August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

Our story begins at the end of the world, with the titular August Kitko playing jazz ’til he’s eaten by the also titular space mecha. Only, in propulsive style and visceral detail, August joins the endgame against humankind’s annihilation and learns that life is worth living if you’re banging a hottie. Here’s one for the gay babes that’d always wanted someone to say, “get in the robot, loser!” August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is fun, stylish, inclusive, and unapologetically queer with fast-paced, violent mecha battles, a sweet beating heart deeming love as the most meaningful force, and the existentially devastating implications of Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s aesthetically and metaphorically rich final arc. 

Page one, humanity’s interstellar colonies are history; they’ve been wiped clean by the Vanguards, the big bad space mecha with one imperative: kill all humans. After the failure of Earth’s last stand, the Vanguards impending victory is in the bag. And no one yet knows that their death is fast-approaching, except for August Kitko, a world-class jazz pianist, and his pop star lover, Ardent Violet. Separately, they await the end at the same party. August contemplates suicide right before the Vanguards touch down. His death now visible, he chooses to spend his last few seconds on Earth doing what he loves most, and so rushes to a nearby piano.

Turns out, “music is math magic, and these things are computers,” attracting the Traitor Vanguard Greymalkin, who accepts August as his Conduit (pilot) after his sweet, sweet serenade (155). From there, it’s a series of battles and revelations about the true nature of the war humanity fights, all while August and his beau explore a burgeoning relationship on the cusp of apocalypse.

From beginning to end, August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is written with tremendous style. There’s never an opportunity missed to detail a sentence: descriptions are pulsing, thrumming, banging, beating, winding, slicking — and it’s the rare book that simply whelms, intentionally so, in an adjectival deluge that fluidly guides readers through thick passages. 

There’s a gap in the middle of Greymalkin’s chest, a yawning nest of pumping tubes and the heartbeat of lights. Probes and wires slither about the entrance, and Gus screams in horror as it plunges him forward.

PG 24

The instances in which the prose turns soupy is when mentioning technology. While the many fictional brand names and product models flavor the world, they largely don’t describe or hint at the tech’s purpose nor provide anything beyond more detail in already detail-rich prose.

Little terminology is explained either. Crucial concepts unique to the novel are expanded upon, such as the Harmonic Carrier Communication Protocol, which is the method of communication between Vanguards that sounds, to humans, like music. But, most others are drawn vaguely, assuming readers have a sufficient sci-fi background that will allow them to fill in the blanks. This streamlining may exclude genre novices from fully grokking the scenery, that choice contributes to the novel’s zippy pace. 

Most of August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is occupied by blockbuster action: huge set pieces, life-or-death stakes, a constant push forwards with steadily worsening odds for the heroes. When it gives our heroes respite, these slower stretches are activated by August’s grappling with pit-bottom depression, unpacking the major revelations delivered after yet another partial loss, and the developing romance between August and Ardent.

While the novel isn’t categorically romance, its dual POV emphasizes the romantic element as frequently, August and Ardent’s thoughts meander to the other, questioning if the other’s feelings matches theirs. It’s August’s chapters that carry the narrative weight, however. August Kitko, a gay sad boy who can’t human outside of talking piano, brings pathos by way of a cogent character arc in addition to participating in the central plot beats. With August, readers meet important secondary characters, primarily other Conduits and military personnel, and the big bad, who answers the most plot-essential question that the book presents: why are the mechas attacking humans anyways?

The POV of Ardent Violent, a non-binary pop star who’s self-involved, self-obsessed, and always gets their way, takes time to similarly develop. Their opening chapters are more an introduction to their bratty behavior before the rough mid-point, when Ardent becomes the more active, dynamic perspective. They pursue difficult challenges and suffer the most damning consequences as a result of their pursuit, but because their chapters are typically contained and because they largely do not contribute to the reader’s understanding of the unfolding plot, they feel more like a complicating factor than a plot driver. 

The secondary and tertiary cast is filled with characters of color, from the antagonistic, French-speaking UN director to the bhangra-singing Indian Conduit, their enthusiastic inclusion suggests a wide breadth of experiences. These characters were clearest by necessity; they’re drawn concisely so their image can be held in the mind. August and Ardent, by contrast, are an assemblage of body parts that the lovers adore about one another. The most explicit descriptions of their person is spent on Ardent’s ever changing wardrobe. Otherwise, racial and cultural diversity isn’t reflected in the leads, foreclosing an opportunity to further the primary theme of meaning-making in a crapsack world.

