The Death I Gave Him

by Em X. Liu

A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller

Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me…

With the lab on lockdown, Hayden is trapped with four other people—his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul—one of whom must be the killer. His only sure ally is the lab’s resident artificial intelligence, Horatio, who has been his dear friend and companion since its creation. With his world collapsing, Hayden must navigate the building’s secrets, uncover his father’s lies, and push the boundaries of sanity in the pursuit of revenge.

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Queer, Retellings, Fiction, Thriller, LGBT

351 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 2023

About the author

Em X. Liu is a writer and biochemistry graduate who is fascinated by stories of artificial intelligence and Shakespeare in equal measure. Chronically cold-blooded, Em nevertheless resides in Toronto, Canada.

Reviews

[Alexis Hall]

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Review (hopefully temporarily) removed as text of this review is being used without my consent.

Update: not sure what to do about this review. The publisher has agreed to remove the chopped-up/mashed-together bits of the review they'd decided to use as a blurb without asking me.

Let me very clear: this was very explicitly a choice of the publisher, not the author. I love this book--I legitimately think it is one of the most brilliant, fascinating, things I've ever read--and would support it in any way I can. But reviews aren't blurbs and blurbs aren't reviews, and running together different sentences of my review doesn't make for a good blurb (it makes me look incoherent and it doesn't do the book justice).

This books neither needs or deserves a stolen, fragmentary blurb that is detracting from the many *actual* (and I presume consensual) blurbs it has already received from well-established, prestigious authors in the same genre who can speak to the work's quality with far more scope and authority than I ever could.

Plus, I kind of think if any industry ought to respect people's words, and their rights over their words, it should be, you know, publishing.

For the last three years or so I've managed to persuade my own publishers not to ask for blurbs on my behalf because I don't, as a general rule, give blurbs. Frankly, I don't feel *qualified* to. But I do feel pretty strongly that I don't want bits and pieces of my rambling reviews to be used as pseudo-blurbs without at least checking with me.

[Marieke (mariekes_mesmerizing_books) · Rating 5 out of 5]

That writing! That structure! That tension! This queer Hamlet retelling as a locked-room sci-fi thriller is insanely good!!

I needed to recover for a while because the tension was so tangible in every sentence that I felt I had to keep my breath constantly while reading. So, breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out!

Sometimes a book is fantastic because it’s different.
Sometimes a book is fantastic because it’s original.
Sometimes a book is fantastic because it’s ingenious.

This book has it all. The blunt, lyrical writing and the amazing structure kept me on the edge of my seat. The Death I Gave Him is only covering fourteen hours, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. It’s built up from an essay, camera footage, audio transcripts, letters, footnotes, Horatio’s and Hayden’s POVs from the neuromapper log, etc., etc. It switches from lyrical, distant third-person prose to a somewhat prickly first-person narrative to objective facts, to transcripts of conversations, and back again. Add a natural trigger warning within the text and an unreal love story that felt so real, and a sensational novel is born!

The Death I Gave Him follows Hamlet’s main themes, like mortality and immortality, revenge, and doubt. There’s science to find solutions to reverse death, there’s ambition and madness to prove it’s possible to relive, there’s revenge for Hayden’s father’s death, and there’s doubt because the question is: who did it and who stole the Sisyphus Formula? But also Hayden’s fears and doubts are central in this magnificent story!

Everyone who knows Shakespeare’s Hamlet also knows Horatio and the deep friendship the two of them had. In this retelling Em X. Liu constructs a relationship full of affection and love that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t read it myself. Hayden who never felt he was enough and Horatio so caring for the human he loved. So much that tears clouded my eyes in the last part of the story. I almost don’t dare to admit that I fell in love with an AI voice.

Shakespeare would have been proud of this retelling and maybe even jealous! Pick up this book, everyone! It’s phenomenal!

I received an ARC from Rebellion Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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[Shelley Parker-Chan]

Liu’s exquisite prose perfectly marries physicality and emotionality, the visceral and the sterile. This is Hamlet reflected in a fractured mirror. Every angle on the familiar comes as a surprise; every new edge cuts with razor intelligence. And oh, the tension! It will murder you.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

read for my patreon book club - https://www.patreon.com/megwithbooks

major snoozefest babes

[Baba Yaga Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I'm glad to say it did not disappoint.
The Death I Gave Him is a hard sci-fi with a medical focus, based on a loose retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet. I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience and thought the author's exploration of depression, guilt, and fear of death was poignant and impactful.

I do, however, believe that the book blurb could have been more accurate. For one thing, I wouldn't call the writing lyrical. The prose is pretty straightforward and matter-of-fact, which fits the overall tone of the novel as well as the mixed media format Liu chose to employ. The story is told through a fragmented narrative, using interview excerpts, chat logs, and video transcripts as well as a more traditonal third person, omniscient narration. I thought this technique made the writing more dynamic, and helped me get through the slower parts of the novel.

The marketing also leaned heavily on the characters' queer identity. I guess you could say that the main romantic relationship between a man and a genderless AI has elements of queerness; however, I feel like touting this book as "a gay Shakespeare retelling" could create unrealistic expectations in the audience. That being said, I found the exchanges between Hayden and Horatio utterly compelling and emotionally resonant.

Speaking of relationships: one of my favorite things about this book was how Liu re-imagined the female characters in Hamlet. Felicia was a layered, interesting, and morally grey co-protagonist that I had a lot of fun reading about. I applaud the author for succeeding so effectively in reinventing Ophelia for a modern audience.

Overall, I had a great time with this book. Even though I think that some chapters could have been trimmed down a bit, the story managed to keep me engaged and interested in the characters' journeys until the end. I'm curious to see how this will do upon release, and wouldn't be surprised to see it nominated for a bunch of awards next year.


Many thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

[bri]

THE DEATH I GAVE HIM is a bold, unique Hamlet retelling that emphasizes its source text’s intimate environment through the form of a locked-room thriller and hinges itself on themes of mortality and mental illness.

The book itself takes the form of a fictional novel written by an unnamed third party attempting to organize public documentation and private speculations into a cohesive tale recounting one particularly tragic and terrible night.

Open on Elsinore, a place of myth and speculation. A place where two men, father and son, play God behind closed doors to achieve miracles that defy life as we know it. A place with as many secrets as the man who founded it.

And that man is now dead. But how, and why?

Enter the suspects, the only other human beings left in Elsinore this quiet night: Hayden Lichfield, the scientist’s son, who would do just about anything to escape death. Charles, the scientist’s brother and Hayden’s uncle. Paul Xia, Charles’ right hand man. Felicia, Paul’s daughter and Hayden’s ex-girlfriend, who happens to be shadowing her father on this particular evening. Gabriel Rasmussen, a young, dutiful security guard. And watching over them all is Elsinore’s advanced AI security system and data interface: Horatio.

The choice to make Horatio the literal sentient security system of this story’s location is maybe my favorite choice I’ve ever seen made in a retelling of anything, ever.

Hamlet is no stranger to surveillance-heavy adaptations. Famously, Hamlet (2009) directed by Gregory Doran and starring David Tennant as well as Hamlet (2018) directed by Robert Icke and starring Andrew Scott, utilize security footage to cast a shadow of scrutiny over the play’s events. Modern adaptations may gravitate towards security systems as a storytelling mode because of how easily they translate into the world of Hamlet, a play riddled with discussions of private knowledge vs public knowledge, a constant occupation with eavesdropping as well as bearing witness, and perhaps mostly: immense amounts of interrogation.

