Mr. Percy has given us a smart twist on the War of the Worlds plot. In H.G. Wells’s story, microbes are the key to defeating the Martian war machines. In The Unfamiliar Garden, a different sort of weapon will be necessary. But the seeds of disaster, you might say, are quite literally already with us, just waiting for one more evolutionary jump. Like viruses.
I sat with this book’s ending for a while, mulling over how I felt about it. It seems very much in keeping with what’s come before, but the note on which it ends could be interpreted as hopeful or sinister, depending on your point of view. At first, that threw me; eventually, it clicked for me. Given that Percy is someone who doesn’t shy away from the horrific and the monstrous, the latter possibility seemed eminently plausible. And while these books are intended as standalone works, it also seems more and more likely that Percy is seeding something deeper over the course of them. And if the ending of this book means what I think it does, it offers a tantalizing glimpse of where all of this might be headed — and the alarming implications of what that means.
... a combination of Scott Smith’s The Ruins and Little Shop of Horrors, and readers who are already familiar with the signature brand of highbrow creepiness Percy showed in Red Moon and The Wilding will have a juicy anticipation of what’s coming ... This is hardly a boring book, even though its author virtually never denies himself wonky digressions ... The Unfamiliar Garden carries the freight of its nerdy passions very lightly, and always in the service of some genuinely touching human drama.
Percy’s latest is at times gross and poignant, occasionally in the same paragraph ... There are disgusting mutations and creepy scenes of violence, but the search for family and belonging motivates the protagonists. Briskly paced, The Unfamiliar Garden ties up the action quickly with an eye toward the trilogy’s finale. Recommended for fans of John Scalzi and Sylvain Neuvel.
Percy’s masterful second Comet Cycle genre-bender combines a missing-person case, romantic reconciliation, and a riveting sci-fi what-if imagining of a sentient fungi, spawned by debris from a passing comet, that symbiotically absorbs flora and fauna ... The juxtaposition of malignant military-industrial machinations and well-delineated human tension works wonderfully, and sci-fi fans will appreciate Percy’s extraterrestrial biological lore. It’s a thoroughly satisfying near-future glimpse of both disaster and salvation.
Percy is a master of horror, particularly when it comes to creating a sense of threat generated by nature itself. There’s a spattering of gore, a connection to a psychopathic serial killer, and a secret government agenda to introduce alien matter into human genes—in other words, a little something for everyone, science fiction fans and mystery fans alike ... Terrifying, entertaining, and thought-provoking.
