, with plenty of gore, drama, smushing in space and interstellar battles.
The storytelling in this one is pretty unique; it’s written in first person, but our narrator, known only as ‘I’, is narrating directly to the reader, which means we get a lot of asides and reminiscing. But it was very engaging and I think reflects the original story really well.
The crew of the ship was varied and fascinating. I enjoyed Q, I’s main love interest, who speaks entirely in Latin, and the assorted crew members who start as casually religious folks and descend rapidly into a cult that worships face-eating leopards. Or something. It’s an allegory.
I was a really engaging narrator. She’s cowardly, chaotic and completely unreliable. She just wants to be loved, but due to religious trauma, doesn’t feel like she deserves it. I also think she’s trans… but if anyone else reads this and has thoughts, I’d love to discuss it! She’s on the run as she’s had her whole body reconfigured (ie. hands being made smaller, limbs reshaped) and she cannot pay the big pharma company’s bills, hence her joining the doomed quest to hunt the Mobuis Beast. I adored her and her absolute devotion to getting laid, no matter the circumstances.
The whole book explores religion and capitalism and how they are intertwined. I loved how some of the characters (Captain, Marsh) speak in ‘old timey’ language that reminds the reader that this is a retelling of an old work. Then there is Locke, who speaks almost entirely in corporate jargon. It’s such a fun dichotomy.
Overall a chaotic read but one that I really enjoyed; perfect for queer sci-fi enthusiasts and those who want to shake their heads and roll their eyes at religion and capitalism simultaneously.
Read Hells Heart for:
✨ Sapphic Moby Dick retelling in space
✨ Speculative fiction
✨ Unreliable narrator
✨ Fictional memoir
✨ Trans MC (at least in my interpretation)
✨ Is it a religion, or a cult?
✨ So many sperm jokes. So many.
Thank you so much Tor Books for a physical proof of this book! It’s available on 12th March 2026 ✨
The storytelling in this one is pretty unique; it’s written in first person, but our narrator, known only as ‘I’, is narrating directly to the reader, which means we get a lot of asides and reminiscing. But it was very engaging and I think reflects the original story really well.
The crew of the ship was varied and fascinating. I enjoyed Q, I’s main love interest, who speaks entirely in Latin, and the assorted crew members who start as casually religious folks and descend rapidly into a cult that worships face-eating leopards. Or something. It’s an allegory.
I was a really engaging narrator. She’s cowardly, chaotic and completely unreliable. She just wants to be loved, but due to religious trauma, doesn’t feel like she deserves it. I also think she’s trans… but if anyone else reads this and has thoughts, I’d love to discuss it! She’s on the run as she’s had her whole body reconfigured (ie. hands being made smaller, limbs reshaped) and she cannot pay the big pharma company’s bills, hence her joining the doomed quest to hunt the Mobuis Beast. I adored her and her absolute devotion to getting laid, no matter the circumstances.
The whole book explores religion and capitalism and how they are intertwined. I loved how some of the characters (Captain, Marsh) speak in ‘old timey’ language that reminds the reader that this is a retelling of an old work. Then there is Locke, who speaks almost entirely in corporate jargon. It’s such a fun dichotomy.
Overall a chaotic read but one that I really enjoyed; perfect for queer sci-fi enthusiasts and those who want to shake their heads and roll their eyes at religion and capitalism simultaneously.
Read Hells Heart for:
✨ Sapphic Moby Dick retelling in space
✨ Speculative fiction
✨ Unreliable narrator
✨ Fictional memoir
✨ Trans MC (at least in my interpretation)
✨ Is it a religion, or a cult?
✨ So many sperm jokes. So many.
Thank you so much Tor Books for a physical proof of this book! It’s available on 12th March 2026 ✨
Want to read
February 22, 2025This still doesn't sound like a real thing that's happening to me.
September 21, 2025
I received a free copy from Tor Books via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date March 10th, 2026.
I've been a longtime fan of Alexis Hall's, and I was interested to see what he'd do in his science fiction debut. In Hell's Heart, aimless and self-destructive I- signs on a space whaling voyage in order to flee her merciless medical creditors, who own her body and soul. In this retelling of Moby Dick, she begins to realize that their charismatically deranged captain is hell-bent at hunting down the leviathan who injured her--even at the cost of her life and the lives of the entire crew.
Well! As someone who's familiar with Herman Melville's Moby Dick, I should not have been surprised that the lesbians in space retelling had a pace as slow as molasses, interspersed with endless and aimless asides to the reader. Because I- states directly how the book ends from very early on, the four hundred plus pages of boat antics and Leviathan slayings feel like mere filler before the ultimate end. The effect is exacerbated by narrator I-, who is passive, depressed, and has a very detached perspective that makes the narration feel distant. I know many of you like your women soggy and pathetic, but personally I prefer the aggressively digging themselves deeper into a hole type rather than the facedown on the floor type.
