This was an extremely weird book that I would absolutely have DNFed if I weren’t reading it for a book club. I’ve never taken acid, but this book is what I imagine an acid trip must feel like. Or a fever dream. On the upside, Lindsay is extremely imaginative in his worldbuilding: the flora and fauna are unique from anything I’ve ever read, and I’ve read A LOT of speculative fiction. The decision to name two or three new colours, describe them once by the way they made the protagonist feel, and then just drop them into the book as descriptors is certainly a bold move. On the downside… well, everything else. The book feels like a 0-draft in heavy need of editing. There are long stretches of dialogue with no action or dialogue tags. The protagonist (Maskull) bounces from one motivation to another at the drop of a hat. Things that seem important early on are abandoned and never revisited. The names feel like what would happen if I asked a 6-year-old to name things for me. (As just a few random examples: Joiwind, Spadevil, Sullenbode, Earthrid.) We never really get a sense for any of the characters before we’re whisked away to something else. I was confused for the whole book, and the ending didn’t do anything to resolve my confusion. At least I have a lot of ranting I can do at the book club meeting?