Waitaha reviews: The Stone Wētā

The Stone Wētā by Octavia Cade

Published by PaperRoadPress

In Octavia Cade’s environmental thriller, The Stone Wētā, an underground network of female scientists work to preserve data of a changing environment and environmental destruction, against ever increasing threats from shadowy threats. 

The reader slowly meets the network of women, overlooked and underestimated as they cache data throughout the environments they work in. Each is identified by the specialised creature or plant they study, and Cade explores these natural elements as a way to explore the character of each woman. We meet the Fish-eating Spider, the Glass Sponge, the Stone Wētā, who we learn is also one of the first colonists of Mars, caching data in the red planet as well as our own.

It’s an intriguing premise, especially as the network of conferences and professional connections that the women use to build their web begins to also expose them to increasing danger. What begins with a singular death starts to grow and each of the women begin to face the consequences of their choices. 

The story moves from character to character like a hot potato, moving forward in time, so the only hints we have of the characters we have left behind are those small glimmers in the next woman’s section. The lack of names and histories creates a sense of coldness, of distance from the emotions and the terror of the women. Cade has created what feels like an intellectual thriller, one where we are not scared for the people, but rather for the place. 

Reviewed by Laura.