By far the strongest point of the novel was the worldbuilding. Since the original novel was set midway through the process of driving whales nearly to extinction in the Atlantic, it's fitting that the retelling is also set in a capitalistic hellscape, albeit one set in a retro-style Solar System limited space future. While I- has mostly left the awful religion she was brought in (a grotesquerie of a certain type of prosperity Christianity), she accepts the values her culture presents her without much question, and drops the awful little details as casual little asides. Onboard the ship, shower minutes are billed and taken directly out of their wages. I's surgery (implied to be gender-affirming) puts her in debt to a pharma-corp conglomerate, and if she misses a payment, they can repossess her organs. People can be sold into debt-slavery for the crime of inheriting a patented gene complex. And so on and so forth. It's a fitting accompaniment to the grim plot.
Overall, Hell's Heart is a throwback to Hall's complex early steampunk novels rather than his frivolous recent historicals. It certainly isn't a romance novel--while I- has unhappy escapist sex with a number of women, there's no romance and nothing I'd consider a full sex scene. However, I did enjoy I-'s crewmate and sometimes-lover Q-. Q- is from Earth, speaks nearly exclusively in untranslated Latin in the text, and has a sort of smartphone reference device that I- doesn't understand and refers to as her "idol". Alas, Q- is almost entirely opaque to I-, who doesn't really understand her, and therefore to the reader as well.
There's some fantastic details here, but not much substance. I think this would have been a much stronger work chopped down into a novella..
I've been a longtime fan of Alexis Hall's, and I was interested to see what he'd do in his science fiction debut. In Hell's Heart, aimless and self-destructive I- signs on a space whaling voyage in order to flee her merciless medical creditors, who own her body and soul. In this retelling of Moby Dick, she begins to realize that their charismatically deranged captain is hell-bent at hunting down the leviathan who injured her--even at the cost of her life and the lives of the entire crew.
Well! As someone who's familiar with Herman Melville's Moby Dick, I should not have been surprised that the lesbians in space retelling had a pace as slow as molasses, interspersed with endless and aimless asides to the reader. Because I- states directly how the book ends from very early on, the four hundred plus pages of boat antics and Leviathan slayings feel like mere filler before the ultimate end. The effect is exacerbated by narrator I-, who is passive, depressed, and has a very detached perspective that makes the narration feel distant. I know many of you like your women soggy and pathetic, but personally I prefer the aggressively digging themselves deeper into a hole type rather than the facedown on the floor type.
By far the strongest point of the novel was the worldbuilding. Since the original novel was set midway through the process of driving whales nearly to extinction in the Atlantic, it's fitting that the retelling is also set in a capitalistic hellscape, albeit one set in a retro-style Solar System limited space future. While I- has mostly left the awful religion she was brought in (a grotesquerie of a certain type of prosperity Christianity), she accepts the values her culture presents her without much question, and drops the awful little details as casual little asides. Onboard the ship, shower minutes are billed and taken directly out of their wages. I's surgery (implied to be gender-affirming) puts her in debt to a pharma-corp conglomerate, and if she misses a payment, they can repossess her organs. People can be sold into debt-slavery for the crime of inheriting a patented gene complex. And so on and so forth. It's a fitting accompaniment to the grim plot.
Overall, Hell's Heart is a throwback to Hall's complex early steampunk novels rather than his frivolous recent historicals. It certainly isn't a romance novel--while I- has unhappy escapist sex with a number of women, there's no romance and nothing I'd consider a full sex scene. However, I did enjoy I-'s crewmate and sometimes-lover Q-. Q- is from Earth, speaks nearly exclusively in untranslated Latin in the text, and has a sort of smartphone reference device that I- doesn't understand and refers to as her "idol". Alas, Q- is almost entirely opaque to I-, who doesn't really understand her, and therefore to the reader as well.
There's some fantastic details here, but not much substance. I think this would have been a much stronger work chopped down into a novella..
Read
January 7, 2026
Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:
If Sky Daddy was 2025's unhinged take on Moby-Dick, Hell's Heart is 2026's. Given that Moby-Dick is my favorite book of all time, I am always eager to read anything that claims it as an influence. This spacefaring version follows the narrator I in pursuit of spermaceti, a hallucinogen produced by Leviathans swimming in Jupiter's currents. With women cast in the roles of Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg, this book promises a story even more queer than the original, and that's saying something. —Isabelle Popp
If Sky Daddy was 2025's unhinged take on Moby-Dick, Hell's Heart is 2026's. Given that Moby-Dick is my favorite book of all time, I am always eager to read anything that claims it as an influence. This spacefaring version follows the narrator I in pursuit of spermaceti, a hallucinogen produced by Leviathans swimming in Jupiter's currents. With women cast in the roles of Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg, this book promises a story even more queer than the original, and that's saying something. —Isabelle Popp
February 1, 2026
Received from NetGalley, thanks!
Okay, this book was absolutely fucking brilliant. This was Alexis Hall being *the most* Alexis Hall.