Ardent used to mourn people. Now it’s just the daily cycle.

PG 135

During the five years that the Vanguards have systematically eliminated mass populations of human beings, August Kitko has lost everyone he loved and has lost hope, not only in his own survival, but in life itself. The known world will soon end and he is powerless to do anything about it; as this has become clearer, there’s been less reason to fight, and less reason to attempt to make new connections within the world, as it will all end in the same bloody violence and there will be no one left to care. So there is nothing to stymie sharpening depression or suicidality, both of which runs within his family.

Western media values individualistic fantasies imagining individuals as potentially self-sufficient in all aspects of life, regardless of circumstance. Status, wealth, and position are rewarded upon merit, and lacking any of these is a failure of the individual. Now, the western world struggles to negotiate this given narrative with the systemic corruption that individuals are at the mercy of. As we witness the aggressive disinterest of our leaders and suffer the consequences of their actions, the stress and responsibility of corporate, industrial, and governmental failure is instead placed on individuals that could not possibly change these systems meaningfully on their own. 

Alex White succinctly encapsulates the novel’s heart and their answer to combating the western narratives given to us in “Five Things I Learned While Writing AUGUST KITKO & THE MECHAS FROM SPACE” on Terribleminds, Chuck Wendig’s blog: that even when powerless to external forces, “relationships give life meaning.” After a single dalliance, Ardent becomes the catalyst that Gus needs in order to reconnect with the world and to reconsider the value of living. His arc is admitting aloud his depression and finding someone he trusts enough with that darkness, someone who supports him when he sees no path forward and who he can fight to be with, even when the odds are against him. 

Though a beautiful and needed message in our difficult times, the novel privileges romantic relationships over other forms of love, crucially missing an opportunity to enrich August’s life by showing how varied relationships can create community and lead individuals to finding a profound sense of meaning. 

August and Ardent bang once and are smitten from thereafter; it’s the end-of-the-world and they’re pumping with adrenaline, so while it’s annoying how they continuously daydream about each other, it’s understandable. But because their relationship is overburdened as the single vector for the thematic realization of love creating meaning, readers that don’t buy into their relationship will find a third of the novel excruciating; whenever allowed to share page time, they’ll flirt and smooch and not much else. And often, they self-isolate to focus on each other, cutting themselves off from the secondary characters around them. The narration supports their isolation as an obvious and good thing: with Dahlia blinking out of existence the second they get together and Nisha fangirling over them as a couple. 

“I’m impressed, New Guy. You must be something special after all.” He smirks. “I showed up in a Vanguard, and you’re excited about my joyfriend?” “Yeah,” she says. “Anyone can be a Conduit. So what? You play music well, big deal. Dating Ardent Violet, though—that’s cool.”

PG 190

But Ardent becomes the entirety of August’s world. Considering revealed motivations in the latter half of the novel, the themes would’ve sung if August diversified the kinds of relationships he has, because while romantic relationships can be fulfilling, platonic relationships give safe harbor in ways separate and different than romantic love. 

Conduits must be brilliant musicians who’ve mastered their craft. Often, the pursuit of creative craft requires self-isolation, so it would’ve fit within the theme if August and the other Conduits, who share a certain kind of ambition and flaw, came together to overcome that flaw. The closest they come on-page is writing a song together in order to learn how to fight as a team, but this is the equivalent of montaging a training sequence. Readers aren’t given the opportunity to really see the Conduits connect with one another, which keeps the secondary cast distant. But this is a small flaw in an otherwise excellent work. 

The short of my recommendation is that if you like a little cosmic horror in your gay mecha anime and like to read fast, voice-y prose akin to Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth or Catherynne M. Valente’s Space Opera, then this book is for you. Queer protagonists are humanity’s last line in a violent robo-pocalypse that has no room for identity-based conflict. Cooly and with stylish flourish, August Kitko and the Mechas from Space entwines killer action and weighty, existential questions that sincerely conclude human connection as the foundation of meaning in daily life.