#Blogtour #Review - Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

Far From the Light of Heaven
Tade Thompson
Orbit, 28 October 2021
Available as: PB, 350pp; e; audio
Source: Advance PB copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356514321

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of Far From the Light of Heaven to consider for review, and to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for inviting me to join the blogtour (in fact, to close it off).

I'm having to be very careful writing this review, perhaps more careful that I would normally be since I am not just worried about upsetting people with spoilers but also about not creating a misleading impression for the book. I suspect that's a concern that Thompson himself shares because in the Afterword he explains that he doesn't consider it a space opera (albeit it takes place, mostly, in remote space aboard spaceships). I'd concur with that. 

I'd also add that neither is it really a "locked room" detective story. One might jump to that conclusion, as a crime is committed, on an isolated ship, with a limited roster of suspects and a detective - of sorts - is dispatched to resolve it. However, Thompson robustly - almost gleefully - refuses to go through with the dance moves you'd expect for a locked room mystery. Yes, Fin is an isolated, washed-up investigator who has been suspended form duty, lives in a domestic tip and now has One Last Chance at redemption. Yes, he does insist on procedure, against the protestations of Shell, Captain of the ship Ragtime. Yes, there are inferences and red herrings. But - slight spoiler perhaps - Fin doesn't reason his way to the heart of a fiendishly complex mystery and announce it in a dramatic conclusion. 

Rather, as we move into the endgame of the story, we're given an account of what actually happened. By this time it's fairly clear that the immediate heart of the matter is more about survival in space and the dangers therein - albeit the motivation behind the crime creates a potent threat to that survival. But also that Thompson is using Fin more as a chorus or commentary to cast light on the deeper story (behind the survival theme) than him being the focus of the story itself. 

I have, rather ploddingly, spelled this out because I have seen online reviews of the book which I think came away slightly disappointed, or perhaps perplexed, because they were trying to fit this book into a different template. I could make the point more bluntly by citing one very well known classic SF novel which nobody would ever try to approach in that way, but doing so would probably cross the line into being spoilery so there I will leave it. 

Having got all that out of the way, what do we have in this book? I found three elements of the story particularly notable. 

First, as a survival story, Far From the Light of Heaven is absolutely top class. Shell, the human captain woken from ten years of sleep when something goes wrong aboard Ragtime, is an excellently drawn character. She's strong and prepared but trying oh so hard to keep her doubts and fears in check, alternately helped and hindered by the necessary routines of life in space - necessary to remaining alive, that is. It's her first mission. She trained for years in the knowledge that she would only be aboard the ship as a backup, in case something came up which the AI systems can't handle. Her family background and motivations - including a missing space hero father - are described, and we then see her forced to step up, having to make myriad crucial decisions not only to discover what has gone wrong but to try and preserve several hundred lives aboard the ship. The technical stuff here is first rate - kind of like The Martian but with higher stakes and greater danger - as is the humanity of our Captain, notable in a story which also involves significant portrayals of AI. I also enjoyed Shell's relationship with Fin: both professional and rivalrous, as they have slightly different interests, backgrounds and goals.

A second strand was the background of the voyage, one of merciless plutocrats directing space exploration from afar (we briefly meet the richest man in the Galaxy). It is an interesting thought experiment how these Earth-grown tyrants relate to their distant empires, and how the inhabitants of the planets, colonies and stations feel about that. At one point in this story there's something like a popular show of protest against the behaviour of the trillionaires - something that Thompson leaves to us to decide whether or not it will come to anything, or indeed, is justified in the particular circumstances.

The third element that grabbed me in this story was the one I'd ideally have liked more of - the background and personalities on the space station Lagos, which Ragtime visits some time before the fatal events. Lagos's identity, and its crew/ inhabitants, explicitly recognises that the spreading presence of humanity in distant space is not just about White Americans, but that other cultures have also travelled to the stars. That sets up some promising potential conflicts, and Thompson introduces us to a range of characters, a couple of whom do travel to the Ragtime and intervene (kind of) in the central plot. However I felt that we could have heard far more about Lagos, and I got a definite sense that Thompson could have done that, albeit it would have been a longer book. In the event I wondered if Far from the Light of Heaven might best be seen as establishing a setting within which further adventures can take place? I would welcome that, although I think there's always a risk when work is being done here establishing that setting, work will only really pay off properly if more books do follow.