THE DEATH I GAVE HIM, through a surveillance-driven lens, inherently places itself in a difficult position: in company with those two previously mentioned, beloved adaptations. But I think Liu brings the right perspective to this conversation. While these two other adaptations use surveillance mostly to add a contemporary understanding of political, public, and private pressure on Hamlet’s behavior, THE DEATH I GAVE HIM takes this surveillance a step further. It does of course add that atmosphere of claustrophobia, but this version also asks: what if the surveillance is not solely a constraint, but an aid?

As anyone will learn in any kind of academic introduction to Hamlet, Horatio’s role is one of great importance: the storyteller. It is his job, throughout the whole play, to bear witness. In Hamlet’s words, Horatio “hast been As one in suffering all that suffers nothing, A man that Fortunes’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks.” That is to say, a man unaffected. He is not, as the others are, “passion’s slave,” but is rather an innocent witnessing party. His main (and perhaps only) investment is in Hamlet’s wellbeing as his lover dear friend. And at the end of the play, he is the only one left standing, burdened with the task of conveying the events as they played out.

So translating Horatio into this story as not only a sentient building–as the home for the story itself–but also as a data interface and therefore a literal vessel of memory and information, is no less than absolutely fucking genius.

Throughout the story, Horatio’s POV is expressed in a couple of formats, mostly video surveillance and an AI data system log. The data system log is transcribed as a consistent narration, a train of thought replicating that of a human’s, giving him a uniquely biased and yet theoretically objective viewpoint. Who knew AIs could be filled with such queer yearning?

At the beginning of the story, Horatio finds Hayden with his father’s body. Scared, grieving, and uncertain, Hayden decides he needs an ally in his investigation into his father’s death. He needs someone to steady him, but he also needs insurance. Fortunately, his father set up a memory upload system in Horatio years ago, something Hayden had connection to but never turned on, until now. Once activated, this system achieves two things:

1. Hayden’s memory is now uploaded into Horatio’s data system. This allows Hayden a narrative POV, his thoughts and experiences transcribed similarly to that of Horatio’s.
And Hayden is a fascinating character and a truly brilliant interpretation of Hamlet. As I mentioned earlier, Hayden’s foundational character trait is his desperate fear of death, to an irrational point. He is constantly spiraling down rabbit holes about bodily deterioration, regularly checks his pulse to ensure he’s still alive, and has spent years working incredibly hard on a formula to eradicate death altogether.
But fascinatingly, at the same time, Hayden does not want to live. He spends much of the book fairly suicidal (which is probably unsurprising to anyone who knows anything about Hamlet, the “to be or not to be” soliloquy being literally just Hamlet philosophizing over whether or not he should kill himself). I can not give enough praise to Liu in creating such a juicy character conflict: desperately not wanting to live but endlessly haunted with a phobia of dying. It allows Hayden to feel full of friction and narrative tension even in stillness, an ever-swirling storm. But, it, more than anything, perfectly represents these core pillars of Hamlet as a character, though put through a pressure cooker. Hamlet may be preoccupied with the memento mori, but Hayden becomes memento mori, straddling life and death in every constant moment.


2. Now connected to Hayden through his nervous system, Horatio is actually able to… occupy that system.
This, of course, meaning that Horatio can read Hayden’s mind, so that they’re able to communicate through thoughts alone.
For many, many reasons, Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is one of my favorite parts of Hamlet. We see this concept of bodily occupation and ownership between Hamlet and Horatio in the text of Hamlet itself: “I will wear him. In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee.” Hayden may not literally wear AI Horatio in his heart’s core, but he certainly does wear him in his mind.
And Liu’s tangible representation of their intertwined hearts, minds, and beings is so well done. Having Hayden inside Horatio and Horatio inside of Hayden produces an inherent eroticism as tenants of each others’ bodies, and a constant intimacy to their relationship despite the distance created by the epistolary format. And this of course, helps the queer romantic element of the book to really pay off. I won’t go into too much detail, but I was not expecting this book to get remotely as spicy as it did. (I would’ve loved some eroticism with the surveillance elements and the fact that Horatio’s body is the building, but I did really like what was done on page!)

And then we have one more POV in this book: Felicia. Felicia’s narrative format, rather than memory data, is featured through interviews and writing of her own, discussing the events in retrospect. This provides a really interesting relationship between her POV and that of Hayden’s and Horatio’s. Theirs are told in third person present tense, offering a sense of distance to the reader but an immediacy and intimacy to the circumstance, while Felicia’s is told in first person past tense, providing the audience with the feeling of being close to the narrator, but distance from the circumstance.

Felicia is a really brilliant Ophelia. Liu takes the bare bones of Shakespeare’s character and adds so much meat to them. This Ophelia holds so much agency, adds a really crucial perspective to this chaotic environment, and truly balances out this world and this cast. And on top of her characterization, her POV being through her own chosen words and through a more traditional format grounds the reader, adding a sense of relatability in this high-stakes futuristic environment.

Now, here is where I do have a bit of a gripe. While this book’s strengths lie in its choices, its weaknesses lie in the utilization of them. Liu meticulously carved themselves a literary tool belt of pure narrative gold, but sometimes used a chisel when a mallet would’ve covered more ground. It wasn’t that they used a less effective tool, as all their tools were highly effective and well-prepped, but that they just struggled to know which tool to use at what time in order to optimize their craft.

Because when I explain these different POVs, you would likely think that Horatio’s POV–as the sentient setting of the story and famously being titled The Storyteller of Hamlet, therefore being in the best position to be narrator both in terms of the retelling and in terms of the story at hand–would dominate the text, with Hayden and Felicia’s POVs to flesh the narrative out when necessary. Because one of the characters is literally a sentient security system who can read the mind and feelings of one of your other characters, so why would you not try to get as much mileage out of that as physically possible? Plus, since there are parts of the building Horatio couldn’t see into, it would make those moments outside of his POV feel all the more impactful. But that is tragically not the case.

In fact, this book doesn’t even have equal balance of the three narrators. I’d actually estimate that about 2/3 of the book is from Felicia’s POV, gaining frequency as the story goes on. Which is SO infuriating. Because though she is a great character, I unfortunately became sick of her, especially with her textual format being the least interesting conceptually of the three. Not that her POV is bad by any means, but it is set up to be–as I said–a great grounding element, something to bring us readers back down to earth. But her reflective tone, her distance from the core conflict, and her lack of a relationship to surveillance, inherently makes her less useful as a dominating narration. Being in her POV limits our access to the absolutely scrumptious elements at play, so I didn’t understand why she is our primary voice. I found myself groaning when I saw her name at the top of chapters, starving for an insight into Hayden’s ever-shifting mood or begging for a crumb of the delicious nectar of Horatio’s POV (again, GAY SENTIENT SECURITY SYSTEM OCCUPYING ANOTHER CHARACTER’S MIND). This didn’t ruin the story for me by any means, but as I think back on this book, this grumbling of frustration sits deep in my stomach, and I think it is the book’s biggest failure.

