Book Review - The Fall is All There Is by C.M. Caplan

The Fall is All There Is was such a unique blend of steampunk and fantasy wrapped in a political family drama.

Petre Mercy left his family and place in line for the throne 5 years ago, a choice in his best interest and one he has never looked back on. Well, that is, until his father died. Now it's time to pledge his fealty to one of his sibling heirs; which would be much easier if they weren't all at each other’s throats. Nervous and ready to fight for his survival in amongst his families’ schemes, he loads up on a thyroid powered injections and waits for his brother Edgar to arrive.

As he travels back home with his brother, Petre catches wind that all is not what it seems. Edgar is tied up in some dangerous games and he isn’t so sure he wants to be a part of it. With his other siblings sending communication and the stakes getting higher and higher, Petre wishes he was still back home.

Caught up in a web of insane political plays, family drama and trying to keep on top of his injections helping to control his sword, this makes for one heck of an exciting tale.

This was one of the most unique fantasy stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading. There was so much to love and unpack in these pages. The world was a mix of spare parts and flesh, a sordid history of magic underlying its core. We had a great look at some autistic representation and the queer normativity was off the charts. Let’s start off with the world.

Years ago, magic caused not one, but two annihilations’ and with them came the destruction of many forms of organic material, people and animals included. This meant the survivors needed to be creative in how they go about their lives. With the destruction of the land came the introduction of the gaunts, people who had ingested ghost smoke, becoming infected with their memories no longer able to be their own person. These hybrid humans made for interesting and dangerous obstacles while travelling on foot. It also meant that transport becomes a blend of organic material and spare parts, for example, cyborg horses feature heavily in the travel, and they were fascinating. The world that we uncover in this book is dark, and full of history, from the interactions Petre had with various people across his travels to the new spaces we get to explore. I’ll be honest, it is something I wish I could experience again for the first time.

This book was also wonderfully inclusive, we have both autistic and queer representation in abundance. Petre is very open about his autism and there are several places in this book where the reader is invited to think about what that means and how it can be different for different people, there is no one size fits all. We get to see how it affected others in his life and also how others have reacted to him in the past (not always in positive ways). There was one section where I had a physical reaction to how poorly he was treated by his mother, that made me stop and think that this is how real people sometimes react to things they don’t understand. The Fall is all There Is was also incredibly queer friendly with Petre and a few of our side characters openly expressing queerness without putting labels on it. They were just attracted to people which is always extremely refreshing in my reads.

One more thing I will mention is how well the author has written generational traits into characters from the same family. This is often something I see overlooked (and overlook myself) in fantasy stories with familial tension at the forefront. We get a really good look at Petre’s family in its entirety, those both alive and deceased have mention whereby we see how their traits have been passed down in the nature vs nurture debate. Petre’s brother Desmond shared certain traits with the mother in terms of his speech and mannerisms, where as his sister shares those of her father. While these characters still feel very much individual, I thought it was a cool feature to pick up on while reading the tale.

I really enjoyed The Fall is All there Is, I think the author has a unique flare and a lot to offer then genre while staying unapologetically true to themselves. I cannot wait to see what comes next!