What does it mean to be human when your memories might be fake, your body is no longer your own, and a corporation holds the patent on what you are becoming? That is the question at the centre of Let Slip the Beasts, the debut novel from Norwegian writer Suzanne Berget. It was apparently originally published in 2023, and is being republished in this version after some publisher difficulties.
Part corporate dystopia and part sci-fi thriller, the book draws on an eclectic range of influences and synthesises them into something that feels distinctly its own. It is fast, it is gory, it is funny in places, and underneath all of that it is asking questions that do not have clean answers. For a first novel, that is quite a lot to pull off but thankfully it largely pulls it off.
Kaliope Dearborne, Kallie, works a soul-destroying job in the grimy, hyper-stratified city of East Resplendent, processing complaint reports for AugTech, a pharmaceutical mega-conglomerate. When Kallie’s little sister Mathilda is being bullied, something in Kallie snaps, and a girl in a red jacket ends up dead. She runs, discards her identelet down a storm drain, gets chased through the outer districts, and is eventually captured in an abandoned parking garage by a group of shadows that converge and swallow her whole. She wakes up in a cell carved out of bedrock with a metal toilet bolted to the wall.
What follows is a propulsive, unsettling ride through body horror, corporate conspiracy, and identity dissolution. Kallie wakes in a cell carved out of bedrock, a metal toilet bolted to the wall, and is shown footage of herself committing murders she has absolutely no memory of. Her body, meanwhile, is doing things bodies should not do. As the line between who she thinks she is and what she might truly be begins to fracture, Kallie is forced to confront the terrifying possibility that she is both the victim and the weapon.
What Berget does particularly well is sustain tension, notably by not patronising the reader and holding uncertainty without flinching from it. Kallie’s tracking data places her elsewhere. The video places her at the scene. Both are real. “This is undeniably you,” she is told. “Do you remember doing that?” She doesn’t. And the book never lets either Kallie or the reader off the hook with a clean explanation, making the reader want to keep turning pages to see what the truth is.
The writing style kept my attention, and I found it consistently readable without ever feeling simplistic, with a strong sense of voice that carries both the humour and the horror without either undercutting the other. The book has a lot of little touches which make the world feel alive, like one you want to keep returning to. For example, the literary references woven through the book are worth mentioning. The title lifts from Shakespeare and the text is threaded with nods to Yeats, Hemingway, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Steven Erikson, all acknowledged openly in the author’s note, which is more than you would expect from this kind of book. I also like the inclusion of French from the twins characters, Aurelia and Baptiste, some of my favorites, which is a small thing but makes them feel more alive as characters.
The world-building earns its keep. It is largely not delivered in heavy exposition but revealed through texture, through work routines, social hierarchies, and the brutality of everyday life in East Resplendent. The division between districts, the omnipresence of corporate oversight, and the casual exploitation of the desperate all feel like something you’d seen in a YA movie adaptation from the 2010s.
Maybe it’s obvious, but book may be a bit too intense and scary for younger readers. There is quite a lot of disturbing content, though it never feels too bleak thanks to the likeable characters, namely Kallie’s friends Thresher and Buck. Besides the story, if nothing else the page-turning, vivid writing will keep older readers coming back, “Pain bloomed like fireworks. Lights flickered behind closed eyelids. Shattered bones grated against each other somewhere inside. More fuel for the fire. She gave voice to the agony. Roared until her ears rang.”
Though the introductory chapters feel slightly rushed, the pacing is strong, and action sequences feel like actual fighting rather than descriptions of it. There is a gripping chase through the outer districts that moves like an action scene from a film, and later scenes like in the green zone where Kallie wakes beside a torn-open deer carcass with dried gore in her hair and no memory of how she got there, are among the most unsettling in the book. Berget keeps the camera inside Kallie’s consciousness throughout, which is exactly the right call for the body horror.
In sum, I found Let Slip the Beasts to be a confident and compelling debut that understands its strengths and leans into them, even if there are moments where the sheer density of ideas threatens to outpace the plot. Those moments rarely derail the story, and if anything they add to the sense of instability that defines Kallie’s experience. The book is a good length at 211 pages, not too long and not too short, and good news—the sequel has already been announced.
Final verdict: Let Slip the Beasts is an effective, unsettling debut that delivers on its premise and then some. For fans of Blake Crouch, Tamsyn Muir, and Richard K. Morgan, who enjoy fast-paced, high-concept sci-fi and body horror, pick this one up and clear your evening.
You can get your copy of Let Slip the Beasts here!