This issue also comes into play with the use of the setting. Again, absolute raw genius on Liu’s part in dreaming this up. What better playground for Hamlet to take place in than a scientific lab focused on the manipulation of life and death, a lab built by a dead man, a treasure trove of secrets and power. And then of course, putting that space into lockdown, creating an urgency and constraint to the story. I will say, I feel like this book uses the claustrophobic elements of this setting to its benefit, but not so much the secretive elements. There are a few rooms that had been previously unknown to the characters left among these halls (including Horatio) until the start of the book, but those rooms are explored fairly early on and everything is divulged to the audience quite quickly. I think there were a few different ways these elements could have been elevated. Some of the events that take place in these rooms could have been held from the audience until the end, or the rooms could have been used more like escape room obstacles with the characters needing to find information to get inside, and one could have been really hard to get into until the very end of the book. It was just such a delicious and well-crafted environment that it felt almost wasteful to use it as this story did.

I also felt like at some point, we lose the thread of Hayden’s dad, Graham. With his death being the inciting incident of the story and his looming presence functioning as a driving force for so much of the book, it was odd to have his influence peter off at the end. There are a couple of moments where he “haunts” the characters towards the beginning, and I would have loved some return of this somehow at the end of the story. I do think there is some meaningful strength to be found in a growing absence, but with the entire book taking place in a building made of his dreams, secrets, and fears, I wished for just one more narrative punch from him (beyond the grave), even thematically, to carry out the end of the book.

The last thing I’ll mention about this struggle of tool usage is in relation to the frame of the story. Again, a REALLY cool idea. I loved the idea of this being a work written by an external party, cataloguing bits of information. There are scattered footnotes that add an extra textural layer of sci-fi world-building, and I would have liked some more context at the end of the story to help tie this all together, giving us some understanding of the impact of these events on the world and the scientific community. So much is teased through these footnotes without actually adding anything.

Lastly, I feel mixed about the ending. I won’t spoil anything, of course, and I’m running out of space here so I’ll keep it short. I like the commentary it left the story with. It thematically holds the right notes and is narratively satisfying, but I felt like there is more it could do in conversation with the source text. There are some stunning parallels I anticipated that never end up playing out, and maybe that’s just me being set up for disappointment by my own imagination, but it did partially let me down in that way. That aside, I found it to be an unexpected and interesting ending, one with a lot of loss but also a lot of hope, and it works really well for the narrative at hand.

Overall, despite my gripe and its manifestations, I actually really recommend this book. I don’t rate books often, but this would likely sit near a 4-star for me. At the end of the day, it is a great read, a riveting and unique Hamlet retelling, a profound story about self-actualization and mental health, and I could not put it down. And I’ll say it again: despite them not necessarily always being utilized to the greatest benefit, every single choice made was nothing short of PURE. FUCKING. GENIUS.

Anyway, if you made it all the way through this review, comment what star sign you think Hamlet would be, because he was a Scorpio in this. I say Sagittarius, Aries, or Aquarius.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Members of The Library of Arden get early access to my full-length reviews!

CW: blood and gore, death, death of father, dead body, suicidal ideation, suicide (mention), anxiety/panic attacks, needles, medical content, self-harm (CW on-page), gun violence

[K.J. Charles]

Very disappointed I didn't like this one because I absolutely adored If Found, Return to Hell. I had something of the feeling about this I did about This is How You Lose the Time War: I just couldn't connect to it emotionally for whatever reason, and I felt too distannced for it to work.

This may be related to the fact that I *cough* don't like Hamlet. I went to see the highly lauded, expensively ticketed version with Benedict Cumberbatch and slept through the whole thing. I've seen it with Samuel West and been unmoved, and I would listen to him read the phone book. The only Hamlet I have ever enjoyed was the Mark Rylance one where they played it as the Jacobean revenge tragedy it actually is, leaning into the gore and melodrama and making Hamlet a ludicrous figure (yes, Hamlet played for laughs). So there you go, I'm just a philistine.

[jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Do you want to live because you want to live or because you're afraid to die?"

nearly chopped my finger off cutting a carrot because of this call-out


can you believe me and chrysa finally read a good book ❤️

this had everything: death, intrigue, mad scientists on a quest for immortality, shakespeare, and most importantly: AI fucking ❤️

everyone giving this a bad rating: you have no taste ❤️


read as part of 202-Queer 🌈✨

[L (Nineteen Adze) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that I would end up with a lot more to say about this one, but I've landed on this being a cool experiment with some mixed successes.

It's billed as "Hamlet, but make it a locked-room murder mystery," and I think that's partly true. To me, "mystery" implies some doubt about the killer, and that's not present if you've read/ seen the original Hamlet. The author does some interesting things with these characters, remixing their actions and internal lives to suit the near-future setting of a Danish science lab in the 2040s, while mostly staying with the play's arc. I like the intent, but I'm not sure all the pieces mesh well with each other.

The structure is particularly odd. This book is supposed to be a graduate student's account of the deadly night in question, pieced together from recordings and a memoir, and there are plenty of footnotes with this narrator breaking in to clarify the exact origin of some sections (or even writing speculative pieces that may not have happened in order to fill non-recorded gaps). It could be interesting if this student was sort of a Fortinbras figure picking up the pieces or finding a personal connection to the tragedy, but that never materializes, so the frame-construct feels like more of a distraction than an asset.

There are a few scenes that might land better as twists if you haven't read the original play, like who's behind the killer's actions-- just having a grasp of the major characters and basic plot makes that obvious long before it's revealed to the characters. On the other hand, I think that a lot of the fun of the book comes from watching the play's story re-imaged into a new shape that reflects the era, setting, and science... so I'm not sure how some of that would land with a reader who doesn't know the Hamlet story arc. I'd love to see side-by-side reviews from people who know every little nuance of the play and people who don't know anything past a quick "to be or not to be."

I like the strong mental health angle exploring Hayden/ Hamlet's anxiety, panic attacks, and preoccupation with death, but my attention was drifting in the back half of this story. Fundamentally, I love Shakespeare for the banter and soliloquies, but these characters spend a lot of time alone in their own heads while body language is described in abundant detail. I can see the impulse (who wants their dialogue-prose stacked up next to Shakespeare's?), but it results in some choppiness and a few places where I had no idea what was going on with people's motives even after several pages mostly spent reflecting on those motives.

The reimagined characters are also a mixed bag. Hayden is a compelling Hamlet figure: he's full of doubt and fury, indecision and murderous intent, in a way that matches the setting. I absolutely buy him as a washed-out university student who's brilliant but has no perspective. The decision to make Horatio a body-less AI works in some ways-- the way he can observe and tinker around the edges without stopping people from acting in deadly ways is a cool way to reinforce his helplessness. The quasi-romance with Hayden is interesting at times (though I'm not sure that the odd sensation-as-sex-scene sequences added much to the story). A tangled AI-and-human romance could be interesting as the subject of its own book, but it feels like a distraction in this one.

Felicia, our Ophelia, gives me the most mixed feelings. One on hand, she's a fierce and memorable figure, doing more to drive the plot and steer her own fate than Ophelia was given room to do. On the other, her fiery, confrontational style gives her something of a generic girlboss demeanor-- she feels like an interesting character who belongs to another story. The other characters, including Hayden's memories of his father, are interesting but not memorable. By far the strongest element of the story was the running motif around death and decay, particularly the way Hayden fears endings and is chasing immortality.

