The Genesis of Misery

No cover — Neon Yang, Neon Yang: The Genesis of Misery (Hardcover, 2022, Tor)

Hardcover, 432 pages

English language

Published Jan. 12, 2022 by Tor.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-78897-9

(1 review)

An immersive, electrifying space-fantasy from Neon Yang, author of The Black Tides of Heaven, full of high-tech space battles and political machinations, starring a queer and diverse array of pilots, princesses, and prophetic heirs.

This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) – a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness, like that which killed Misery’s mother. Knowing they aren’t a saint but praying they aren’t voidmad, Misery keeps quiet about their power for years, while dreaming and scheming up ways off their Forge-forsaken planet.

But when the voice of an angel, or a very convincing delusion, leads Misery to the center of the Empire, they find themself trapped between two powerful and dangerous factions, each hoping to use Misery to win a terrible war.

Still waiting to be convinced of …

An immersive, electrifying space-fantasy from Neon Yang, author of The Black Tides of Heaven, full of high-tech space battles and political machinations, starring a queer and diverse array of pilots, princesses, and prophetic heirs.

This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) – a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness, like that which killed Misery’s mother. Knowing they aren’t a saint but praying they aren’t voidmad, Misery keeps quiet about their power for years, while dreaming and scheming up ways off their Forge-forsaken planet.

But when the voice of an angel, or a very convincing delusion, leads Misery to the center of the Empire, they find themself trapped between two powerful and dangerous factions, each hoping to use Misery to win a terrible war.

Still waiting to be convinced of their own divinity and secretly training with a crew of outlaws and outcasts, Misery grows close to a rebel royal, Lady Alodia Lightning, who may know something of saints and prophecy herself. The voice that guides Misery grows bolder by the day, and it seems the madness is catching…

2 editions

enne📚 reviewed The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

4 stars

"Is there one among us who has not behaved badly in this tale?"

I would pitch this book as Gundam Joan of Arc. It follows the course of the life of Misery Nomaki :drum: who believes they are sick with the same void madness that claimed the life of their mother and causes them to hear the voice of an angel telling them what to do. They lie their way into being the foretold ninth messiah to try to get themselves out of larger trouble, but everybody believes them (and eventually they begin to wonder if maybe they're not lying to themselves after all).

I love Neon Yang's worldbuilding and characters. This book is set in the far future where humanity's exodus into the stars took them into a realm where a "nullvoid" epidemic warped people's bodies; they were saved by the Larex Forge who teaches them how to use …

"Is there one among us who has not behaved badly in this tale?"

I would pitch this book as Gundam Joan of Arc. It follows the course of the life of Misery Nomaki :drum: who believes they are sick with the same void madness that claimed the life of their mother and causes them to hear the voice of an angel telling them what to do. They lie their way into being the foretold ninth messiah to try to get themselves out of larger trouble, but everybody believes them (and eventually they begin to wonder if maybe they're not lying to themselves after all).

I love Neon Yang's worldbuilding and characters. This book is set in the far future where humanity's exodus into the stars took them into a realm where a "nullvoid" epidemic warped people's bodies; they were saved by the Larex Forge who teaches them how to use magic stone and protects them from the nullvoid. There's also a political conflict between the throne and the church, who are at war with heretics.

Small details I enjoyed:

One common motif here is "lies". The story about the Larex Forge is clearly a self-serving church narrative, but we only see one side. Misery lies to other people and to herself, and we only see the world through her eyes. We see a lot of the church and some of the throne, but hear very little of the heretics and what their side has to say for themselves. Also, the epilogue itself is a discussion about lies.
I love the way that Misery changes the way they talk over the course of the book as they change from feeling like they are lying their way through the world to starting to become invested in their own ninth Messiah identity.
The book explicitly gives everybody's pronouns, and I love that there's a minor plot detail that hinges on Misery using a pronoun for somebody they aren't supposed to know about.
The angry royal princess with a whip who has a knock-down fight with Misery the first time they meet felt like a classic romance introduction, but I thought she ended up being a fun character. That first fight is also such a great literal introduction to the conflict between the church and the throne.

This is a book that is understandably entirely focused on the experience and biased perspective of Misery, and it leaves the motivations and machinations of throne, church, and heretics out of view. On top of that, the epilogue and ending narrative framing create far more questions than they answer and call many things into doubt. All of this together made me feel as if I had missed some significant puzzle pieces while I was reading. However, I learned afterwards that this is the first book in a trilogy, which hopefully creates room to fill in all these juicy details later.