After the Fall is a sci-fi novel by Edward Ashton and published by Solaris. It is due for release on the 18th of June, 2026. This review is intended to be free of spoilers, but none of us are perfect. Consider yourself warned! I was provided with a review copy by the publishers. There are affiliate links at the end of this review.
Blurb
One hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick over the last dregs of humanity, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the “good” grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but he’s always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend.
But when Martok puts John’s bond up as collateral against a house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martok’s friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss, a girl raised by feral humans who has nothing but contempt for John, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him.
Oh, and something in the woods has been killing people.
John has sixty days to buy back his life before Martok’s loan comes due, all while avoiding getting butchered by feral humans, killed by the thing in the woods or having his head crushed by an angry gray. Easy peasy, right?
Review
Edward Ashton has carved out a niche writing about terrible futures with a light touch, and After the Fall might be his most purely enjoyable version of that trick. It’s set more than a century after humanity lost the planet to the alien “Greys”, who now treat humans as a mix of pets, employees, and livestock. It’s a grim premise, but Ashton handles it with such dry humour and warmth that the book ends up feeling more like a buddy comedy than a dystopia.
Our narrator, John, is a “bondsman” (essentially a domesticated human) owned by Martok Barden, a Grey whose business schemes are uniformly disastrous and whose sense of responsibility is… aspirational. Their relationship is the book’s centre of gravity: affectionate, lopsided, co‑dependent, and often very funny. John survives by being cautious and competent; Martok survives by sheer luck and charm. Watching the two of them try to keep each other alive is half the pleasure.
The plot kicks off when Martok drags John (and a new adoptee, Six, who hates him on principle) to a remote house in the wilderness. This house has a history of its previous occupants dying in suspiciously similar ways. Because, of course. From there, the story spirals into a mix of murder mystery, alien bureaucracy, feral‑human politics, and the slow, unsettling reveal of what really happened to Earth. Ashton drip‑feeds the worldbuilding through John’s limited perspective, which keeps the pace brisk and the reveals satisfying.
Tonally, it’s classic Ashton: blackly funny, lightly satirical, and surprisingly tender beneath the cynicism. The humour is a highlight, as is the pacing, and the way the book balances bleakness with heart. Martok, in particular, is a standout; a chaotic, well‑meaning disaster of an alien who feels pretty memorable.
Not everything is perfect. The opening is slow. The ending feels rushed. The book’s structural simplicity is a factor that works both for and against it. That all said, we’ve still got a nice, well-written, easy to read novel that manages to make a ruined world feel oddly cosy.
After the Fall isn’t profound. It’s entertaining, and it’s good at that. It’s short, sharp, funny, and unexpectedly sweet for a story about alien overlords and the collapse of human civilisation.
Rating: 4/5