*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.*

[SPOILER FREE REVIEW]

Molten Flux is an exceptional debut novel by Jonathan Weiss; an action-packed thriller that will leave your ears ringing and a metallic taste in your mouth at each turn of the page. As a coming of age story, memorable for its exhilarating action scenes and multi-layered plot, it’s suitable for young readers looking for a contemporary take on adored sci fi/fantasy classics such as Howl's Moving Castle or Dune.
Weiss’ strength lies in the immersive battleground scenes, whether it be skirmishes with Smelters amongst the ruins of old cities, heated one-on-ones with comrades in the magic-infused time-warp that is the undercity, or a full blown battle of foot soldiers against the giant floating fortress, his skill in writing action shines. Each sequence of moves are masterfully crafted, making for gripping and skin crawling fight scenes any strategy enthusiast will froth over.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Gore, violence, non-consensual body modification, upper limb amputation with magic fix, slavery themes.

[REVIEW WITH SPOILERS]
At its essence, Molten Flux is a story about choices, control and autonomy. Ryza did not get to choose being born as a Kretatic and he did not get to choose whether he took on his father’s business as a molten flux trader, a Smelter. His first autonomous choice was to leave his life under his father’s watch, and every other decision afterwards is driven by the belief that he had no other choice to do the evil he did under his father.
In the early pages, Ryza differentiates himself from other Kretatics who are assumed to easily fall into the Smelter profession by priming himself as a capable Smelter marksman. His attempt to defy the Smelter stereotype and make up for his wrong doings still has the Kretatic-specific slur ‘metal-mouth’ hurled at him, usually by Ditric, a member of his squad. Whichever way he looks, Ryza is a source of suspicion - for his metal-bending abilities, his likelihood of becoming a Smelter, his uncanny ability to survive collar-death and whether he has the good of others in his heart. It’s in taking the life of an innocent by injecting molten flux into their still pumping veins, he succumbs to that self-fulfilling prophecy of once again creating an automind. Though he is wracked with guilt by repeating his mistakes, and haunted by the blood on his hands, he continues to justify his decisions with his naive idea that there is no other way.
Readers, like Origin, the small puppy-like arcanite that follows Ryza around, must silently judge Ryza succumb to his old ways of making autominds. Drawn to the exhilaration of letting loose, his addiction to power sits nicely as an allegory for the cycle of substance abuse, but there are also hints of the cycle of emotional abuse through Ryza’s flashbacks to his childhood under his father’s watch. What his father did to Ryza’s mother, and so carelessly does to create more autominds for profit obviously haunts Ryza but his father’s impact on his psyche is more like a wise-worded spectre subject to a rebellious child’s revulsion than psychological warfare. We are left to watch Ryza run away from a life he did not choose, only to get wrapped up in another life he did not choose.
Underneath his bravado, Ryza is in a vulnerable state, having not yet the chance to create a sense of self separate to his father’s or Revance’s control. It’s Ryza willingly welcoming life as practically an indentured slave on Revance that speaks to his position within the cycle of abuse. He thinks that he has no choice, that killing Smelters is his chance for retribution and relishes the opportunity to dispense the violence that he believes has always been in him. It’s his continual denial of alternate courses of action that pushes him along a no redemption arc of suffering.
The concepts of autonomy and control emerge also in the societal values perpetuated on Revance, on which two of the most compelling examples of the denial of bodily autonomy occur. The first is, obviously, the installation of the life-threatening collar around Ryza’s neck. Upon waking up from what Ryza thought was death by sandstorm, he is informed that he has been conscripted as a soldier on board Revance and that he must not stray from its metallic body for more than 12 hours or risk a gruesome death inflicted by the collar. This plot device is particularly chilling when readers learn that most other collar-wearing conscripts on board are there by their own volition.
The second chilling point of bodily autonomy denial is when Ryza’s arm from his elbow down is cut off. Ryza again wakes up in the Revance infirmary this time with a plate installed against his elbow. Ryza has all of a few minutes of life as an upper arm amputee before he is magically fixed with a metal arm prosthetic. Later, he discovers that Holm, a sketchy Locust member and surprising love interest (in the flavour of enemies-to-lovers), has imbued her resonance into the metal plate against Ryza’s elbow.
In doing this, Holm will always be able to find Ryza. But there are serious issues of consent over Holm imbuing her resonance in a piece of metal literally inside (or attached to) Ryza. It’s incredibly invasive and speaks to Ryza’s concern that he doesn’t know whether Holm is someone who is manipulating him or being manipulated. This is where the issues around autonomy links with the cycle of abuse Ryza is incapable of breaking. The reveal that Holm was actually flirtatious seems like once again a manipulation on her part, gaslighting Ryza into thinking he’d misinterpreted her body language over the course of the novel and priming him to accept her advances. I’m not entirely convinced that Ryza’s susceptibility to abusive behaviour was intentional, but under this lens it does make for a harrowing end to know that despite Ryza’s triumph against Tyrag, no matter where Ryza is, Holm will always be able to find him. An abuser’s dream… We can only hope Holm likes who Ryza has become, or rather, who he has always been.