Jordon
Secrets in the Mist has such a cool plot. A man-made mist that was meant to peacefully end a war but instead ended up turning very deadly, has enveloped the world. When anyone enters the mist and breathes in the spores, the spores attack and kill the body, then use the body to attack and kill any living human - these spore riddled bodies are called the ‘Turned’.
This story is set 200 years later, when humankind has learned to live with the mist, by living on mountain ranges and building ‘sky islands’ because the spores cannot survive in high altitudes. This has caused a huge imbalance of class where the very rich elite can afford to live safely on their sky islands, and the poor are stuck at the borders of the mist fighting for resources and space.
Cass is a street rat, years before, her parents hid her when an unexpected purge happened, and they were forced into the mist by the elite soldiers. Leaving Cass to fend for herself and survive on instinct. When Cass is forced to try and steal food from a diver ship, she is caught and, in an unexpected twist, offered a job as a diver. Divers are brave people that glide down into the mist to retrieve items the rich want, having to fight off the Turned.
How cool is this plot? Whenever I read anything about a deadly mist, it reminds me of one of my old favourite PlayStation one games, Legend of Legaia. The pacing was on point in Secrets in the Mist, I couldn't put this book down. Usually I'm not interested in steampunk, so I haven't really read many stories in this genre, but this one wasn't so focused on the steampunk elements, which I think helped.
The main aspects I loved about this book were the fast pacing, the interesting way people glided down into the mist and was able to get back up above the mist (I have no idea if this is possible in real life with ‘thermal wind tunnels’), the zombified Turned, and the terror of it all. It hits differently when the characters only have a limited supply of ammo to kill the turned with, and no close combat weapons, so the best bet is to try and outrun them and glide up off of the ground. I actually felt scared when the Turned showed up.
There were a number of things that I wasn't quite keen on. The main thing was that there were just a few too many holes that didn't make sense. Divers go down into the mist to retrieve items, yet they had no way of securing these items, so they can safely run and fight the Turned? A number of times the characters were caught out because they were using their hands to hold the items and couldn't defend themselves, it just made no sense. If you've going to collect a box, why would you not have a strap, sling or bag-type-of-thing to be able to hold it securely to you hands-free? Surely you would plan for that. But they never did.
In this world, besides the class imbalance, there was also gender imbalance, and it just annoyed me. Even if it made sense for the era. On the ship that Cass joins as a diver, there wasn't a single female crew member. In this society, girls were generally seen as weak and worthless, especially the poor. Even in the higher class, women weren't to be privy to the goings-on of politics. Sure, it makes sense with the era as per real history, and maybe this is normal for steampunk (?), but it just annoyed me.
Sometimes I just think it's a weak plot point for inequality to be a factor in fantasy stories, or maybe I only think this if it isn't done well with a solid history. Maybe I'm wrong to feel so annoyed about it, but whenever there was mention of Cass not being able to do the same things as men, or viewed differently when she wore a skirt, or Theo's sister not being privy to her grandfathers secret because she wasn't a son - it ground my gears.
However, perhaps this is how it is in the steampunk genre, since isn't steampunk a different take on the Victorian era? So perhaps this is another reason I don't like this genre, and this is just something you're to expect when reading it. You could say then that it's a moot point to bring up, and I should've known better, since I knew the genre was steampunk. I still can't help feeling that even if that's so, surely you could still incorporate badass women in the story that don't fit the gender norms of the times. In this particular case, at bare minimum, have female crew on the Daedalus ship that Cass ends up working on. I will credit the author though for not playing on the gender inequality as a major plot point, and it wasn't often that Cass was held back because of her gender (She was hired without a thought from the Daedalus captain and there was no ill-will towards her from the other male crew members because she was a female). I simply had issue with the societal views.
On top of this, the characters lacked other diversity too, hair colour was mentioned a few times, and it was either ‘honey-coloured’, ‘bright red’, ‘golden red’, or ‘strawberry red’ (granted half of these descriptions were for Cass), and those characters were from different cities/locations, how could they all have red hair.
There were quite a few religious elements, which felt… forced? Not sure what the religious elements had to play in the story to be honest. It wasn't a big issue when reading, but weirdly it felt out of place when people would start talking about religion, I'm not sure why it pulled me out of the story every time. Perhaps it was meant to be another divide between rich and poor. [Edit: After reading more about the author, it turns out religion is one of the genres she incorporates into her stories and worlds, so that helps the religious elements make more sense. Religion is just a thing that is there and is not meant to move the plot forward.]
Lastly, the characters. I don't have much to say about them really, they weren't exactly characters that I loved and connected with, and I think that's fine in a plot driven story. Cass had the classic ‘I must do everything on my own and never ask for help’ character arc. Jeremiah felt like he was meant to be the brotherly figure, but you never learned anything about him, he was just there. Theo, the clear love interest who was from an opposite world to the main protagonist, he was very interesting to read actually since he was a scientist. I hope we get more science in the next book.
I just think this book isn't really meant to be that deep, is a bit cliché, and you're meant to enjoy it for what it is and ignore the loopholes. I guess. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing, it's just not a five-star kind of read for me because of it. This reads a bit more like middle grade I think, also not a bad thing.
Wow, so I had a lot of feelings about Secrets in the Mist. On one hand, I really loved it, the main elements being the plot, the story, and the pacing. On the other hand, there were a few things that just really annoyed me and I ended up rolling my eyes a few times. However, it wasn't a bad book and I want to read the next book to see where it goes, but will kind of hope the annoyances I found in this book won't be as prevalent. Who knows. I'm willing to give it a shot.