I made sure to read Moby Dick before diving into this, and I’m really glad that I did. It’s certainly not necessary, I think that anyone would enjoy this regardless. But having read the source material, I was able to pick up on all of the little nods made to the original, as well as when the original is being lovingly made fun of.
I adored our narrator, she is funny and cynical and horny and an amazing narrator. I was also lucky enough to listen to an audio ARC, and Charlie Anne Delores was so very good.
I’m not sure what else to say. I just really really loved this book and can’t wait until it’s out in the world for everyone else to read!
Okay, this book was absolutely fucking brilliant. This was Alexis Hall being *the most* Alexis Hall.
I made sure to read Moby Dick before diving into this, and I’m really glad that I did. It’s certainly not necessary, I think that anyone would enjoy this regardless. But having read the source material, I was able to pick up on all of the little nods made to the original, as well as when the original is being lovingly made fun of.
I adored our narrator, she is funny and cynical and horny and an amazing narrator. I was also lucky enough to listen to an audio ARC, and Charlie Anne Delores was so very good.
I’m not sure what else to say. I just really really loved this book and can’t wait until it’s out in the world for everyone else to read!
Want to read
January 2, 2026Oh my god, this is where I deploy the I am seated. I am so seated that I've cuffed myself to the chair, swallowed the key (not looking forward to digesting it!) and nobody can remove me from the premises under threat of law!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I picked this book up purely based on the description "a lesbian retelling of Moby Dick in space" so I had very little idea really of what to expect and somehow this book was still so much more than I expected.
It's one of those books that I absolutely adored reading and I can't even really put into words why, I just had a great time every time I picked it up, and I was constantly desperate to get back to it whenever I put it down. It manages to be both irreverent and profound, witty and emotional, at times cutting and at times devastating.
It follows a nameless main character on a space voyage to hunt monstrous leviathans that are killed and harvested for their brain fluid (spermaceti), which is used as a form of power. On board are a whole cast of characters, the main important ones being the captain, A, and our main character's bunkmate, Q, both of whom she is in some form of a relationship with. Like the original Moby Dick, the plot is meandering and slow, but the journey is still so compelling and along the way manages to make scathing points about religion, AI, society, and humanity, as well as relentless sperm jokes throughout.
Overall it was a delightful, thought-provoking fever dream, unlike pretty much anything else I've ever read.
I picked this book up purely based on the description "a lesbian retelling of Moby Dick in space" so I had very little idea really of what to expect and somehow this book was still so much more than I expected.
It's one of those books that I absolutely adored reading and I can't even really put into words why, I just had a great time every time I picked it up, and I was constantly desperate to get back to it whenever I put it down. It manages to be both irreverent and profound, witty and emotional, at times cutting and at times devastating.
It follows a nameless main character on a space voyage to hunt monstrous leviathans that are killed and harvested for their brain fluid (spermaceti), which is used as a form of power. On board are a whole cast of characters, the main important ones being the captain, A, and our main character's bunkmate, Q, both of whom she is in some form of a relationship with. Like the original Moby Dick, the plot is meandering and slow, but the journey is still so compelling and along the way manages to make scathing points about religion, AI, society, and humanity, as well as relentless sperm jokes throughout.
Overall it was a delightful, thought-provoking fever dream, unlike pretty much anything else I've ever read.
Read
December 19, 2025The sky itself will remember our names.
4.5 stars rounded up because it's Alexis Hall.
Honestly, I don't really know what more I can say to convince anyone to pick this up. If the cover and "SAPPHIC MOBY DICK IN SPACE" doesn't convince you to immediately drop everything and read this book, I don't know what will. Also, "sapphic Moby Dick in space" kinda tells you everything. It's Moby Dick. In space. With lots of queerness.
For those who already love Alexis Hall, you know what to expect: it's irreverent, fun, sarcastic, and will make you feel things at unexpected moments. There are lovely shiny moments were the narrator (Call her... whatever) muses on the logic behind hunting beautiful beasts so you can take them apart, religion and how it is used (and abused). Yes, sometimes they go off on tangents (which they freely admit early on) and ramble a bit but let's be honest: it's Moby Dick in space, if you didn't expect that then. Well...
And one last time: it's sapphic Moby Dick in space! Enjoy.
*I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
4.5 stars rounded up because it's Alexis Hall.
Honestly, I don't really know what more I can say to convince anyone to pick this up. If the cover and "SAPPHIC MOBY DICK IN SPACE" doesn't convince you to immediately drop everything and read this book, I don't know what will. Also, "sapphic Moby Dick in space" kinda tells you everything. It's Moby Dick. In space. With lots of queerness.
For those who already love Alexis Hall, you know what to expect: it's irreverent, fun, sarcastic, and will make you feel things at unexpected moments. There are lovely shiny moments were the narrator (Call her... whatever) muses on the logic behind hunting beautiful beasts so you can take them apart, religion and how it is used (and abused). Yes, sometimes they go off on tangents (which they freely admit early on) and ramble a bit but let's be honest: it's Moby Dick in space, if you didn't expect that then. Well...
