Leanne Olson

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Releasing February 8, 2022 from Tor Nightfire

Echo is a very strange, complicated book, and I loved it. It’s the story of a mountain climber, Nick, and his boyfriend Sam — and what happens after Nick is discovered gravely injured after a mysterious, unplanned climb. Sam begins to worry Nick has brought something back with him from the mountain.

This novel just worked so well for me. The horror of the mountain climbing scenes was incredibly immersive. Echo captured the isolation, danger, and beauty of the mountains so well. 

It’s a creepy book, opening with one of the scariest prologues I’ve read in a while. Then it slows down a bit: it’s thoughtful and dreamlike in places, sometimes closer to magic realism than horror. It’s a long book, and it feels long, but in a way that worked for me. I felt the growing dread pull me in and completely immerse me in the story and characters.

I loved the integration of mythology, Sam’s history and childhood memories, and his current pop culture knowledge and casual way of narrating — it created such a rich vocabulary for the character. At the start of the book, Sam’s voice annoyed me, and it took me a while to really catch the rhythm and understand the character. By the end I thought it was perfect. Nick as a second narrator is the perfect contrast. 

Heuvelt’s writing and Moshe Gilula’s translation are confident and authentic, and there’s so much complexity to the writing that I want to read this one again soon.