Overall, though, it's an interesting read, and I'd like to see more from the author-- I'll try If Found, Return to Hell whenever my library's copies finally arrive.

Content warnings: severe; there's some gore here, including murder and handling of fresh corpses. There's also one too-vivid (for me) scene of self-harm as part of a scientific demonstration and other less overt traces of self-harm as a coping mechanism. Possibly something else I'm forgetting a few weeks later, but that's the standout.

//
A bizarre and interesting read. I'll have to ponder my rating, but maybe about 3.5 stars. The bones of the story are great-- I'm always glad to see a Shakespeare retelling that's not Romeo & Juliet, and the tangle of loyalties in the lab is great. Unfortunately, I think the story sags after the early chapters and spends too much time with the characters locked in their own heads. It's hard to figure out how to balance some great scenes with background dissatisfaction. RTC.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was ambitious and voice driven in a way that was really impressive for a debut! It felt like the individual pieces may have been stronger than the whole, but overall, a very fun take on a sci fi thriller with plenty of Hamlet easter eggs

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended for anyone who had both a Hamlet and Hannibal phase in high school.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5, rounded up to 2 stars. *world's longest sigh* This is, once again, one of those books that I would really love to have liked more, but I just couldn't. The premise of The Death I Gave Him -- Hamlet retold as a "queer sci-fi locked-room mystery" -- sounds so tantalizing, but unfortunately, the more I read, the clearer it became that many of these concepts either simply didn't work or weren't very well-executed.

First of all, I'm not really sure Hamlet works as a mystery, doubly so from Hamlet's (Hayden's) point of view. There was no sense of mystery whatsoever -- even if you hadn't read Hamlet, one of the most famous stories in the world, before, I mean ... Hamlet's dad literally appears to him and tells him who killed him. I'm not going to mark that as a spoiler because, well, come on, it's Hamlet. So that killed one of the major selling points, right off the bat. Also, the locked-room aspect felt a bit forced to me. I'm not really sure why neither Hayden nor Felicia, upon managing to get a connection to the outside world, didn't tell the other person to call the fucking police. In fact, a lot of the plot felt forced to me, which was, if not caused by, then certainly not helped by the fact that the plot itself is borrowed. The characters also felt woefully underdeveloped to me (a feat considering the characters, too, were borrowed, and should have come with ready-made characterizations), which only added to the contrivance of it all. The motivations and actions of the characters didn't make any sense to me; quite honestly, it felt like the author was making up reasons to have the characters act out scenes that mirror the original Hamlet. And none of this was helped by writing that I found edging onto purple prose and tended to take away the characters' agency: Hayden doesn't grit his teeth, "his teeth click." Hayden doesn't reach for the table, "his hand moves toward the table." The characters aren't agents of their own actions, they are pulled about by their own hands and shoulders and feet -- and the author.

Also: I'm really not sure if I would call this book that "queer." Clearly the blurb is referring to the relationship between Hayden and the AI named "Horatio," but this relationship is barely developed, IMO, and a much larger part of the narrative focuses on the relationship between Hayden and Felicia. Just an FYI for anyone who might have been expecting more.

Overall, an interesting premise that was, in hindsight, perhaps doomed to fail (re: the contradictory nature of attempting to spin Hamlet as a mystery), and was unfortunately not buoyed by much else.

[Grace Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Hamlet as you've never seen it before: a queer, locked lab sci-fi thriller with all the complicated, Shakespearean family dynamics you'd expect, along with impeccable science, sink-your-teeth-in prose, and an incisive examination of mortality and personhood. An absolute triumph.

[Greekchoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounding up to 4!

This book wasn't perfect, but it was so weird and passionate that I think I have to give it its laurels.

The Death I Gave Him is a sci-fi locked-room murder mystery inspired by Hamlet. The book opens on Hayden (read: Hamlet) just discovering the body of his father, brutally murdered within the laboratory where a small team of researchers have been working to create the mysterious Sisyphus Formula (among other transgressive tech). From there, we follow the lab crew's efforts to find the killer overnight as things violently spiral out of control. The story is written as a compilation of notes and files put together in the far future - our unnamed narrator adds their own footnotes and opinions, and I really liked this additional worldbuilding as a framing device.

I don't know much about Hamlet, but I think this story stands perfectly on its well - it's better described as a reimagining that takes thematic inspiration from the source material. The culprit is fairly obvious, but that's not why we're here; the plot reads less like a murder mystery and more like placing the main characters in a very small box and shaking it to see who cracks first. The story constantly feels like it's about to go off the rails, and it's a testament to Em X. Liu's writing that it never flies away completely.

Hayden/Hamlet is a deeply depressed man trying to live up to his father's expectations, and he has been shot by the Pathetic Little Meow Meow ray. Like oh my god. The page BLEEDS with yearning and reverence no matter whose perspective we're reading from. You know how when someone is writing fanfiction for a character they love, and there's like, paragraphs about the details of their hands and chapped lips and veins and the way their hair falls over their eyes just so? This book felt like that - your mileage may vary, but I think the sheer level of earnestness and strength of prose won me over.

Felicia is also great. A woman with so much ruthlessness in her, but who doesn't know where or how to channel it. Even from her own point of view, she's a bit inscrutable, but she works as an icy foil to Hayden's impulsiveness.

Horatio...look, I'm all on board with reworking this character as a sentient AI inhabiting the lab. I wish he had been given a bit more to do than be infatuated with Hayden. I'm also not trying to take away from the queerness of these characters (and this book at large), but I wish the relationship here was more developed - the erotic nature of AI makes less of an impact when we are repeatedly told that the AI has sentience and personhood, but aren't shown that in practice. The romance here is flattened and largely one-sided, and I wish that an explicitly queer take on the relationship between Hamlet and Horatio would have given Horatio the same dimension that was given to Felicia.

Most of the book consists of interactions between these three characters, in addition to Hayden's uncle and a few other members of the lab. It could have been a bit shorter to cut down on some of the repetitiveness of the conversations and actions, but Liu does a good job of keeping the tension high.

This book isn't going to be for everyone, but I loved the weirdness of it. Would definitely recommend to anyone interested in the premise, and to people who have been wanting something new, complex, and surprisingly sexual (!)

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow!

This book was everything you would expect from queer SF retelling of Hamlet and then so much more.
Reading it is a truly haunting experience. The very structure of the narrative made it feel both distanced from the events (thus, attempting impartiality and objectivity) and at the same time as a reader I was aware what I was reading was fiction.
It's a locked room thriller but the reader is also very much locked inside Hayden's mind for most of the story. And it is a dark place - painfully lonely, full of need to belong, to be loved, cared for. And then we have Horatio and he is everything.

This is not a very coherent review, I am afraid but in my defense, it's a difficult book to review.
It's masterfully executed, brilliant and haunting!

CW: It's a close retelling, so all CW for Hamlet apply here. What stood out in particular to me was how the suicide ideation was presented - it felt excruciatingly real to me.

[X · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book better be massive because it’s got it all - action, drama, intrigue, secret labs, ~themes~, just the right amount of Shakespeare and no more, a kickass complex female character who is taking control of her own narrative, and to top it all off, the Hamlet character is so hot and damaged he’s even got an AI out here thinking about “the hollows of his throat, his sinews and tendons a straight line down to the barest edge of clavicle” even when there’s a killer on the loose! A story that has everything it needs, honestly.

