Post-apocalyptic/dystopic stories are some of the most prevalent in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre. Musician Eyal Kless puts down his violin in favor of a writing implement to channel his creativity into The Lost Puzzler, a debut novel that tells the story of a rag tag group of people hoping to find answers that will help humanity climb out of the hellscape that is the Earth and regain the history and knowledge they’ve lost in a vague Catastrophe. A few hundred years in the past, the Tarakan civilization collapsed, leaving humanity in something of a wreck with lost technology strewn about the world. People are living in near squalor and society has reverted to villages. In order to better live in a world where barely understood technology must be both utilized and avoided, people have been augmenting themselves with bits of technology to survive. It isn’t completely clear who the Tarakans were or how they came to power over the world, for the recent past’s history is shrouded while the deep past, around the time we live in, is more clearly understood.
A brilliantly written, page-turning, post-dystopian debut from Eyal Kless, about a society hoping to salvage the technology of a lost generation, a mysterious missing boy who can open doors no one else can, and a scribe who must piece together the past to determine humanity’s future.
More than a hundred years have passed since the Catastrophe brought humanity to the brink of extinction. Those who survived are changed. The Wildeners have reverted to the old ways—but with new Gods—while others place their faith in the technology that once powered their lost civilization.
In the mysterious City of Towers, the center of the destroyed Tarakan empire, a lowly scribe of the Guild of Historians is charged with a dangerous assignment. He must venture into the wilds beyond the glass and steel towers to discover the fate of a child who mysteriously disappeared more than a decade before. Born of a rare breed of marked people, the child, Rafik—known as “The Key”—was one of a special few with the power to restore this lost civilization to glory once again.
In a world riven by fear and violence, where tattooed mutants, manic truckers, warring guilds and greedy mercenaries battle for survival, this one boy may have singlehandedly destroyed humanity’s only chance for salvation—unless the scribe can figure out what happened to him.
Kless takes an interesting narrative approach to the story. The story begins as a first-person narrative following a Historian searching for a young woman, Vincha, who may hold knowledge of Rafik, the titular puzzler. In Kless’s imagined dystopia, Puzzlers are people with gifts who are able to (wait for it) solve puzzles. But not just ordinary puzzles, but rather elaborate keys that will grant them access to hidden rooms containing lost technology and objects of great value. Once our historian inevitably finds Vincha, the story switches to a more omniscient narrative. Here Kless reveals the life of Rafik, from his beginnings in a small village where the tattoos that begin appearing on his hand marks him as an outcast. Rather than be shamed, his family sells him to cover a debt of sorts. Part of Rafik’s journey across the blasted landscape, along a roadway that the long-lost civilization of the Tarakan’s left behind, were quite reminiscent of the fevered journey seen in Mad Max: Fury Road.
From there Rafik is bounced around from rich family to family where his skills are tested and he is prepared to enter the labyrinthine ruins of The City within the Mountain where the archives of human knowledge might be found. Rafik disappears on that last mission into the City within the Mountain and Vincha is the only person who seemingly knows what happened.
There’s a lot to like in Kless’s novel, a nice blend of familiar and refreshing in his post-apocalyptic world. I liked the idea of a lost technology, and thought it interesting how Kless worked in the Chosen One archetype into the story. His storytelling/narrative skills are pretty potent, for a book that clocked in at about 500 pages, I tore through the story quite quickly.
Having said that, there were a few things that I found a bit bothersome. There are barely any female characters in the novel, Vincha is the most prominent. Did this Catastrophe eliminate a majority of the women from the globe? There’s also a fine line a writer walks when many of the details are held until a reveal at the end. Especially in a debut writer, that is quite a bit of trust the reader puts in the writer. While Kless’s revelations did satisfy to some degree, he definitely is holding more cards. If you’re willing to be patient, The Lost Puzzler could be a fun ride.
Though not specifically called out as the first of a series in the promo material, as the novel drew to a close, it became pretty clear that this is indeed the opening volume of a longer story. Kless showed more than ample storytelling abilities and worldbuilding skills to keep me intrigued for what he intends to reveal in the inevitable second volume. I hope he delivers some more answers to many of the questions and provides a more gender-balanced cast of characters.
Recommended
© 2019 Rob H. Bedford
January 2019 | Trade Paperback
528 Pages
https://www.eyalkless.com/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, HarperVoyager
