Review - The Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson

Cover design by Charlotte Stroomer

The Rosewater Insurrection (The Wormwood Trilogy, 2)
Tade Thompson
Orbit, 14 March 2019
PB, 374pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for a free advance copy of The Rosewater Insurrection.

After the successful and groundbreaking Rosewater, published in 2018, Thompson returns with that "difficult middle book" in his trilogy, The Rosewater Insurrection. It is 2067, and the Mayor of Rosewater, Jack Jacques, is centre stage, manoeuvring for the city's independence from Nigeria. But the alien presence that is the foundation of Rosewater's prosperity (indeed the foundation of Rosewater full stop) seems to be ailing - at just the wrong time for Jacques' plans.

The result is a book that seems rather more conventional than Rosewater, taking forward the two themes of the independence struggle and the alien presence with a lot more detail given about the alien's origin and purpose. I won't go into specifics about that as it would be spoilery, but I will say that this is a much easier book to understand than Rosewater and the alien is less, well, inscrutable. And while, as in Rosewater, there are some flashbacks in this book, they are more clearly signalled as the backstory of particular characters (Jacques himself, Eric who is, with Kaaro, one of only two survivors of those who could enter the xenosphere, the web of fungus-mediated alien consciousness, Anthony who is - well, spoilers).

The Rosewater Insurrection also seems faster-paced, Thompson trading some of the mystery and alien weirdness of the previous book for a slicker, thriller-y story as Jacques mobilises his forces for battle, struggling against internal dissension, possible treachery and the unexpected failing of the alien. The last is something of immediate concern to Kaaro and the remaining elements of Section 45, the secret Government agency set up to study and exploit the alien - a group whose position in Rosewater is now ambiguous.

Once this situation begins to develop, the story becomes fluid, compelling and full of jeopardy, Thompson moving his protagonists around the chaotic city in a situation which has echoes with recent examples of urban collapse in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. At times it becomes distinctly grim - the stakes are high, and some of the players set loose, on both sides, are far from noble. Indeed there's not exactly any noble cause here: Jacques seems mainly to want power, the Nigerian Government is ready to unleash mayhem to stop him, and the alien wants - well, the alien wants what aliens want. Meantime, Thompson asks "what slouches towards Rosewater?"

The characters we most synthesise with - Kaaro, Aminat, Lora - are a little outside this setup, seeking survival or the protection of loved ones. And then there's a Alyssa, a mysterious woman whose survival seems key to the whole situation and who rapidly becomes a sought-after pawn... It's a satisfying knotty, morally murky situation with plenty of peril, characters at crossed purposes and real sense that everything might go wrong.

To answer my implied question above, I think Thompson handles the "middle book" challenge here with aplomb. The Rosewater Insurrection isn't just "more Rosewater" (though it does deliver a wider and a deeper perspective on that remarkable city), rather it does slightly different things with the situation established in the first book, engaging the reader again with that world (while moving things on, without too much of a fuss, for whatever denouement awaits in Book 3). And, while you'd be daft not to read the first book too, this second one is self-contained enough that you could start here if you wanted.

Thompson also has a way with his characters, building identity convincingly. Anthony, an avatar of the alien "footholder", is endlessly recreated by the alien each time the previous instance dies or is damaged. Based on the original Anthony, a white Briton scooped up in London, he continually tinkers with his skin colour, attempting to match those around him but never succeeding. Jacques himself has had an unexpectedly traumatic past. Kaaro's freedom of action is limited by his refusal, as everything falls apart, to abandon his dog. Taken together we're presented with an ensemble of believable characters and some moments of real sadness and loss.

This is a strong sequel to Rosewater which, without losing anything of what made that book special, is perhaps more accessible as well as broadening the scope of Thompson's imagined future. I'd strongly recommend.

For more about the book, see the publisher's website here. You can buy The Rosewater insurrection from Hive books here, from Waterstone's, Blackwell's or Amazon.