Metal from Heaven

By: August Clarke

Narrated by: Vico Ortiz

“WHEN MY VIOLENCE SUBSIDES, WE WILL HAVE NOTHING, AND BE CHAMPIONS.”

Ichorite is progress. More durable and malleable than steel, ichorite is the lifeblood of a dawning industrial revolution. Yann I. Chauncey owns the sole means of manufacturing this valuable metal, but his workers are on strike. They demand Chauncey research the hallucinatory illness befalling them. Marney Honeycutt, a luster-touched child worker, stands proud at the picket line with her best friend and family. That’s when Chauncey sends in the guns.

Only Marney survives the massacre.

She vows bloody vengeance.

A decade later, Marney is the nation’s most notorious highwayman, and Chauncey’s daughter seeks an opportune marriage. Marney’s rage and the ghosts of her past will drive her to masquerade as an aristocrat, outmaneuver powerful suitors, and win the
heart of his daughter, so Marney can finally corner Chauncey and satisfy her need for revenge. But war ferments in the north, and deeper grudges are surfacing …

“A queer, bloody love letter to rebellion.”—Nino Cipri

©2024 August Clarke (P)2024 Recorded Books

Lyrical prose with Mad Max frenetic energy

I just finished the sapphic dark political fantasy “Metal from Heaven” by August Clarke and thought it was very good. The story details a political revolution against capitalism led by a lesbian bandit biker gang. It’s a bloody revenge tale that’s so well written.

The dark tone is set in the very first chapter when we see the young main character’s entire family executed because they were protesting for labor rights and safer working conditions. The scene is so vividly described that it made me feel like I was viewing the horror. The violence is very visceral.

After the tragedy, the main character (Marney Honeycutt) gets taken in by a lesbian bandit biker gang. The group is part of a larger outlaw collective who are dedicated to robbing the wealthy and then sharing the spoils with the entire community. The plot is bloody and graphic, but there are also tender moments laced with found family vibes.

As the years go by, Marney becomes one of the most notorious bandits in the region and she vows to revenge her murdered family. The atmosphere has a Mad Max frenetic energy while the prose is lyrical. The world building is threaded with symbolism and the politics of capitalism, religion, and culture. The plot is so complex and layered that I kept stopping and re-listening to passages.

The narration of the audiobook is excellent! The audio version is narrated by Vico Ortiz, the actor from the HBO show “Our Flag Means Death”. There are many characters in this cast and Ortiz does such a great job distinguishes between them. Plus, I loved the raspy tired exhausted voice that they used for Marney. It was perfect.

“Metal from Heaven” by August Clarke is bloody, queer, intense, visceral, sensual, political, well plotted, and the author’s prose made the world come to life. The ending was bittersweet, but I loved the writing in this book.

*Note: The author, August Clarke has also written the sapphic fantasy series “The Scrapegracers Trilogy” under the name H.A. Clarke.

Great story but really curious about the narrator

It was such a bizarre experience to hear someone with a perfectly clear accent mispronounce so many basic English words. Like glove sounded like globe. There are dozens of instances of this and it took me out of the story a little bit. Idk it just seems to me that there should be a level of professionalism with that kind of thing which is a shame because they did such a great job otherwise.

The narration ruined it for me

The story was okay, but the author routinely used 50 words to say what could be said in 10, dragging the story out. The narration was terrible, with mispronunciation of words so frequent that it became a distraction. Eventually I had to give up.

solid if unfocused

very interesting stuff, plenty of concepts and world design, the story gets somewhat muddy at times and often things happen fast enough to not know how it happened withou backing up and relistening. Narator is great, but they needed a better editor.

I was bored

I had high hopes for this book. I saw it all over the internet as a recommendation and I can say that this is the longest it has taken me to get through a book because I was bored out of my mind. It speed up in parts you want it to dwell on and it slowed to a crawl on parts you don’t care about. It gets good at cheaper 9 or 10 and then becomes insufferably slow in chapter 12.
And I am a fan of Vico Ortiz but some of the accents used for the characters they couldn’t keep going or couldn’t provide any emotion to in order to keep the accent going.
It was just rough all around.