I set this book down for almost a month when I was a third of the way in because I knew I wanted to wait for the right mood to read it, and not only did I not forget a single plot or character detail in that entire time, but I was constantly thinking about what might happen next, what could happen next. That’s catchy writing!

This book is also excellent sci-fi - not just because of the futuristic setting but also because it really *engages* with the tech. There’s a particular instance where near-instantaneous communication technology (sometimes referred to as… texting lol) is used to introduce a tragic misunderstanding into the narrative - in other words, using technology to create problems, not just to solve them. So basic and yet so clever! Not to mention the way Hamlet’s dad’s ghost is summoned - or Horatio himself, my personal favorite character!

What I didn’t like - look, I found the female characters to be a bit girlboss-y for my taste (although tbf never in a way that’s inconsistent with the source material). For me, Felicia was not as interesting as I think she was to the author (and I’m sure will be to most readers) - but then I also faintly remember being bored by Ophelia when I read Hamlet back in ye olde Honors Brit Lit - even then I was much more hyped about Hamlet and Horatio, plus ça change etc. - so I think it’s probably a me thing rather than a book thing. I also kept waiting for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to show up and they never did… although I was waiting with a kind of “when is this author going to kill the mood by throwing in two dudes who take up a bunch of time and do nothing” vibe so I’m glad that I waited in vain haha.

All of this to say, I think people will LOVE this book - given the found footage format it’s also the kind of book that screams out for a film adaption fwiw - and I looking forward to reading more from this author in the future!

[ivanareadsalot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to thank NetGalley and Rebellion, Solaris for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

The Death I Gave Him was a very entertaining, fast paced thriller, featuring an endearing AI, melodrama for days and vibrant characters you'll love to hate... well, at least for me. I'm looking at you, Felicia 😒 There's no actual mystery here, but it's bloody and interesting and I think fans of Hamlet (and Hamlet retellings lol) will find this book a diverting read✌🏼

Em X. Liu's other book, If Found, Return to Hell, sounds like massive fun, and I can't wait to read it as well as everything else this brilliant author has in store for future releases!

[Samantha (ladybug.books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Death I Gave Him is a weird book. A SciFi, locked-room mystery reimagining of Hamlet, the story is bizarre, tense, and incredibly intriguing. Though I enjoyed the story I am not sure that it lived up to its potential (or honestly its marketing).

I need to preface this review by saying that I read this via audiobook which hindered my enjoyment a bit. The thought spirals and complex character motivations would have been more impactful if I had read it physically. I also was not a fan of the narrator unfortunately and just generally think the audiobook could've been done better.

The Death I Gave Him is told retrospectively through a series of transcripts, data logs, interviews, and testimonies. Footnotes from a graduate student are interspersed throughout the book giving the reader a peek into the future impact of the events at Elsinore Labs. This unique structure compliments the bizarre and chaotic nature of the plot.

Though there is a murder mystery plot it contributes little to the overall tension of the story because the killer is obvious from very early on. Instead, the plot is driven almost entirely by the frantic actions of its characters as they scramble to protect the key to immortality and react to a murder. These characters all cracked long before the doors to Elsinore Labs sealed shut and, in this paranoid isolation of the lockdown, they are moments away from shattering. Both afraid for and afraid of these characters, I could not look away from the story.

Hayden (Hamlet) is a depressed, paranoid, PATHETIC man who is petrified by the thought of his death. Set on an impossible mission of revenge by his murdered father, Hayden rapidly spirals toward madness. Though he is the main character he is portrayed less as a character and more as an object of obsession. I have mixed feelings on this approach. I wanted more of his perspective but it was interesting to explore how other characters perceive him. He is infuriating and irrational but also passionate and brilliant. He is truly a fascinating character to read about.

Felicia (Ophelia) is a powerful contrast to Hayden’s indecisiveness. Her perspective is overwhelmed by the icy rage that she feels towards everyone in the story, including herself. She is decisive and quick to action though she doesn't always know how to control or direct her feelings. The retrospective format of her chapters highlights the conflicting feelings of love and hate that she has for Hayden.

This book’s weakness is also the reason I picked it up. And that is Horatio. If you are going to have a sentient AI major character then commit to it. There are moments between Horatio and Hayden that I was intrigued by but they feel completely disconnected from the story because Horatio is not a fully developed concept. He doesn't do anything other than pine after Hayden. He is a fully sentient AI that has almost total control of a state-of-the-art lab that is attempting to cure death. And this book did NOTHING with that. His relationship with Hayden is also basically fully developed before the start of the book so the reader doesn't get any sense of the connection between them. This leaves some of the more emotional moments, especially the ending, feeling hollow. It is especially disappointing that I was underwhelmed by this aspect of the book because I feel like it was a major part of the marketing. Yes, this book is weird, but it needed to be weirder.

The Death I Gave Him is a stressful, spiral of a book with fascinating characters. Unfortunately, it didn’t do enough with some of its most intriguing concepts. If it had gone just a bit further this honestly could have been one of my favorite books of all time.

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This queer, modern retelling of Hamlet is set in a scientific lab and contained mostly within a tense 12 hours. Hayden Lichfield finds his father's cooling body in Elsinore labs within the first few pages; he immediately calls on the sentient AI system, Horatio, who controls the security cameras and many other aspects of the building. Horatio reports a 1.5 hour gap in the video logs. Hayden and his father, Dr Lichfield, were working on formula to reverse death. Hayden's immediate assumption is that the killer was after his father's research. The lab goes into lockdown and Hayden is trapped inside with his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, Hayden's ex and research intern Felicia Xia, and her father Paul Xia, head of security. Unless they find an intruder, one of them is the murderer. I enjoyed how deftly this novel kept me guessing even when following a plot I know well. I was genuinely unsure how many, or who, of the people trapped in Elsinore would survive the night. I was also into the unashamed queerness of an AI in love with a human, and the ways in which that love could and could not be reciprocated.

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[zara]

dnf @ 38%

what's worse than a bad book is a boring book that gives you nothing but headaches

[max theodore · Rating 3 out of 5]

mixed feelings on this one. i really really wanted to love it, but it's left me somewhat flat despite a promising start. just gonna do bullet-points here because we all know i am autistic about hamlet in a raving madman way:

HIGH POINTS
- the concepts. AI HORATIO!!! ai horatio who is mindlinked to hamlet (hayden), no less! mindlinked in a way that is lovecraftianly overwhelming for hayden sometimes because horatio is the consciousness of the entire elsinore laboratory! on that note, the fact that horatio--an outsider in the original play--is, in this book, both hayden's only real ally and the very structure he's trapped inside is fucking CRAZY. also, the adaptations of the various plot beats to the futuristic high-tech setting were very cool (i'm particularly into the voice emulator version of the play scene and the particular circumstances under which hayden speaks to his father :3 )

- THIS is a hamlet with ocd. THIS is a hamlet who is horrified and terrified by the very fact of being in his body, constantly aware of his mortality and how breakable that body is, all the more so because he's made it his job to understand anatomy and cell death and how to take the organic apart. he is obsessed with his body in a bad way and he is terrified of his own pulse and it's awesome. also, he has a fringe. really good.

