Title: Exiles

Author: Mason Coile

Release date: September 16th, 2025

*Huge thanks to Kirby Kim at Janklow & Nesbitt, Kristin & Jess from Penguin/G.P. Putnam’s Sons & Edelweiss for the digital ARC of this one!*

**Unlike my normal reviews, this one is more a deeper dive into the novel than what I liked, etc.**

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He means love, partnership, companionship, comfort. None of it could come after her. He was still married and had found a way to make sure he always would be. – From ‘Exiles.’

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I’m not even sure how to start this one.

When ‘William’ by Mason Coile – aka Andrew Pyper – was first announced, I knew it would harken a return. It would bring Andrew’s books back to the thousands and thousands of readers who had seemingly moved on from raving about his work. The lack of social media hype and posting about Andrew’s books was what led me to start over-saturating my own posts with his books. Every book Andrew releases is an embodiment of what a modern classic looks like and to have had so many books written and released by one of the BEST literary writers ever is something we should all count ourselves as lucky to have at our fingertips. BEST literary writers ever. Full stop. You may not like the story and you may not like the decisions Andrew made within the books – and hey, fair game, every reader will experience every book differently – but there is simply no arguing that few writers out there can craft sentences as textured and layered as Andrew could. And the fact that I’m writing could instead of can is where the difficulty of writing this review comes from.

Andrew has left this plane.

It’s still shocking to write those words. We’re almost two months since he passed and it doesn’t feel right and doesn’t feel real. But a saying I’ve always loved, and one a number of people commented and messaged me after Andrew’s passing, is that art makes us immortal. We live on forever through what we created and put out into the world. And Andrew has blessed us in the art department.

So, with ‘William,’ Andrew kicked down the door of expectation and people went collectively out of their minds. It received critical acclaim, recognition around the globe for its phenomenal content, and with its relevance in the surging AI frustration we’re dealing with, lifted it above the fray of other books coming out. By all accounts – it was a smashing success – and for this super fan, a book that put a huge smile on my face.

When Andrew first discussed ‘William’ with me, he had mentioned there was a thematic sequel already outlined and from that outline, ‘Exiles’ has arrived. Though this one doesn’t jump off from where ‘William’ left – with that phenomenal throat-kick of a final sentence – it continues the look into technology, where it fits in our lives and what happens when mankind continues to play god with robotics.

‘Exiles’ takes place in the future and follows Dana, Blake and Kang, three astronauts on the Citadel Mission, arriving on Mars to begin the colonization efforts. Three robots have already arrived and constructed where the humans will live in preparation of their arrival.

Andrew sets things up nicely, and it was refreshing to see a female lead (which I’ll share why that was on purpose shortly) again in an Andrew book – for only the second time, the first being ‘The Only Child.’ Dana is strong, calm, rational and terrified. Rightfully so. She feels ‘lesser than’ in the group, watching as Blake and Kang have this ‘brotherhood’ of odd handshakes, back slaps, inside jokes and shared jargon. A rough landing occurs and it’s a race to the living quarters. Once there, they discover significant damage has occurred and after getting inside, they find only two of the three robots, the third having fled into the Martian landscape.

This is a classic Pyper setup (as Coile, yes, yes, sheesh) – where he immediately heightens the tension, gets the reader (and characters, yes, yes, sheesh) to a place where we feel ‘safe’ before unravelling all the friggin’ reasons why nobody is. He perfected it with ‘The Homecoming’ and then elevated that perfection with ‘William’ and now, here, on Mars, he takes it to a whole other realm. A level of adaptation and self discovery. The robots are ‘terraforming’ themselves. They’re actively working to become more human-like. To develop hopes, dreams, feelings, emotions and expressions. It’s akin to what we see with Well’s Murderbot books. The three robots – Wes, Shay and Alex – complete their job and then begin to ponder where they are, where they fit into the larger world around them, and what it will mean for them to never return to earth. All while waiting for the humans to arrive.

Taken as a surface level sci-fi/horror novel, it’s a common trope, one that asks us to look within ourselves and see where we fall on the empathetic/hell-no scale. Do we want AI to progress? To allow androids to dream of sheep? An easy way to find out the answer for yourself as to whether you’re ok with robotics advancing – go to Youtube, search Boston Dynamics Robotics Dog and watch that video. And if you think, ‘awe, how cute!’ step to the right and await your new overlords. Skynet is calling. If you watch it and think, ‘JFC, turn it off, burn the schematics and delete the code!’ then step the left and prepare to fight. 