And one last time: it's sapphic Moby Dick in space! Enjoy.
*I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
March 12, 2026
Thank you Tor Books & NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Hell’s Heart is sold to you as ‘sapphic Moby Dick retelling but in space’ and as someone who has not actually read Moby Dick, I can’t tell you how accurate the retelling aspect is, but I can tell you it is in space and pretty damn gay.
The book is a memoir that’s written by our main character for the consumption of those in her universe (our universe, but the future, perhaps?) and as such, it’s very metatextual. Our narrator, who is unnamed save for being referred to as ‘I’, is running from her weird religious upbringing, her chronic fleeting suicidal thoughts, and also the pharma state she owes a lot of money to. So it makes sense she ends up on the hunter voyage of a lifetime - or rather, to end lifetimes. Over the three years on ship, we follow I, her bunk mate and also lover, Q, and the captain of the ship (and also I’s lover - she has a lot of those), A, as they set sail for the deepest parts of Jupiter in the hopes of finding the Möbius Beast, a massive Leviathan who took the captain’s leg (and probably sanity) years ago.
This book is, as I said, very meta. The fourth wall is constantly broken. Our narrator is a self-deprecating, self-confessed unreliable storyteller who may or may not remember things in the particular order they happened. Or maybe they didn’t happen. And maybe it’s a metaphor. That’s the kind of vibe to expect from the book. It’s also, in my opinion, pretty funny. Tongue-in-cheek funny but also pretty vulgar - so if that’s not for you, maybe you’ll find it cheap. But I’m a cheap gal, I guess, because I fucked with it a lot.
It’s a real difficult book to review because it’s just so weird. I had a pretty fun time, that is true. I found very funny at times, particularly the commentary on the interstellar Churches and their doctrines - very clever and witty. I found I to be a charming narrator, despite very clearly not being a great, or even good, person. The cast of characters was very interesting and I do have to mention specifically my boys Dawlish and Flint, and my angel baby Locke. I would probably die for Locke???
I do fully understand that this book will not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, I love a chaotic space slut making questionable choices mostly based on some psychosexual infatuation with her Captain, who is definitely delusional in a way that is super unsafe, but like, she’s so sexy?? And like, maybe it will be fine. But probably not.
4 🌟
Hell’s Heart is sold to you as ‘sapphic Moby Dick retelling but in space’ and as someone who has not actually read Moby Dick, I can’t tell you how accurate the retelling aspect is, but I can tell you it is in space and pretty damn gay.
The book is a memoir that’s written by our main character for the consumption of those in her universe (our universe, but the future, perhaps?) and as such, it’s very metatextual. Our narrator, who is unnamed save for being referred to as ‘I’, is running from her weird religious upbringing, her chronic fleeting suicidal thoughts, and also the pharma state she owes a lot of money to. So it makes sense she ends up on the hunter voyage of a lifetime - or rather, to end lifetimes. Over the three years on ship, we follow I, her bunk mate and also lover, Q, and the captain of the ship (and also I’s lover - she has a lot of those), A, as they set sail for the deepest parts of Jupiter in the hopes of finding the Möbius Beast, a massive Leviathan who took the captain’s leg (and probably sanity) years ago.
This book is, as I said, very meta. The fourth wall is constantly broken. Our narrator is a self-deprecating, self-confessed unreliable storyteller who may or may not remember things in the particular order they happened. Or maybe they didn’t happen. And maybe it’s a metaphor. That’s the kind of vibe to expect from the book. It’s also, in my opinion, pretty funny. Tongue-in-cheek funny but also pretty vulgar - so if that’s not for you, maybe you’ll find it cheap. But I’m a cheap gal, I guess, because I fucked with it a lot.
It’s a real difficult book to review because it’s just so weird. I had a pretty fun time, that is true. I found very funny at times, particularly the commentary on the interstellar Churches and their doctrines - very clever and witty. I found I to be a charming narrator, despite very clearly not being a great, or even good, person. The cast of characters was very interesting and I do have to mention specifically my boys Dawlish and Flint, and my angel baby Locke. I would probably die for Locke???
I do fully understand that this book will not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, I love a chaotic space slut making questionable choices mostly based on some psychosexual infatuation with her Captain, who is definitely delusional in a way that is super unsafe, but like, she’s so sexy?? And like, maybe it will be fine. But probably not.
4 🌟
March 17, 2026
DNF at 36%
I adored the concept of this book - a queer Moby Dick retelling featuring whales in space and tackling themes of capitalism.
But sadly I found the characters incredibly flat, the dialogue cringy (why are we randomly alternating between replicating 18th century vernacular and modern day slag?), and the tone as a whole felt too snarky to take anything too seriously. Our MC felt very immature, and would alternate between wanting to have sex with people in the middle of conversations to info dumping whole chapters to breaking the 4th wall to tell yet another sperm whale joke (and explain what it's funny) a couple times a chapter. I can usually enjoy some snarky humor but it became so annoying so quickly, and I didn't have anything that really tied me to the story beyond loving the descriptions of space whales, krakens and Leviathans because I'm a nerd.
