Harare Review of Books

233 pp. May 6, 2025, Muse of the Moon. SF.

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This is a book about a guy who meets a girl and she’s gorgeous (almost impossibly so, really) and mysterious. And he also has this problem where he’s always kind of felt out of place and has episodes of deja vu and the world just kind of feels glitchy. The central conceit of the novel (which I can’t reveal as that would be a spoiler) is very smart and, in the end, well executed; but you’ll have to press through a really sappy first half of the novel and try not to roll your eyes too much. Don’t worry though, the payoff is really good!

This—the first half anyway—reminded me of the writing of Caleb Azumah Nelson: similar lyricism and equally deeply emotive about love. I was kind of amused, and more than a little exasperated, by the manic pixie dream girl/goddess girl because she really only existed to serve the NC’s romantic dreams. But thank goodness! that whole thing is subverted in the second part of the book, and that makes it all so much more interesting; that 180 is really very cleverly done. Also really impressed by the complete change of tone between the two sections of the book: Hayden is a real talent, and has a gift for creating atmosphere. Also, the best thing about the novel is how Hayden tidies up everything at the end and leaves no threads hanging.

Themes? The ghost in the machine. Artificial persons, and falling in love with a construct (a lot like the current discourse about falling in love with a chatbot but, thankfully, here it’s not an LLM but more like AGI). A super connected future reminiscent of that in E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops (so, quite dystopian). A little bit on the ethics of cloning, although not deeply and only near the end. Death and bereavement, and virtual resurrection. All of this and a wonderfully realised late 1990s Chicago, reflecting Black life and also the early internet, which many of us will be nostalgic for now.

A super read, really well done, and one I’m happy to recommend. Many thanks to the author and NetGalley for DRC access.

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