REVIEW: Discovery by J.A.J. Minton

It’s not often that I find myself lost for words when I come to write a review, but what J.A.J. Minton pulled off in their stupendously ambitious debut novel Discovery has honestly left me speechless. It’s an utterly captivating story with balls, teeth and tentacles that seamlessly blends post-apocalyptic mystery, cosmic horror, dystopian sci-fi, historical fiction, and dark folkloric urban fantasy into a tour de force of cutting-edge speculative fiction. 

Now, Discovery is one of those wonderfully weird and experimental novels that is quite simply unlike anything I have ever read before. What starts out in Tonga, 1992 as a deep-sea mystery broadcast gone wrong quickly escalates into a brutal and fungal-infused cosmic chess game that spans continents, eons, realms, and space. Throughout a masterfully crafted kaleidoscopic narrative spanning five distinct acts, which are broken up by the diary entries of a revolutionary computer scientist, we are introduced to a diverse cast of colourful and unforgettable characters who not only hold the fate of Earth, but the pure fabric of reality in their hands, whether they realise it or not; in other words, cue the Chaos.

And as crazy as that neat little one-paragraph summary might sound, it doesn’t even come close to conveying the brilliant madness that Minton (a.k.a. The Talking Story family) delivers in Discovery. This story doesn’t just push boundaries, but it boldly dances with the legacy of all that came before to create an altogether more mind-bending narrative. If you’ll indulge me in giving a weird metaphorical vibe-check for this book: imagine if you took all the best elements of Vandermeer’s Annihilation, Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Gaiman’s American Gods, and Lavalle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, put those in a blender, sprinkled some deliciously dark King vibes over it all, and then served this uniquely stomach-churning sundae of sublime storytelling with a few horrific Lovecraftian cherries on top; that’s the taste of Discovery for you.

If all that didn’t give it away, Discovery is a story that refuses to play by the rules and which isn’t afraid to make you feel uncomfortable. And I am not going to lie, there were moments during the first half of the novel that challenged me more than I was anticipating. Partly because the unconventional structure required quite a bit of blind trust in the process, partly because there’s quite a bit of esoteric big brain energy going on in some chapters (though never to the point of becoming pretentious), but most of all because I honestly don’t think I was prepared for the weight and impact of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journeys that these characters pulled me into.

See, Discovery is not just a character study, it’s a study of humanity and the narratives that connect us all and make up the threads of our existence. It unflinchingly examines what happens when faith, science, conspiracy theories, folklore, and the extra-terrestrial clash, and how humanity reacts when it is faced with their fear of the unknown. Seriously, Discovery contains layers of thematic depth that go deeper than the Mariana Trench, and its brutal yet effortlessly graceful exploration of mental health, cultural identity, evolution, artificial intelligence/life, generational trauma, parenthood, morality, and ethics just spoke to my soul in ways I was not ready for; this is a book with a pulse, and my heart was beating right along with it.

Though as weighty and heady and heavy as that all sounds, Discovery is also just a wickedly fun and entertaining wild ride. There’s a playfulness to Minton’s storytelling that kept me grounded and engaged throughout the increasingly complex and crazy plot, and I found myself chuckling at all the ludicrous events, funny character interactions, and killer lines of whip-smart dialogue more times than I’d like to admit. I mean, when you have a cast of characters including (but not limited to) an absolute ass-hat of a disgraced ex-game show host with a god complex, an enigmatic nun without faith, a snarky assistant with some addiction problems (my personal favourite), an ex(?)-Nazi with a foul mouth, and an interdimensional being with a flair for drama, you can expect some hysterical shenanigans to ensue.

In the hands of a lesser author, this challenging and slightly unhinged narrative could have easily crashed and burned so many times along the way, and I honestly think it all would not have worked so well if it wasn’t for the Minton family’s background in film and theatre. See, they are uniquely talented at vividly setting every scene, and the way that they distinguish between character voices and then breathe these vibrant characters to life just made the entire story unfold like a scarily realistic movie in my mind. As someone who heavily struggles to visualise while reading, Discovery offered a level of immersion that I have rarely had the pleasure of experiencing before, making this a reading journey that I will treasure forever more.

So yes, I may have struggled at some points, but if there was ever a book that rewards you a thousand fold if you give it the attention, patience, and trust that it deserves, it’s Discovery. This story just continued to zig whenever I expected it to zag, and the meticulous way that the narrative built and unravelled made me fall in love more and more with each new turn of the page. The entire final act was pure revelatory madness, pulling together all the previously assumed separate threads and giving answers to questions I didn’t even know I had, while also roping me in for the rest of the Strange Eons series in the most enticingly ominous way possible; forget the Sanderlanche, the Talking Story Tsunami is here to wipe you off your feet.

I will be the first to admit that this review is quite the hyperbolic gush fest, and yet my praise can never properly do justice to this marvellous masterpiece. The transcendental power of J.A.J. Minton’s imagination, prose and storytelling simply cannot be overstated, and the fact that this is only their debut leaves me with no doubt that their author journey is going to be legendary. So, if you like the sound of a wildly imaginative genre blending gem of a book that somehow manages to be extraordinarily alien yet deeply and relatable human at the same time, then I highly recommend diving into Discovery to discover its ground breaking storytelling genius on your own.

Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Discovery is scheduled for release on 15 May, 2025.

 

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