Mindscape by Andrea Hairston (book review).

One hundred and fifteen years in our future, the Earth has been divided by the Barrier, a mysterious, extraterrestrial entity. Each zone battles against the others for survival, but a dedicated group is determined to forge a treaty to bring peace.

On the day of the treaty signing, its architect is assassinated, leaving her protégé, Elleni, to continue the work. Elleni is a spiritual healer and one of the few able to travel the Barrier, but is she up to the task of saving the world? With power-hungry politicians, power-crazed gangsters, spiritualists and movie producers all working both for and against her, Elleni has to wonder, is it even worth saving?

Occasionally you read a book and it’s just not for you. ‘Mindscape’ is one of those books not for me. If I wrote down a dream exactly as it happened, with no letting my conscious brain fill in any gaps, just a pure stream of unconsciousness, this is what ‘Mindscape’ felt like to me. The whole novel was a step beyond ‘just going with it’ and letting the plot wash over you and immerse you in a world. I felt like I’d missed a chapter or maybe a whole earlier novel. The constant disorientation and lack of connection with the characters made it difficult for me to navigate through the maze of words. Some of the words were written in Yoruba or German, which further contributed to the reader’s confusion.

On top of the chaos of the characters and plot, this book is heavy. 427 pages is not huge for someone who grew up reading high fantasy, but there are some tough themes running through this novel. There are depictions of rape, assault, and human trafficking, just to name a few. There is a large group of people literally named ‘Extras’. They perform as extras on the movie set, but they are also regarded as surplus to requirements, which results in large groups of people being treated as literal cannon fodder for shooting a movie battle scene. This phenomenon is not uncommon. Add skin colour, religion, and greed to an already divided world with many resources out of reach, and you have some extreme examples of the issues we are struggling with today.

While ‘Mindscape’ is not a book for me, if you like dense literature that forces you to put it down and ponder each short section, then try this one. But for me, it reminded me of slogging through Émile Zola’s ‘Thérèse Raquin’ and Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ as a BA student and bribing myself with chocolate at the end of each chapter.

LK Richardson

September 2025

(pub: TOR, 2025. 448 page hardback. Price: $32.99 (US), £20.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-25080-876-9).

check out website: https://torpublishinggroup.com/mindscape/?isbn=9781250808769&format=hardback