About the Book
Annie Bot meets Fallout in this dystopian satire: six women created in a lab, designed to serve the billionaires of the future in a luxury fallout shelter, rebel against their programming after the end times arrive.
Welcome to the Felicity Complex! Constructed during the height of the Cold War, our unique hotel is prepared to protect you, the billionaire class, from nuclear annihilation! Shielded from radiation and supplemented with closed air systems and hydroponic gardens, this resort bunker offers a prime existence underground: full gymnasium and spa, gourmet meals, top-tier medical care, and the best in entertainment.
Meet Hallelujah! Grown in a lab and educated in the ways of concierge hospitality, she believes in her duty to comfort the Lord-anointed refugees of the apocalypse. (Even if her lover Anastasia disagrees. Even if her creator Dr. Younghusband is disappointed in her.) Don't worry-everyone is safe from communists in the Felicity Complex!
Look, Hallelujah, guests have finally arrived! Hallelujah and her sister specimens have waited ages for you. Never mind the secrets other rich survivalists may be hiding. Just make sure they don't notice the violent intentions behind our staff's wide, wide smiles...
A sendup of traditional womanhood and lampooning the paranoias of the elite, The Felicity Complex questions the ambitions behind the entitled few who plan for the end times-and who truly survives them.
About the Author :
August Clarke is here and queer, etc. They have been published in PRISM international, Portland Review, and Eidolon. He was a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction and a Locus Award, Dragon Award, and Pushcart nominee. They researched queerness, labor, and monstrosity at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the indie-bestselling series The Scapegracers, which he writes as H. A. Clarke.
Review :
Praise for August Clarke
“The Felicity Complex combines the simmering, righteous anger of Annie Bot with the retro-futurist vibes of Fallout, then throws in a little bit of humor and a dash of body horror for seasoning. This is a very strange book, and I could not put it down. Highly recommended.” —Edward Ashton, bestselling author of Mickey7 (inspiration for the film Mickey 17)
“Ex Machina meets Fallout in The Felicity Complex: this stylishly unsettling scouring of sexism and survival where the humans are grotesque and the monsters are touchingly human. Clarke is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.” —Rebecca Roanhorse, New York Times Bestselling and Hugo Award winning author
“Deeply weird, darkly funny, and always perfectly discomforting: a perfect satire for the current billionaires-and-megachurches-and-praying-for-guillotines era.” —Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of You Weren't Meant to Be Human, on The Felicity Complex
“The Felicity Complex is the perfect book for our moment. Equally hilarious and sinister, Clarke’s novel brilliantly explores billionaire paranoia, tradwife ideals gone awry, and the dangerous intersection between greed and scientific advancement. I had a blast.” —E.K. Sathue, author of youthjuice
“The Felicity Complex is a rollicking, raw rampage through womanhood, agency, identity, and humanity (or lack thereof), in turns archly funny, brutally tender, and excoriating. Clarke asks us to consider what can be created - or bought - and what cannot, and what true survival might look like.” —Kat Dunn, author of Hungerstone
“Whatever you’re expecting, this is weirder. Wet and meaty, bursting to love you and take you on a wild ride. Hallelujah!” —Caitlin Starling, USA Today Bestselling author of The Starving Saints, on The Felicity Complex
“August Clarke is one of the most dynamic and talented authors working today, and with every new book, his star shines ever higher, ever brighter. The Felicity Complex is a delightful and compelling read, where satire and reality tango over the corpse of truth. Body horror and hilarity, autonomy and camp, personhood and vengeance, this novel proves again what all Clarke readers know: when you see August Clarke's name on a book, you know you're in for a damn good time.” —Martin Cahill, USA Today bestselling author of Audition For The Fox
“August Clarke is not afraid to do the weird thing, and the result is a beautiful, grotesque meditation on gender, sexuality, technology, and the body. The Felicity Complex is a masterwork of prose, its rhythm and texture weaving a web both hypnotic and bizarre, til you can't look away. With its low simmer of dread building toward a ferocious conclusion, this tight, engrossing novella cements Clarke's position among the emerging greats of modern science fiction.” —Bethany Jacobs, Philip K. Dick award-winning author of These Burning Stars
“The Felicity Complex is another audacious book from August Clarke with all of the hallmarks I come to expect from his work: it's a beautiful grotesquerie, made all the more real for the distorted reflections it shows us.” —C. L. Clark, author of The Unbroken and The Faithless
“The funniest, darkest, science fiction fable I've read in a long time. There's a very thin line between the utopian and the dystopian, and the vat freaks...uh, ladies of the Felicity Complex tie it into a very pleasant-looking bow, or is it a too-tight tourniquet?” —Nick Mamatas, author of The Second Shooter and Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest
“Clarke creates an ornate, profane world and populates it with unforgettable characters, while the book’s hairpin plot twists keep the reader guessing. Metal From Heaven was the most fun I’ve had in ages — until it utterly wrecked me.” —The Washington Post on Metal from Heaven
“A work of feral and furious imagination. It's pulpy, bloody, sexy, gleefully seditious and seditiously gleeful. It's a battle cry of a book; read it, and rise up.” —Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Reese's Book Club Pick Starling House, on Metal from Heaven
“Clarke deeply engages with themes of labor rights, exploitation, and power within the pulpy, page-turning framework of a gripping revenge story. It’s an impressive juggling act, and Clarke makes it look easy, rounding things out with wonderfully complex science-fantasy worldbuilding and a steamy lesbian love plot for good measure.” —Publishers Weekly, Best SFF of the Year on Metal from Heaven
“The worldbuilding is as intricate as the language, with vying factions and different religious traditions that complicate her quest for vengeance. Clarke’s adult debut, an irreverent queer fantasy novel, will thrill readers and appeal to fans of the “Locked Tomb” series by Tamsyn Muir, while the fusion of technology and magic and clash between industrialists and outlaws is reminiscent of Netflix’s Arcane.” —Library Journal on Metal from Heaven
“An epic poem crossed with an industrial fairy tale, August Clarke’s novel is, to put it simply, stunning.” —NPR, “Books We Love, 2024” on Metal from Heaven
“Rich with lush prose... tackles important issues head on, and hits with a powerful ending that will stay with you long after the book is closed.” —C.S. Pacat, New York Times Bestselling author of Dark Rise on Metal from Heaven
“Clarke's voice is inimitable, shines hot and sharp.” —Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times bestselling co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War on Metal from Heaven
“August Clarke is one of the most electrifying voices in genre fiction today.” —Sarah Gailey, Hugo Award winner and bestselling author of The Echo Wife on Metal from Heaven
“An ambitious, ferocious, sex driven fever dream. Clarke’s prose is ornate, enveloping, radiant.” —Megan Whalen Turner, New York Times Best Selling Author on Metal from Heaven
“Delicious, chaotic, and whip smart, Metal from Heaven will leave you with the burning urge to rise up and revolt against tyranny. What starts as a swashbuckling tale of horny, queer outlaws blooms into a mediation on otherworldly geopolitics and consciousness itself. August Clarke has written a freakishly original novel and I love it.” —Annalee Newitz, author of The Terraformers and Stories Are Weapons on Metal from Heaven
“Hits like a piston, loves like an outlaw, and thinks like China Mieville. Made me want to cry, left me feeling like a giant. I read this book and I must shout.” —Seth Dickinson, author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant on Metal from Heaven
“An essential read for any reader interested in SFF that says f*ck-you to boundaries.” —Strange Horizons on Metal from Heaven