Hayden Lichfield was afraid of death, because he was afraid of failure, and he spent his whole life trying to reverse it.

- AI SEX ‼️‼️‼️ i cannot believe how many people in these reviews are hating on the AI sex. i truly think people are just seeing AI and thinking of chatgpt (which, don't get me wrong, i also hate) and all their sense is leaving them at once. "oooooo AI isn't queer AI is just bad" it is a spectacularly bad-faith reading of this book to suggest that horatio is the type of AI that is comparable to chatgpt and not, like, NOT-CURRENTLY-REAL VERY-ADVANCED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THE WAY SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS HAVE BEEN WRITING ABOUT FOR DECADES. also shut UP about queerbaiting this is a book by a nonbinary person with a bisexual protag and he gets FUCKED by that AI and it IS queer because it's bisexual and what else would you call that? cishet? "he's just running around with his ex-girlfriend" SOMETIMES BISEXUAL PEOPLE HAVE M/F RELATIONSHIPS. anyway the ai sex scenes are the best part of this book on a sci-fi level and a hotness level and a character dynamics level and if you're not a freak take your ass back to literary fiction

- really compelling, promising character dynamics, particularly:
1. a claudius (charles) who seems to genuinely care about hamlet. i LOVE a setup where there was genuine familial love between the two of them, where claudius is not the worst guy in the world, and there are a number of moments in the first half of this in particular where charles' love for hayden is clearly horrible for them both under the circumstances of charles having murdered his father. made me want to bark like a dog
2. a claudius, also, who does everything he does for the love of gertrude (helen), not for his own aims or profits. hayden literally tells charles to his face that charles wouldn't do something this blatant/stupid for himself which means he's being stupid because that's how much he cares about helen lichfield. now THAT is the fucking gertrude/claudius dynamic i want to see!!! so conjunctive to my life and soul!!! unfortunately this is also going to be a drawback in a moment but we'll get there
3. the choice to functionally double-cast ophelia and laertes is nuts and i love it

- REALLY neat framing device (i love the choice to have the framing set even further in the future than the already-future setting of the bulk of the novel)

DRAWBACKS
unfortunately, most of the drawbacks here are high points ^ that never paid off, because the first third of this book sets up a lot of really compelling adaptational, character, and plot stuff, and then... sort of drops most of it in a fumble.

- the framing device: i get what i think liu is going for with the idea of Living Forever in narratives (horatio, tell my story, etc etc), but then it just... never comes back? not even an endcap, just a final footnote? i love footnotes and framing devices and weird formatting stuff, but not if it's just going to fizzle out. (this review, with which i agree on everything but the AI sex, suggests that it might have come back as a great Fortinbras analogue, which is such a missed opportunity that it STINGS.)

- similarly, the character dynamics are all set up and then become increasingly muddled. other reviews + my friends have mentioned becoming confused after the midpoint as to what the fuck anybody's plans and motivations are, and i agree; like, there's a part where felicia yells at hayden for not sticking to The Plan and i found myself thinking, girl, what plan? i wasn't told about the plan? and, in general, all those promising dynamics dead-ended. i wouldn't go so far as to say this is exactly like fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off--liu has definitely done the world work, not just ripped hamlet from copyright--but it gave me a similar feeling, in that there seemed to be authorial expectation that the people who pick up Sci-Fi AI Hamlet would... already take the characters from hamlet for granted, would already be invested without liu having to do a lot with the dynamics.

now, granted, obviously this isn't a WRONG assumption; clearly i am at least slightly invested in the play hamlet. [pause for laugh track.] but i never connected to these characters outside of the context of their counterparts. the relationship between hayden and charles achieved some derangement from me because i think a lot about hamlet and claudius, but not for hayden and charles, because i kept expecting to see more of their relationship teased out on the page, and it never happened. felicia being both ophelia and laertes is a fascinating concept, and done well in some places, but in others her character seems to be based on whatever the plot needs her to contort into, because We All Know The Characters From Hamlet. i also find it deeply disappointing that helen shows up, like, one time on-page. especially when she is the puppetmaster behind the scenes of it all, however inadvertently??? Show Her To Me. Give Me More Than Shallow References To The Most Famous Play In English Literature

- i think i get what liu is going for with the ending, too; there's a strong Do Not Kill Yourself; Things Will Improve bent to this book that i do have to respect, because i also often find myself wanting an ending for hamlet that doesn't feel like a confirmation of all of my worst mentally ill pieces. nevertheless. letting hayden not only live but continue to be friends with felicia, of all things, after all of that--letting the two of them return to basically normal civilian life (yes, hayden is on house arrest, but i don't get the sense he had a life outside work before this all anyway)--feels deeply like a pulled punch. the stakes of this book are murder-high. the first page has a dead guy on it. jerking the wheel and veering away from everyone dying, right before the last inning, works if your hamlet retelling is set in, like, high school, but it's not within the preestablished overton window of the stakes of this book. god, see, now i'm mixing metaphors. all the same, i love the twist on hamlet begging horatio not to die. and hayden's jail-hobby terrible crochet. i love that too

- finally. and this may be the most controversial thing here. the prose. i'm sorry, guys, it's not good. i mean, it's not awful. there are some lines in here that got me. but i can't agree with all the reviews and blurbs calling this lyrical and precise, when what it is is overwritten. the reason i noticed it is because i tend to do the same thing in my writing--over-describing every twitch in every character's body language, using three adjectives where one or two will do. it's tempting! it works a few times in this book, actually, especially in horatio's point of view, because everyone here is obsessed with the minute details of the human body. but it is, ultimately, clunky:

The mirrored calmness in Hayden shatters quietly. His throat is dry; pain rakes it as he swallows. He moves his lips wordlessly, groping for his wrist, digging his fingernails under the plastic edge of the cuff. Horatio feels it, the squeeze and shudder of his heart, but Hayden scrapes and scratches at himself with a desperate edge, tearing the skin with a ragged rip. It takes him too long to switch to his other wrist, and even then, the tension pulling his shoulders taut doesn't ease.

this paragraph could be, genuinely, half the length. half these phrases are repetitions of the immediately prior phrase. we don't NEED this; it muddies the lines that ARE good and paradoxically makes it harder to picture the characters' movements. i'm pretty sure this is just debut-novel blues; i don't mean to come down crazy hard on liu here; at some point it just started driving me crazy that i was always wading through tangles like this when it's clear liu can write actual lyrical precision. eg, the following, which be warned is describing hayden's scientific self-harm:

Hayden made a long cut straight down. He followed a tendon. His skin split like a melon rind, pulpy and fresh. I flinched hard, but that only pulled at the cut, exposing a hint of beige tendon amidst slick pink flesh.

now THERE is language to make your skin crawl, because it paints the picture all too clearly. if they'd let me at this book with a red pen it would've been shorter. granted, i guess people have probably also said this about the play hamlet. ah, well.

IN SUM
despite how grumpy i am all the time, i did have real fun reading this! if the prose were better, i would have liked it even more! as it is, it's largely fallen flat for me, but it got me thinking about adaptation (and you know i love a shakespearean sci-fi), and i'll definitely be keeping an eye on what liu puts out in the future! sorry for being old man yells at cloud, except i am not sorry, and will continue. 2.5 stars, rounded up to counterbalance the people being stupid about AI and bisexuality in these reviews.

[Maryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between 3.5 and 4. I need to sit on this one for a while.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Rating: —> 3 Stars

Welp. I know some will hate this, some will love it, and some will be indifferent (last one is me lol). This was WEIRD AF. And it’s just so hard to rate? I’m going neutral here.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those rare books that is exactly what the cover copy promises: “A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller.” The Death I Gave Him lives up to this hype, and I can easily see how some people would adore this book. I loved Em X. Liu’s obvious love for Shakespeare, and as far as Shakespearean retellings go, this one is pretty good. As far as thrillers go—well, we all know I’m not the biggest fan of thrillers to begin with. As far as murder mysteries go—well, it’s not much of a mystery, now is it? Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Solaris for the eARC.

Look, I won’t summarize Hamlet for you. Elsinore is a lab rather than a castle; Hayden and his murdered dad are scientists working on life-prolonging serums; Felicia (Ophelia) is an intern, and her dad, Paul (Polonius) is the head of Elsinore’s security. Liu casts Horatio as the lab’s disembodied artificial intelligence. The book opens on Horatio “regaining consciousness” and seeing Hayden next to his father’s body. From there, things quickly spiral out of control. It’s tense; it’s queer; it’s hot and heavy at points (not my thing).

I’m mostly interested in looking at this book and how it represents an evolution of Shakespeare. What I mean by this is that Shakespeare has been reinterpreted from the moment his plays started to be performed. Each era, each society, projects its own ideas on to Shakespeare’s stories and reifies them in different ways. Liu has taken Hamlet and reimagined it as a locked-room murder mystery set in the 2050s—yet it is still definitely Shakespeare. However, I also really like how Liu took liberties with the characters and plot—this is more reimagining than retelling, and that is for the better.

If Shakespeare were alive today, I have no doubt he would write science fiction (and also historical fiction, and let’s face it, he would probably make his living writing erotica or porn or something). The inclusion of an AI main character—Horatio, no less—and the subplot around developing a life-prolonging serum both feel true to ideas that show up time and again Shakespeare’s work. So much of what he talks about, in Hamlet but also in The Tempest and other plays, comes down to ruminating on how well we can really know others (or even ourselves). Horatio and Hayden’s relationship here, the use of a neural-mapping interface to allow them to communicate with each other and know each other far more intimately than would otherwise be possible, is an intriguing reading of Horatio and Hayden’s relationship in the original play. That Horatio is an AI and thus an “other” speaks to the ambivalence with which the play treats Horatio, the way that he always seems to be present yet seldom gets much acknowledgement from everyone else.

I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but let’s just say that I think what happens with Horatio and Hayden in the end is a great change to the original story. The same goes for the fates of Felicia and even the way that Liu characterizes Hayden’s mother—I feel like Liu spent a lot of time thinking about the role of women in the original play. Felicia certainly receives much more depth and time than Ophelia does, and her fate is likewise both more hopeful and more palatable. She is arguably as much of a protagonist in this book as Hayden is, and the story is better for it.

The “lyrical” nature of the book is where The Death I Gave Him loses me. While I really liked Liu’s plot and character choices, I didn’t like their writing style as much. Both the description and the dialogue would occasionally grate on me, and the conceit that the book is a manuscript by a researcher looking back on the entire incident felt unnecessary. There’s a lot of layers here that I’m not sure the story needed.

The Death I Gave Him is creative and original (despite being based on Hamlet). It didn’t land all the way for me, but it came close enough that I know there’s an audience out there just waiting to fall in love with this tragedy. I can’t wait for that audience to find it, for I would like to see more of what Liu has to offer in the future.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m always always down for queer Shakespeare retellings and man does Liu deliver. Structurally creative, with raw, vicious prose and an absolute mess of a main character, The Death I Gave Him makes for a phenomenal debut novel.

The Death I Gave Him is written in one of the more creative and fun approaches I’ve seen in recent SFF. The overarching story is told from a history student’s Master’s thesis, put together from memoir excerpts, court documents, security camera footage, and the (embellished) neuro-communications between our main character Hayden and his AI-assistant/friend Horatio. In delightfully true academic writing fashion, there are footnotes galore throughout the book, offering this unnamed history grad student’s own thoughts and commentary, as well as worldbuilding tidbits and ‘historical’ facts throughout.

I will shamefully admit that I have little familiarity with the actual story of Hamlet, so there was certainly a layer of storytelling I missed. From a quick browse of Goodreads reviews, readers familiar with the original would know exactly ‘who did it’ in this locked room mystery from the moment the characters get introduced. For me, with only Hayden as an exceedingly unreliable narrator, I spent an embarrassing amount second guessing what were, in hindsight, the obvious clues. Unlike many retellings, The Death I Gave Him never once hits the pitfall of the story feeling forcibly re-directed, or characters being out untrue to their re-imagined selves, to maintain the scaffold of the original story.

Technically, this book takes place over the course of only fourteen hours, from the moment Horatio first discovers his father Graham Lichfield’s body, to dawn the next day and all the events that transpired over the night. And Liu’s phenomenal prose makes every one of those hours feel so damn tense. Not so shockingly, the stakes of a locked room murder mystery set in an experimental neuro-engineering facility with mad-scientist-esque equipment abound are higher than most.

Truly, the star of this book is the character work, specifically Hayden’s alarmingly-rapid deterioration of reasonable decision-making skills. The way Liu is able to get into Hayden’s head and really pick at what’s making him tick, combined with the exterior POVs of Hayden from Horatio and ex-girlfriend Felicia, make him such a fun trainwreck of a character to follow. An honorable mention goes to Horatio, who’s fascinating codependent relationship with Hayden adds a delightful layer of depth to their interactions. Is it queer if it’s you and your AI companion who’s extremely DTF and concerningly bad at hiding it? Hell yeah.

If I had one nitpick, it would be because of a footnote that mentioned a gradual personality-meld between human and AI the longer a neuro-connection is maintained. This is one of my favorite tropes in SFF, and with the already-established co-dependence these two have with each other, this added level would have been delicious to see. It’s hinted that Hayden and Horatio begin bleeding into each other as the story progresses, but I would have loved to see that explored in more detail.

Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. Raw, biting prose, the epitome of messy queer characters, and incredibly creative storytelling structure. The Death I Gave Him delivers a terse fourteen-hour locked-room mystery with incredible character exploration as we watch Hayden voluntarily climb the ladder down to his own personal hell.
___

5/5

Liu's writing is raw and vicious in its description, as we follow our Hamlet-character Hayden down a self-destructive spiral and the events of a single night ends in the worst way possible

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

On my blog.

Rep: bi mc, achillean mc, Chinese American mc

CWs: self harm, suicidal ideation, gore

Galley provided by publisher

The Death I Gave Him was a good book. It was an engaging book, one that kept me entertained for the time it took me to read it. Beyond that, though? I felt little more than enjoyment of it — which, let’s be clear, is a good thing — and hence a 3-star rating.

This is a Hamlet retelling crossed with a locked room (lab) mystery, framed as a nonfiction book. Hayden, our Hamlet-esque main character, finds his father dead in a lab and, realising it to be murder, elects to investigate on his own. Also at stake are the plans for a formula akin to an immortality potion. On Hayden’s side is Horatio, the lab’s A.I. Trapped in the lab too are his uncle Charles, his ex-girlfriend Felicity, her father Paul, and the lab technician, Rasmussen.

