Review: The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann is a space opera story with a dose of cosmic horror. It follows our main character Yasira Shien, an autistic scientist who have managed to create a new energy source that can change the future of humanity. Unfortunately, when she actually activates the the radical energy source, things start to go wrong, and as a result, the space station housing the energy source was destroyed, and hundreds of people were killed.

Yasira is now considered a heretic who have killed hundreds, even if it wasn't intentional. It's not just humans who think so, but the computer gods and their angels as well. But instead of executing her like they do with most heretics, through the angels, one of the gods kidnaps Yasira and offers her a deal, if she is willing to help them hunt another heretic that has also killed hundreds of people, she won't be executed. But the target of the hunt perplexes her, as it is her strange, old mentor who disappeared years prior.

As her ex-mentor—for some inexplicable reason—is now on the way to possibly hurt the people of Yasira's homeworld, she is now faced with an impossible choice of who to trust, between her ex-mentor, who's always been weird but also more brilliant than anyone in the world, or the cruel angels and the even crueler quantum computer gods that they serve.

This book is one of those books where your enjoyment of the story really depends on how much you can connect to the main characters. There are two main characters in this book, the first one is of course, Yasira, the scientist who is trying to uncover the mystery behind the explosion that she caused, and how it's connected to her missing mentor. The second main character is Akavi, who is an inquisitor of Nemesis, the most dangerous god, the god that deals with heretics and heresies. He is the angel who abducted Yasira.

So, their stories are very much connected, but, since the book contains more of Yasira's POV compared to Akavi's, it means that her character feels more fleshed out, and her story feels more impactful. Meanwhile, Akavi feels, for the most part, like a predictable and uninteresting character. In fact, the same can be said about a lot of the non-Yasira characters in this book, from the ex-mentor she's chasing, to her own girlfriend. They all feel less real than Yasira. Fortunately, due to some things that happened near the end of the book, Akavi started to feel more realistic and interesting by the time the book ended.

Even then, not all readers will connect with Yasira. Because she's an autistic character, she sometimes does things that might not make that much sense or feel a bit frustrating to some readers even though within the context of the character and the story, it makes perfect sense. All of this is connected to the fact that the story and the concepts of the book can be a bit difficult to understand, so if you can't connect to the characters, it might be difficult to go through the book...

The cosmic horror elements in this book are done quite well. Sometimes when a book attempts to do cosmic horror, it can feel as though some things become too abstract, and the horror part in cosmic horror is gone, making things confusing for no good reason. That isn't the case in this book. There are still a lot of unknowable things in the story, but they all impact the characters in ways that are knowable and not confusing.

Another thing the book did so well is the romance. Even though one of the characters in the romance is a lot more well-developed than the other, it still works, and sometimes it can even be a bit unexpectedly emotional.

And then there's the worldbuilding itself, which feels somewhat unique, with gods in the form of sentient quantum computers and a hierarchy of post-human angels under them. Then there's the concept of "The Outside" itself, which is the cosmic horror part of the story. The way it's explained is really fascinating and feels very much like if someone combines Lovecraft with elements of the Warhammer 40K universe.

There's also the many themes that the book tackles, starting from just neurodiversity in general, to the nature of truth and lies. Every part of the story feels like it's helping the book to deepen its explorations into those topics, making the book feels very coherent. And this is really necessary, especially for those moments where the actual plot gets a bit complicated, there's something (other than the characters) that readers can hold on to.

Ada Hoffmann's The Outside is an excellent debut novel even though it might not be for every reader. It's a great space opera story with some emphasis on cosmic horror. And even though a lot of the more minor characters can be a bit predictable, the main characters are really interesting (particularly Yasira). You should consider picking up this book if you're looking for a cosmic horror story that's really weird and not too long (it's less than 400 pages) and one that takes place mostly in space. 4/5.