I was really intrigued by the characters "A" and "Q" in comparison to our main character "I", who I quickly became annoyed with. "Q" had a really interesting backstory, but was quickly reduced to a sexual crutch for "I" and never flushed out enough for me to care about her, or buy into their relationship at all. I might have been able to stick out the story for A's character journey, and she was definitely the most interesting, but sadly after the fourth or fifth "this chapter is to teach you about X so when it comes up you will understand", I decided to call it quits. This is such a shame because this book had all of the ingredients to be really interesting and fun, and now I will forever be haunted by the concept of a Moby Dick retelling in space that just couldn't get out of it's own way.
What this book did do for me is inspire me to read Moby Dick at some point.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
I adored the concept of this book - a queer Moby Dick retelling featuring whales in space and tackling themes of capitalism.
But sadly I found the characters incredibly flat, the dialogue cringy (why are we randomly alternating between replicating 18th century vernacular and modern day slag?), and the tone as a whole felt too snarky to take anything too seriously. Our MC felt very immature, and would alternate between wanting to have sex with people in the middle of conversations to info dumping whole chapters to breaking the 4th wall to tell yet another sperm whale joke (and explain what it's funny) a couple times a chapter. I can usually enjoy some snarky humor but it became so annoying so quickly, and I didn't have anything that really tied me to the story beyond loving the descriptions of space whales, krakens and Leviathans because I'm a nerd.
I was really intrigued by the characters "A" and "Q" in comparison to our main character "I", who I quickly became annoyed with. "Q" had a really interesting backstory, but was quickly reduced to a sexual crutch for "I" and never flushed out enough for me to care about her, or buy into their relationship at all. I might have been able to stick out the story for A's character journey, and she was definitely the most interesting, but sadly after the fourth or fifth "this chapter is to teach you about X so when it comes up you will understand", I decided to call it quits. This is such a shame because this book had all of the ingredients to be really interesting and fun, and now I will forever be haunted by the concept of a Moby Dick retelling in space that just couldn't get out of it's own way.
What this book did do for me is inspire me to read Moby Dick at some point.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
Did not finish
March 7, 2026DNF 50% -- I'm so sorry to say that this book didn't quite work for me and I was so looking forward to it! 😔 The World is a creative and unique sci-fi world, that's both modern and whimsical, with inventive names & terms to learn. There are a LOT of meandering tangents, which the narrator even tells the viewer they are embarking on. I really wanted to like it more, but I struggled to follow the story and lost patience. I think maybe sci-fi isn't my jam.
Having read and loved Alexis's entire catalogue the closest genre comp for me is Prosperity with some of the attitude of Kate Kane, and complexity of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter. Instead of Cant language, one of the characters only speaks in Latin, which was funny. Alexis's love of language and how he plays with it is like no one else and I really appreciate the talent he has for that. Although not very steamy, the characters "I" (the narrator), "Q" (the hot harpooner) and "A" (the captain) have an interesting lesbian love triangle of sorts. The captain is by far my favorite character with her long dark hair and red corset dress and cool Leviathan-bone engraved leg, all-knowing sass and Dom vibes. She makes quite the first impression and begs to have fan art made of her.
I've never read Moby Dick and I had a similar problem with Gideon the Ninth, which is referenced in the book blurb, and if you like those books you will probably love this one! I'm sure that discovering how he retells the beats of Moby Dick is probably a delight. Sadly it was lost on me. 🖤
**Thank you to TOR & NetGalley for the ARC**
(Edited for new DNF Function)
Having read and loved Alexis's entire catalogue the closest genre comp for me is Prosperity with some of the attitude of Kate Kane, and complexity of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter. Instead of Cant language, one of the characters only speaks in Latin, which was funny. Alexis's love of language and how he plays with it is like no one else and I really appreciate the talent he has for that. Although not very steamy, the characters "I" (the narrator), "Q" (the hot harpooner) and "A" (the captain) have an interesting lesbian love triangle of sorts. The captain is by far my favorite character with her long dark hair and red corset dress and cool Leviathan-bone engraved leg, all-knowing sass and Dom vibes. She makes quite the first impression and begs to have fan art made of her.
I've never read Moby Dick and I had a similar problem with Gideon the Ninth, which is referenced in the book blurb, and if you like those books you will probably love this one! I'm sure that discovering how he retells the beats of Moby Dick is probably a delight. Sadly it was lost on me. 🖤
**Thank you to TOR & NetGalley for the ARC**
(Edited for new DNF Function)
Read
February 25, 2026I think I'm going to dnf this right now. I am at 43% and have read enough to honestly consider this a book for the year. mostly I am either confused or bored. I like an unreliable narrator just like the rest of us but it's not even necessarily unreliable it's just chaotically horny mixed with intense space monster jargon. maybe I'll pick this up again but truthfully Alexis all books are either a slam dunk for me or a total fail and I fear this one is just not going to work for me.
