3.5 stars - Turton's books always leave me with more questions than answers. His premises are unique but never seem to deliver with coherent and fully-developed world-building. In this case, the murder and end of the world are heavily foreshadowed by a sentient, omni-present AI, which leaves what I consider to be plot holes.

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For example, if the intent is to end the humans to give the pod people a chance at building their own future, why doesn't Abi just let the fog take over from the beginning instead of playing this game of find the killer? Or just let the villagers murder the scientists like they tried doing once already? Which goes to show anyway that they can be violent too, defeating the ending implying they'll do better than humans.

Also the characters come across flat with little growth, and the protagonist Emory is particularly annoying in a way that made me sympathize with Thea

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which wasn't the Turton's intent presumably since she is arrogant and murderous

. Unrelatedly but something that bothered me the whole book is who would name their kid Hephaestus?

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Actually, despite my dislike of his name and personality, the most interesting part of the book was hearing about his adventures as the world ended - I think I would've liked Turton to develop that out further and show how the pod people came to be / more of the working of the scientists on the island. There are hints that Niema is actually manipulative and greedy and Thea is brilliant and once was sociable, but it's all told more than shown, robbing them of on-page character growth to see how Niema came to believe the pod people could do better, etc.

Overall, while I was interested to see where this went and stayed relatively engaged throughout, I was unsatisfied by the end.