But this is the second of the three Coile books. This is no longer a normal, average, Andrew book. Andrew has always put real life into his books. He’s always had metaphorical themes that look at things he’s going through in life. ‘The Demonologist’ was a look at his relationship with his daughter and the fears you have as a parent. Heck, ‘William’ was a microcosm of Andrew’s life through the Covid pandemic. And ‘Exiles’ appears to be a novel he wrote to showcase the journey his loving wife was going to be dealing with as Andrew dealt with Cancer and ultimately succumbed to it.

Andrew used this book as a literary send off for himself – though, as I said, we do get that third Coile book – and as a big love letter for his wife and kids. 

Am I reaching? Maybe. But, I felt like I was reaching when I reviewed ‘William’ and had Andrew confirm all my theories. Well, except for the joking theory that I was the inspiration for the William bot, lol. 

From the very beginning the layers are revealed. We get the journey to the unknown (Mars in this case) – both with what comes next for Andrew after death and what life will be like for his wife when he is gone. We get the small, close quarters – ie Andrew keeping his illness close and keeping his family closer. We get the ‘four’ of the family. Much like with ‘William’ where Andrew used two of the wife’s coworkers to represent his kids, in this case we get Dana and Blake as the two adults and Shay and Wes as the kids. Both working through emotions they should never have to deal with, both unsure how to process what it means to be left behind.

And throughout, Andrew gives us turns of phrases, sentences and passages that not only directly relate to their life together;

‘… the proven strength of managing my life while carrying this with me the whole time, holding it down.’

‘She needed resilience. Physical, mental, emotional.’

We are shown how each of them have different connections and the hopes he has for happiness for them in the future, but we also get some very powerful moments, none more powerful than the final closing sentences that had me bawling like a baby.

Throughout, Andrew channels what his wife is going through, what she’ll be dealing with after he’s gone and how, hopefully, sometime in the future they’ll reconnect cosmically. It’s the ‘why’ of the book, the reason there was a female lead.

It was beautiful, powerful and emotionally gut-wrenching.

But don’t think this is all butterfly’s and rainbows. No, far from it. Within, Andrew shows his penchant for disturbing moments and glorious viscera. We get one of the most brutal and violent scenes Andrew’s ever given us. We get the hint of another ‘thing’ out there. What is it? Nobody knows. A suggestion of an alien lifeform not wanting the humans to be there. A suggestion of robotic espionage, the robots not wanting to be left behind. And a hint at it being purely a hallucination. Though, when taken from above, an out-of-body-reading-experience, that entity surely was the metaphorical inclusion of Andrew’s illness.

Again, I simply may be grasping at straws here, looking too deep into one of the final releases of an author who changed my life, but every person experiences every book differently, and in this case, this was my experience.

So, where does that leave us.

Let’s wrap this up looking at two different routes if you will.

First route – the Mason Coile voyage. When taken as a singular book, ‘Exiles’ is a phenomenal sci-fi/horror novel that asks the reader some tough philosophical questions and then answers them firmly. It is tension-filled, claustrophobic and terrifying. When worked into the aspect of book two of Coile’s bibliography, it not only heightens what was started in ‘William,’ but also deftly (and subtly) elevated the family dynamic drama from within both books.

Second route – the Andrew Pyper bibliography. When added into Andrew’s larger bibliography, it takes the sci-fi aspects of ‘The Homecoming’ and the family dynamics of ‘The Killing Circle,’ ‘The Damned’ and ‘William’ and elevates that even more. It pushes the tension further than many of his previous books, utilizing a lot of what he did with ‘The Residence’ and ‘The Only Child,’ and the ‘vague’-ness of the ending gave us a smidgeon of what he did with ‘The Demonologist.’ Atmospherically, this one falls in line closer to ‘Lost Girls’ and ‘Oracle,’ the only obvious difference is location/setting. It’s one of the best books written by one of the most cerebral writers we’ve ever had.

To close this off, I’ll leave it with this.

Andrew was well aware of the time he had left. He completed ‘Exiles’ and the third Coile book, and if this is any indication of what the third one will be like – in terms of storytelling and quality of writing – then he left us in good hands. ‘Exiles’ will benefit from the buildup that ‘William’ created and for that, it’ll get in front of many more eyes than the standard ‘sci-fi’ crowd, which can be a fickle bunch. Andrew may be gone, but this second-to-last of the Coile books confirms to all of us just how magnificent of a storyteller he truly was.

He was the best.