February 13, 2026
I was genuinely really looking forward to this book, which makes the disappointment hit even harder. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t connect with the characters at all, the storyline failed to keep my interest, and the overall execution felt weak. On top of that, the humor came across as unnecessary and immature, pulling me out of the story rather than adding anything to it. Sadly, this one missed the mark for me.
March 17, 2026
The idea of a queer space opera reimagining of Moby Dick? Yes, please. I couldn’t wait to jump into this book because, come on, who doesn’t want that in their life!?
Unfortunately, once I started the book, my excitement slowly vanished, and finishing this book became a chore.
First, I must applaud the narrator. Charli Anne Delores’s range is impressive, and I felt all the voices she did matched the characters perfectly. Outside of the concept of this book, her narration was the only aspect I enjoyed.
Where this book lost me was the main character. I understand having a main character be unlikable on purpose, but I got the feeling this wasn’t an intentional situation. She was constantly cracking jokes, which I typically love. This book gets compared to Gideon the Ninth a lot, and while yes, I can see similarities in tone, those characters were witty and lovable with their snark. This main character, who is never actually named, was insufferable.
In this story, the primary fuel source is called spermaceti. The sperm jokes were funny at first, but after the 1000th sperm joke, I had to fight myself to not DNF this book. The main character couldn’t go a single chapter without comparing everything (EVERYTHING) to ‘fucking’ which she did so often and with everyone. It quickly got tiring.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book. I believe there is an audience for every book, and that wasn’t me. If you are looking for a queer, horny Moby Dick that focuses more on the characters than plot, you might enjoy this one.
Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Unfortunately, once I started the book, my excitement slowly vanished, and finishing this book became a chore.
First, I must applaud the narrator. Charli Anne Delores’s range is impressive, and I felt all the voices she did matched the characters perfectly. Outside of the concept of this book, her narration was the only aspect I enjoyed.
Where this book lost me was the main character. I understand having a main character be unlikable on purpose, but I got the feeling this wasn’t an intentional situation. She was constantly cracking jokes, which I typically love. This book gets compared to Gideon the Ninth a lot, and while yes, I can see similarities in tone, those characters were witty and lovable with their snark. This main character, who is never actually named, was insufferable.
In this story, the primary fuel source is called spermaceti. The sperm jokes were funny at first, but after the 1000th sperm joke, I had to fight myself to not DNF this book. The main character couldn’t go a single chapter without comparing everything (EVERYTHING) to ‘fucking’ which she did so often and with everyone. It quickly got tiring.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book. I believe there is an audience for every book, and that wasn’t me. If you are looking for a queer, horny Moby Dick that focuses more on the characters than plot, you might enjoy this one.
Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Did not finish
March 9, 2026Not really into it, calling it quits early on 9% instead of suffering through.
Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC
Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC
March 10, 2026
A Joyfully Jay review.
4.25 stars
Let’s start with everything that Hell Heart does right, and the list is a long one. First of all, it’s Moby Dick, set in space, with lesbians. Yes, please. Everything about that is a hook for me. Right out of the gate, Hell’s Heart offers readers a rollicking sci-fi yarn replete with danger, madness, beautiful writing, and wild adventure. Author Alexis Hall has, like Melville, given us lots of gorgeous prose, the kind literature fans can feast upon for days. The world building in Hell’s Heart is truly epic; it is nuanced and rich, with details that make the business of hunting giant space krakens utterly believable.
Read Sue’s review in its entirety here.
4.25 stars
Let’s start with everything that Hell Heart does right, and the list is a long one. First of all, it’s Moby Dick, set in space, with lesbians. Yes, please. Everything about that is a hook for me. Right out of the gate, Hell’s Heart offers readers a rollicking sci-fi yarn replete with danger, madness, beautiful writing, and wild adventure. Author Alexis Hall has, like Melville, given us lots of gorgeous prose, the kind literature fans can feast upon for days. The world building in Hell’s Heart is truly epic; it is nuanced and rich, with details that make the business of hunting giant space krakens utterly believable.
Read Sue’s review in its entirety here.
September 21, 2025
I’ve never read Moby Dick but thought the idea of lesbians in space sounding fun. This was not that for me. It felt like it took me forever to read and I was never really sucked in.
The writing is well done. The worldbuilding was great. It was very easy to imagine this world and there’s so much information provided. I found all of the churches, religions and cultures mentioned to be interesting. As well as the leviathans themselves.
It does pick up at the end but that wasn’t enough for me. Overall I just don’t think this was for me. But if you’re a fan of the author or just wanna read Moby Dick in space then I would definitely give this a shot! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
The writing is well done. The worldbuilding was great. It was very easy to imagine this world and there’s so much information provided. I found all of the churches, religions and cultures mentioned to be interesting. As well as the leviathans themselves.