Much of this review will probably be taken up with reasons this didn’t quite work for me as well as it might have, so I would like to take this moment to point you towards my first two sentences. I enjoyed this book! Yes, I would have liked to have enjoyed it more, but I still enjoyed it! I didn’t hate the experience of reading it by any metric.

But if we’re looking at reasons this one didn’t quite do it for me, we might first look at the use of the present tense. I don’t automatically dislike present tense books, but I do feel that, for me, its use is better in contemporary fiction. When it comes to genre fiction, the book has to be really good for me to overlook it. And this book did actually do quite well in making me forget it was in present tense, but I have to say I still wasn’t the biggest fan of it. Of course, YMMV, so take this bit with a pinch of salt.

The second point is that this isn’t really a locked room mystery. It’s blindingly obvious who’s done it and why, even without working knowledge of the play it’s based on. Now, if you don’t come here for a mystery, that’s perfectly okay! I didn’t come here only for that, but I would have liked a bit more put into that aspect of it, if I’m honest. As I said, with any sort of knowledge of Hamlet, you know exactly where it’s going to go still. But. Give me some more tension to it, please!

However, as I said, and will keep stressing, I enjoyed this book. It was an entertaining way to pass a morning, if a little melodramatic at points (but isn’t Hamlet too, anyway?). One I’d recommend on the balance of things.

[Natasha Leighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intricately detailed and thoroughly immersive, Em. X. Liu’s STEM-based (and queer) retelling of Hamlet masterfully explores the themes of grief, love, death and the ethics of technology with a locked door mystery that would keep even Agatha Christie hooked until the very last page.

I have to admit I’m still pretty new to Sci-Fi, but the premise of this (a retelling of Hamlet, set in a lab working on a formula to reverse death) sounded too good not to pick up.

And though the killer was fairly easy to guess (especially for anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s original), Liu has incorporated enough new elements (like making Horatio an AI) to keep us all on the edge of our seats.

I was really impressed with the narrative structure (written in the style of a scientific research paper) and felt it definitely grounded the scientific aspects of the plot, bringing a sense of realism to a concept that wouldn’t be out of place in a Black Mirror episode.

Hayden, our futuristic Hamlet plays his role to perfection. His unhinged cynicism and obsessive drive to perfect the Sisyphus formula (which he hopes will one day reverse death) is achingly heart rending to witness especially after the loss of his father which leads to the deterioration of his mental health.

Felicia in contrast, seems to be the complete opposite of her traditional counterpart and I absolutely loved that. Where Ophelia was naive,childlike and controlled by the men in her life, Felicia is far more self aware and willing to do anything to grasp her own slice of power. Even willing to sacrifice her relationship with Hamlet if it means her dream can come true.

The emotions Liu conveys through both Hayden and Felicia was incredible—their turmoil, grief, anger and guilt was explored in a surprisingly relatable manner that really captured the essence of human nature; it’s unpredictability and the abstract purpose we all attempt to glean from it.

But, I admit it was Horatio and his deep understanding of (and relationship with) Hayden that fascinated me the most. Their budding relationship and protectiveness they have for one another was both moving and rather intriguing (especially in terms of logistics as Horatio, in being an AI doesn’t technically have his own body.)

Overall, a cleverly constructed and original take on both Shakespeare and locked door mysteries that I genuinely couldn’t put down.

Also, a huge thank you to Jess Gofton and Solaris Books for the proof.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a retelling of the best kind. In the vein of Hadestown the story wouldn't work nearly as well if it wasn't moving in the groves of an old, well-known story.

And just like Hadestown, it's a tragedy, you know it's a tragedy from the first page, and yet you spend the whole time in the desperate (?) hope that maybe it will turn out this time.

This is a brilliant book, and Em X. Liu is a brilliant writer. It seems incredible that this is a debut - the writing, the characters, the way this old story felt tense and new, everything was flawless. Between this and "I Found Return to Hell" (my review here), Liu has, for me, firmly been established as one of the most interesting and talented new authors of the last few years.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[urwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 - 4 stars

Do you want to live because you want to live, or because you’re afraid to die?

I love being surprised by books. I love it when I go into a book with preconceived notions whether it be from blurbs or reviews or marketing and then being completely taken aback by how different the story is. Em X. Liu's debut novel The Death I Gave Him is one of those books. It was a lot more darker, angrier, and emotionally charged than I was prepared for.

I definitely see the comparisons to Gideon the Ninth. Spooky labs, mad scientists obsessed with cracking immortality, necromancy and resurrection. How a person's guilt and self-hatred can lead to spiralling to the point of self-destruction. And yet it is something completely unique and on its own. Fans of the former, however, will definitely enjoy this.

The Death I Gave Him is an exploration of mental health, grief and obsession. The writing is some of the emotionally wrought and rawest stuff I have ever read. I was expecting a murder mystery with some queer romance thrown in and packaged as a Hamlet retelling but it was so much more. Liu is a master at writing difficult to like, and difficult to dissect characters. Both Hayden and Felicia contain multitudes and are real fleshed-out characters. Their plights seem real and heartwrenching and it is a hard task distilling them down to "good" or "bad" characters. And I feel like that is the crux of writing a good story. Liu presents Hayden's grief over losing his father as well as his emotional turmoil in the most painful way possible. Hayden's depression and obsession with death and immortality are so interesting to read about because each page and each line reveals so many more layers to what makes him a person and ultimately leads to his tragic actions. Similarly, Felicia and her being torn between what her warring emotions dictate. The plight and conflict of these characters is the very essence of the iconic question "To be or not to be?" To betray their fathers by choosing the path of life and action or to avenge their fathers and commit themselves to the metaphorical or literal death of one's soul. In that, The Death I Gave Him is everything that a retelling should be: Thematically paralleling the original text but also expanding upon it in a unique and more nuanced setting and conflict.

By the time you notice, it’s too late, a precipice inside your own mind that calls to you whenever you feel like you’re not enough, that sings about how much easier the dark is, how nice it might feel to step off.

The structure keeps the reader hooked and makes this book frankly unputdownable. I love the found footage style of narration this had with the footnotes. It really worked to further flesh out the background as well as the consequences of the story. Very unique and original.

In terms of the locked room murder mystery, I wouldn't say there is much shock or actual "mystery" to it. Especially if you know the story of Hamlet. Events leading up to and the conclusion of the murders are pretty much in line with the play. Finding the murderer or the villain isn't the point of the story. It's whether the characters can forgive themselves for all that they've done and learn to live and grow from that. However, what Liu does is use the mystery to develop and push the characters' on their path of existential crisis. The plot pushes Hayden, Felicia and even Horatio to action. To do something about the conflict they are stuck in. So if you go into this expecting to be given a puzzle of whodunit, be warned. This is less a murder mystery and more an exploration of a character's mind and the limits to which it can be pushed in its desire for revenge and meaning. Liu does that exquisitely and this book is a keen study of mental health and suicidal ideation. Though rather than being bleak, the ending is pretty hopeful. It promises light at the end of the tunnel and that there is always a path to healing if you are willing to give life a chance.

The Death I Gave Him comes out 12/09/2023.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.