Everybody, stop the damn presses. I actually enjoyed a 2026 SFF release. FINALLY.

I went into The Iron Garden Sutra not quite knowing what to expect. I love generation ship sci-fi. I love a setting where decaying human-made structures are being taken over by flora. I love botanical horror, especially when it's married with science fiction. But practically every SFF release within the past few years or so hasn't been able to live up to its premise for me, so my expectations were appropriately tempered. Regardless, I had SUCH a good time with this.

First, though, I need to settle the score with the way this book is being marketed. I personally haven't read Dead Silence, but I know enough about Klara and the Sun and have actually read Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot duology, and I can tell you that those comp titles are surface level at best (literally, the only intersection between this book and A Psalm for the Wild-built is that both of the protagonists are monks LMAO). Many reviewers are also offering up Gideon the Ninth as a comp, and while the duelling forces of queer yearning/repression and religious trauma are both very present in The Iron Garden Sutra as well, the mystery plot and world-building within this novel is much less intricate. If you're looking for a puzzle box on par with Gideon, you're not going to find it here.

What you WILL find is a book that prioritizes its themes, its atmosphere, and its concept and executes all of these very effectively. Nuanced discussions of AI, themes of science versus faith (a personal favorite of mine), philosophical discussions around death and humanity's place in the universe... This book gives you a lot to chew on, and while it's very up-front with its thematic exploration, you never feel strongarmed into any particular conclusion (which is becoming more and more rare with SFF these days, I fear...). I really must stress this: if you're coming into this book expecting a compelling and twisty sci-fi mystery, YOU WILL NOT FIND IT. That's not what this book is trying to be! It's slow-paced and themes-driven rather than plot-driven.

Perhaps my only real critique of The Iron Garden Sutra, from a storytelling perspective, is that most of its side characters and world-building lack more depth than I would typically prefer. It makes some sense given the isolation of our protagonist, Iris, but I was still wishing for more in a handful of instances. That being said, most of the moments that hit really do hit, and much more impactfully than I was expecting. The last few chapters of this book had me going through quite the rollercoaster of emotions, and I went from being ambivalent about picking up the sequel to being utterly convinced. If you're not in for the commitment of an unfinished series, though, this book stands alone just fine!

It's really unfortunate that this is flying under the radar so far, and that its marketing is doing it a disservice. If you love sci-fi that asks a lot of big philosophical questions and leaves it up to the reader to find their own answers, if you love TRUE queer yearning and slow-burn, if you like your protagonists messy, lost, and self-loathing, you will find a lot to enjoy here. As someone who is notoriously picky with SFF in general and romantic subplots within genre fiction, this book gets a giant stamp of approval from me.

4.25/5.

(NOTE: If you're sensitive to protagonists with disordered eating, I would skip this one! There is a content warning on the copyright page, but it is very easily missed).