It does pick up at the end but that wasn’t enough for me. Overall I just don’t think this was for me. But if you’re a fan of the author or just wanna read Moby Dick in space then I would definitely give this a shot! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
September 2, 2025
This took me longer than I thought it would to read but that’s because it reads like Moby dick: long, meandering, weird, horny, sad, silly.
It’s not a line for line rewrite but it feels not far off. It hits all the major beats of the story the minor ones too. The story translates really well to space and sad horny lesbians. I had a great time and probably need to re read Moby Dick again!
It’s not a line for line rewrite but it feels not far off. It hits all the major beats of the story the minor ones too. The story translates really well to space and sad horny lesbians. I had a great time and probably need to re read Moby Dick again!
March 16, 2026
Actual rating: 3.25 stars
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The biggest takeaway I can give for Hell’s Heart is that there is a VERY strong Author Voice in this story and that is something I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, that Author Voice was one of the few things keeping me continuing the story after the first quarter.
.
Sapphic Space Moby Dick? I mean, that souns absolutely fantastic. I was sat from the start. I really enjoyed the breakdown of the space beasts they were hunting, the crew dynamics, especially as they began to break down. Even the casualness sex is treated with was an interesting character decision that I really wanted to see fleshed out in the Narrator and the worldbuilding.
.
It sounds like I enjoyed it a lot, so why did I start my review that way?
.
Well, simply put, that strong Author Voice I mentioned at first, keeps you at arms length the entire time. Main characters are barely given names (think Q and Captain A) - which is very reminiscent of writing styles during the original Moby Dick era, but I felt personally kept me from getting too close or wrapped into the story. I do think this was something I could have come to adjust to, but - once again because of the Voice choice - this was hand in hand with another choice and that was for the Narrator not to share a lot of personal information. There would be times in the story where we would come up to an interesting section and get hooked and then the Narrator would drop it like a garage door saying that they just weren’t going to talk about it here (because the POV is them writing a memoir of the events).
.
The choice to keep the Omniscient narrator from being Omniscient with the audience was jarring and frustrating. I was intrigued, I was hooked, I wanted to be drawn in closer, but the story never let me get there. I suppose there is an artistry in that, but it did not give me what I wanted from the story.
.
All that said, Charli Anne Delores did an absolutely fantastic job with the narration - and the voices??? They actually sounded like distinct people sometimes, but just enough to the original voice so that it didn’t feel like the jarringness of duet narration. Delores captured the tone perfectly and even sped up the performance still held. I’ll look for more of Delores’s work in the future for sure.
.
So, if you’re intrigued by Hell’s Heart, I would say try a chapter or two, if you’re okay with the distance held there by the author and know it doesn’t get closer - then you might be the audience for this book. I was just left wanting too much more to be satisfied after what I thought this story originally promised.
.
.
*I received an audio ARC from Macmillan Audio & NetGalley. All opinions are my own*
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Hisses & Kisses 🐍
.
The biggest takeaway I can give for Hell’s Heart is that there is a VERY strong Author Voice in this story and that is something I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, that Author Voice was one of the few things keeping me continuing the story after the first quarter.
.
Sapphic Space Moby Dick? I mean, that souns absolutely fantastic. I was sat from the start. I really enjoyed the breakdown of the space beasts they were hunting, the crew dynamics, especially as they began to break down. Even the casualness sex is treated with was an interesting character decision that I really wanted to see fleshed out in the Narrator and the worldbuilding.
.
It sounds like I enjoyed it a lot, so why did I start my review that way?
.
Well, simply put, that strong Author Voice I mentioned at first, keeps you at arms length the entire time. Main characters are barely given names (think Q and Captain A) - which is very reminiscent of writing styles during the original Moby Dick era, but I felt personally kept me from getting too close or wrapped into the story. I do think this was something I could have come to adjust to, but - once again because of the Voice choice - this was hand in hand with another choice and that was for the Narrator not to share a lot of personal information. There would be times in the story where we would come up to an interesting section and get hooked and then the Narrator would drop it like a garage door saying that they just weren’t going to talk about it here (because the POV is them writing a memoir of the events).
.
The choice to keep the Omniscient narrator from being Omniscient with the audience was jarring and frustrating. I was intrigued, I was hooked, I wanted to be drawn in closer, but the story never let me get there. I suppose there is an artistry in that, but it did not give me what I wanted from the story.
.
All that said, Charli Anne Delores did an absolutely fantastic job with the narration - and the voices??? They actually sounded like distinct people sometimes, but just enough to the original voice so that it didn’t feel like the jarringness of duet narration. Delores captured the tone perfectly and even sped up the performance still held. I’ll look for more of Delores’s work in the future for sure.
.
So, if you’re intrigued by Hell’s Heart, I would say try a chapter or two, if you’re okay with the distance held there by the author and know it doesn’t get closer - then you might be the audience for this book. I was just left wanting too much more to be satisfied after what I thought this story originally promised.
.
.
