The All-Consuming World

Written by Cassandra Khaw

Narrated by Cindy Kay

Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a long, dangerous career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse
team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade … but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir.

The highly evolved AI of the galaxy have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humanity from ever regaining control. As Maya and her comrades spiral closer to uncovering the AIs’ vast conspiracy, this band of violent women—half-clone and half-machine—must
battle their own traumas and a universe of sapient ageships who want them dead, in order to settle their affairs once and for all.

Welcome to The All-Consuming World, the debut novel of acclaimed writer Cassandra Khaw. With this explosive and introspective exploration of humans and machines, life and death, Khaw takes their rightful place next to such science fiction luminaries as Ann Leckie, Ursula Le Guin, and Kameron Hurley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781705097755

Cassandra Khaw

Cassandra Khaw is a scriptwriter at Ubisoft Montreal. Her fiction has been nominated for the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Award, and her game writing has won a German Game Award. You can find her short stories in places like F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. Her novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth is coming out from Nightfire, the new Tor horror imprint in 2021.

Reviews for The All-Consuming World

[lavaturtle · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to like this book. Angry queer cyborgs vs. AIs in space? Sounded right up my alley! But the mix of over-the-top violence and excessive use of obscure words (seriously, there was a word I had to look up on every page) really didn't work for me. There's a compelling plot thread with Maya and her not-really-consensual relationship to Rita, and I liked some of the supporting characters. But the pacing of the "A plot" was very odd; it felt like we spent 80% of the book getting the band together and then rushed perfunctorily through whatever it was they were supposed to do. And with all the hinting about their last mission, it never quite became clear exactly what happened, before the ending sort of abruptly crashed in. Pimento was fun, though.

[booksandliquids · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The blurb of this book sounded right up my alley, and the story would have been, too. If I hadn't been so distracted by the writing.This book has ... words. So many words. It seems the author lost a bet and now needed to incorporate every single word in the Oxford English Dictionary in this one book. Especially the verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I found this very distracting and, frankly, unnecessary. It took a lot away from the story, which could have been told in have the pages and, if you took away all the overuse of language, was unfortunately not that exciting after all.Which makes me sad, because I did like the premise and the worldbuilding was super interesting. I wish we would have learned more about that. I also liked getting to know the characters one after the other. Unfortunately, the writing took away from both.The characters did not seem too different from each other, because they all spoke with the same voice and used the same flowery language. On top of that, they didn't really do much in the story, didn't make many decisions that would allow them to show who they were, so they were not very distinguishable. Or maybe they did and I just didn't recognize it beneath all the words. I can get behind one or two characters speaking like that, but all of them? The no-bullshit, down-to-earth killing machine (who's the POV for most of the chapters) that is literally described as "just a weapon" speaks AND thinks like that? I don't believe it.There were also a lot of spelling mistakes and parts of sentences that will probably be corrected in editing. The pronouns for two of the characters were all over the place, first they were established and then they were constantly misgendered in dialogue and inner monologue. I hope this will be corrected, too.The worldbuilding I liked a lot, it was something new and interesting and it excited me. But again, do AIs speak and think in flowery language? All right, maybe those AIs are so far evolved from machines that they developed like that, it's her world, her choice. But then add all the references to current pop culture on top of that and I couldn't believe any of it, it didn't make sense.The story that was there was entertaning and I wish I had gotten more of the characters interacting with each other and the world around them, going through friendship, love, hate, betrayal, and just basic survival in this strange, dangerous world.But all in all, the writing took away too much for me to enjoy the experience of reading this book.Thank you to Erewhon books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[dedduckie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a paperback ARC of The All-Consuming World, authored by Cassandra Khaw from Erewhon Books, for review consideration. Cover art: Ashe Samuels, cover design: Samira Iravani, interior design: Cassandra Farrin and Leah Marsh, solar eclipses: Lalan/Shutterstock, bullet holes: vectorwin/Shutterstock. What follows below is my honest review freely given. I rated this debut novel 4 stars. You cannot prepare for this book. I was not prepared for this book, and I jumped at the chance to review this early, at anything written by Khaw early really, because anything written by them so far has knocked my cotton/polyester blend socks right the fuck off every single time, thank you very much. Nothing But Blackened Teeth will be released October 19th; haunted house, Japanese folklore! I was respectfully declined for that one on NetGalley. You win some, you lose some. I will have to wait for release day like everyone else. Impatiently! This is a polarizing read, Khaw had a vision for their space opera and did not hold back on anything. There will be words that you have to look up to understand. There is a *lot* of cursing (sorry, but not really, it’s just cursing, like?). The reader will be a little disheveled trying to keep everything in order, at least I did. And all the horrifying implications weighing on you from the technologies and lore being fed to you throughout the novel! This future makes the Matrix look like a scholastic book fair day and you have twenty dollars, I’m not even playing. I would love to read more set in this universe, fingers crossed they may have some novellas brewing that touch on the mission that is mentioned throughout, or maybe on the ageships’ creation. But polarizing. Either you will put in the effort and get to that ending, man, or you will not, siting whatever reason that made you quit, which will be a valid one. I adored this book and still could only give it 4 stars, because I know it will not be something everyone can just pick up and enjoy, as much as I wish it was. Honestly there were times I didn’t know what I feel about it, I didn’t mind having to look up so many words, but was I missing too much to get it? Was it over my head too much? Some of it probably, yeah. I think that may take a few re-reads, which I like to do with books that hit me the right way. I re-read a lot of my books. But the emotional kick to this novel, the pain, the bond between people—this book has so many parts that made me cry. And that ending. The culmination of it all. Khaw had a vision and whether you make it to the end or not to read it, as someone who did, it’s spectacular. I’m starstruck.

[inquisitrix · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The All-Consuming World is a thrillingly violent, guttingly emotional space opera replete with outlaws, AI, and all manner of things and people broken beyond repair and ready to go down fighting. Gothic, Sapphic, pyrrhic--this is a mesmerising and wonderfully baroque addition to the cyberpunk canon. There's a wonderful rhythm to Cassandra Khaw's prose. Their language--a heady mixture of poetic description and gleeful profanity--is gloriously seductive, hooking readers in the first paragraph and never letting go. This book is worth reading almost for the prose alone, at least for readers who enjoy high levels of stylization and atmosphere, though it has far more to offer than simple vibes and elaborate style. This might well appeal to fans of Tamsyn Muir; although The All-Consuming World is very much its own book and not very much like any other, some of the feelings it evokes reminded me of how I felt reading Harrow the Ninth. I would recommend this novel to readers who enjoy dramatic stories of far-flung adventure and emotional upheaval--and who do not shy away from stories brimming with toxic relationships and trauma. I received a free e-ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.