Chloe walks into a bar and blows five years of sobriety, but when she wakes in the morning she finds herself in an unfamiliar world in a group of people from all different times and places, and none of them really understands how they got there, or if there’s a way home. The Arrivals is basically a weird west novel with a little bit of romance, a lot of gunfighting, and some monsters.

I bought this in hardcover last year because I enjoyed Graveminder so much, but it’s resided on my to-read shelf ever since. So it was with some trepidation when I started this and noticed how low the ratings are on Goodreads (3.16 out of 1,519 ratings).

I can kind of see why this didn’t really resonate with some people -- it’s kind of a genre-bender; in some ways, you’re expecting a wild west showdown; in others, you’re expecting a romance; what you get is a character-driven adventure dealing with corruption and mortality, trust and fear. I enjoyed it -- and I’m glad I gave it a chance despite the reviews. ( )

I really wanted to like this book but the plot moves very slow and I found myself bored.

There are too many things that don't make sense, like the British Victorian guy who dabbles in Egyptology but can read hieroglyphs...either that or the ancient Egyptians wrote in English, it's not clear.

The last straw that made me put his down, never to pick up again was the description of a dog-like creature. It's described as definitely canine, and then the reader is told that it has haunches like a hyena. I can't be the only person that knows that hyenas are NOT canines, and are in fact more closely related to cats, than to dogs.

Also, the characters are never fully described. I have no idea what any of them look like.

Desert cowboy wild west alt fantasy where folks are suddenly transported to a parallel world. Liked it! ( )

Interesting mix of pseudo-historical and fantasy/sci-fi. Ok for an adult book. ( )

People from all time periods who may have died are mysteriously transported to a world full of magical hazards. Right after I read this book, I read an essay by Robert Silverberg in Asimov’s that was about translating Westerns into science fiction by just changing the names (like “horse” into “greeznak”) and whether true conceptual originality is even possible. Those concerns are all extremely relevant to this novel. I guess I'm kind of hinting that I didn't enjoy this novel as much as some readers did. ( )