*I received an audio ARC from Macmillan Audio & NetGalley. All opinions are my own*
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Hisses & Kisses 🐍
February 14, 2026
Moby Dick but with sapphics in space, written by none other than Alexis Hall?! I was super thrilled to hear about this book and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. As such, I was surprised to see it get so many low ratings, but after reading.... oof, unfortunately, I can understand.
The style of writing this as a memoire of one of the few survivors of the hunt for the Möbius beast did not work for me. The writing in said unamed narrator's style was very meandering, with lots of infodumping and side tangents, and it did not help any that the narrator acknowledges awareness of her own rambling passages to the reader. Maybe that awareness and calling herself out was supposed to be charming, but I am never a fan of a narrator adressing the reader, so it did not work for me here.
The characters were, at least, interesting. But the narrative style made it hard to really get a grasp of them as characters as the narrator admits to misremembering people, making things up, not getting the timeline right, or she just tells about a situation without showing in directly on-page, which always lowers emotional engagement for me.
If I had read this digitally, I would have DNFed this, and to be honest, even in audio format I was really tempted to just drop it multiple times. Even though on-page the plot about a crew sailing the hydrogen seas of Jupiter in the hunt of giant leviathans, with mysteries, intrigues, and complex crew dynamics on board, should have been exciting, but due to the disjointed narrative and the narrator's rambling I was not engaged at all.
I usually like the idea of telling a stroy from the perspective of a random side character who is neither special nor involved at the front lines. But, again, due to the book's style this did not end up adding any interest either.
Overall I really wanted to like this, but so many of the choices made did not work for me.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
The style of writing this as a memoire of one of the few survivors of the hunt for the Möbius beast did not work for me. The writing in said unamed narrator's style was very meandering, with lots of infodumping and side tangents, and it did not help any that the narrator acknowledges awareness of her own rambling passages to the reader. Maybe that awareness and calling herself out was supposed to be charming, but I am never a fan of a narrator adressing the reader, so it did not work for me here.
The characters were, at least, interesting. But the narrative style made it hard to really get a grasp of them as characters as the narrator admits to misremembering people, making things up, not getting the timeline right, or she just tells about a situation without showing in directly on-page, which always lowers emotional engagement for me.
If I had read this digitally, I would have DNFed this, and to be honest, even in audio format I was really tempted to just drop it multiple times. Even though on-page the plot about a crew sailing the hydrogen seas of Jupiter in the hunt of giant leviathans, with mysteries, intrigues, and complex crew dynamics on board, should have been exciting, but due to the disjointed narrative and the narrator's rambling I was not engaged at all.
I usually like the idea of telling a stroy from the perspective of a random side character who is neither special nor involved at the front lines. But, again, due to the book's style this did not end up adding any interest either.
Overall I really wanted to like this, but so many of the choices made did not work for me.
I received an ARC and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
March 5, 2026
ALC review
3.5/5 stars
Sapphic Moby Dick retelling set in a far future space where leviathan are harvested for the sperm that powers civilization.
Told entirely in first person from our FMCs POV, the story details one captain’s obsession with hunting the leviathan that took her leg. “I”, the FMC, signs on with the Pequod mostly for adventure and sex. The adventure is strong, if a bit of an info-dump at times, and the sex is almost clinical in its description. Often abrupt and occasionally tinged with violence, but serves as a constant reminder that “I”seems to be chasing the next high (whether it be orgasm or adrenaline) much like the captain is chasing the whale.
I’m honestly not sure of I liked it or not. I get the comps to Gideon the Ninth, which for me is mostly present in the narration. I’m not a huge fan of Moby Dick and vastly preferred this version to the source material.
Speaking of narration, Charli Ann Delores does a fantastic job. There are some scenes that jump timelines repeatedly mid scene and I had no trouble following where we were in the story. She managed to create amazing visuals with her voice. Her delivery was absolutely perfect for the character throughout the book - someone deadpan, somewhat desperate, always seeking.
Thanks so much to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance listener copy. All opinions are honestly given.
3.5/5 stars
Sapphic Moby Dick retelling set in a far future space where leviathan are harvested for the sperm that powers civilization.
Told entirely in first person from our FMCs POV, the story details one captain’s obsession with hunting the leviathan that took her leg. “I”, the FMC, signs on with the Pequod mostly for adventure and sex. The adventure is strong, if a bit of an info-dump at times, and the sex is almost clinical in its description. Often abrupt and occasionally tinged with violence, but serves as a constant reminder that “I”seems to be chasing the next high (whether it be orgasm or adrenaline) much like the captain is chasing the whale.
I’m honestly not sure of I liked it or not. I get the comps to Gideon the Ninth, which for me is mostly present in the narration. I’m not a huge fan of Moby Dick and vastly preferred this version to the source material.
Speaking of narration, Charli Ann Delores does a fantastic job. There are some scenes that jump timelines repeatedly mid scene and I had no trouble following where we were in the story. She managed to create amazing visuals with her voice. Her delivery was absolutely perfect for the character throughout the book - someone deadpan, somewhat desperate, always seeking.
Thanks so much to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the advance listener copy. All opinions are honestly given.
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