This one was on my radar for some time, but it seemed to always get pushed to the side for the shiny new toy... I know, story of all of our lives. The rantings and ravings it has been given across the board wasn't what drew me in, though. It was the mention of the blending of mythology and fantasy, with a splash of psychology. So, I came in with high expectations, and despite those expectations, I am happy to say that this book absolutely delivered.
As far as an overall rating, I would give this book a solid 4.5/5. What do I base this on? FEELING, damn it! Of course, I can go break it down by prose and by plot beats, or themes, and that has its own place below. Just wanted to get that out of the way here.
Prose was solid. Approachable without being flowery at all. This is a novella, after all, so no time for lingering too long (which is honestly good and bad). You definitely feel the confusion intended in the early sections of this book. It reminded me very much of Project Hail Mary without the use of the heavy handed flashbacks (hey, I still liked them, but let's not lie to ourselves about it). This eventually levels out (in a much more organic way honestly), and finally we get our head on straight by the end. Con of the prose is the repetitive feeling of the description of rooms. The whole statues and vestibules stuff gets rather boring after about the fifth time... But at the same time, I get the fact that it is written this way due to the actual plot of the book, but... yeah...
Themes were cool. I liked those a lot. We dip into Gnosticism, Jungian psychology, questions that we never really get solid answers about. And I like that. Like it a lot tbh. If you don't have at least some background knowledge of those, I could see kind of skating through this whole book relatively uninterested? Maybe? The entire concept of the house and potentially what it represents is pretty damn cool. I ping ponged back and forth between the house being something external like Narnia or strictly internal like the manifestations of dreams in Inception. And what is even funnier about this, is we never really get that answer.
I think Clarke did a great job in a short amount of time here. I would give a recommend if you asked me, with the slight caveat that you might enjoy it a little more if you are a rather introspective individual.