Which is, kind of, why I'd refer back to what I said earlier - approach this book with the right mindset. I think it is a fascinating introduction to a remarkable universe, and I'd like to read more about that. More, over and above my own selfish motivations here I think this kind of risk-taking deserves to be applauded, both by the author and by the publisher, and it deserves to succeed.

For more information about Far From the Light of Heaven, see the Orbit website - as well, of course, as the other stops on the tour, listed on the poster below.

You can buy Far From the Light of Heaven from your local bookshop, or online from Bookshop dot org UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyles, Waterstones or Amazon.

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.

Review - Rosewater by Tade Thompson

Rosewater
Tade Thompson
Orbit, 20 September 2018
PB, 390pp

I'm grateful to Orbit for an advance copy of Rosewater.

Rosewater is a near future SF novel (set around 40 years from now) with the action taking place in Nigeria, partly in Lagos but mostly in the new city of Rosewater (named ironically, from its initial lack of sanitation). This is a near future where aliens have landed, though humanity struggled to understand them, or to disentangle the aliens themselves from their ships/ habitats. Rosewater grew up surrounding an alien "biodome" (hence, it is doughnut shaped, making travel awkward) for reasons that Thompson only slowly reveals.

Thompson has created a genuinely new and disturbing concept of "alienness" in this book, which he has fun sharing only gradually and which really challenges the classic "little green beings in spaceships" concept. As this nature is closely bound with what is really going on, it needs to be kept under wraps until very late in the book. A great deal of the early story is driven by a more thriller-y style plot, focussed on Kaaro, one of a special paramilitary team called "Section 45") of Government agents recruited because the presence of the alien has endowed them with superhuman abilities.

There is plenty of mystery in that, together with Kaaro's special gifts, to keep the story humming along. Kaaro is able to read others' thoughts via the "xenosphere", a kind of field generated by the alien presence, and as part of S45, this ability is employed interrogating suspects or defending against hackers using the xenosphere to attack banks or collect sensitive information. Before joining S45, Kaaro used his talent for more dubious ends so he's very much poacher turned gamekeeper.

Dotting backwards and forwards between the present day (2066) and several earlier timelines, the book shows how the current situation - the alien Biodome dominating Rosewater, providing free power, granting annual healings to those in the vicinity, but also, awkwardly, reanimating the dead - - arose, but also Kaaro's personal journey to S45, what he has done and what he has suffered - and who he has betrayed.  We see Kaaro's current caseload, his reservations about his job, and the messy internal politics of S45. And a threat to the unit...

We also see Kaaro's developing relationship with the mysterious Aminat, perhaps with some concern (he's not the most reliable of chaps...) and  a particular, special connection to the Dome (implying Kaaro also knows more than he's letting on).

It took me a little while to get used to the switching between timelines, as there is a lot of action going on everywhen. Inevitably at any given time a couple of the threads are left hanging, often on a cliffhanger. This is very much a book to be read through without distractions or delays as it does, piece by piece, build to a kind of holographic unity where the parallel strands reinforce one another. Superbly paced, they do come together and this is a compulsive story, always driving forward, written with a very distinctive narrative voice and with a great sense of place.

In particular, Thompson is able to draw analogies between Nigeria's past, colonised by Britain, and the situation it potentially faces now with regard to the nameless aliens. Indeed, Kaaro notes in a couple of places that this gives an advantage compared with, for example, the US, whose response to the incursion seems to have been to go dark completely, or Britain itself (don't ask).

Kaaro himself is an engaging protagonist, well rounded and sympathetic to a degree although you really shouldn't trust him. The supporting characters are also well portrayed, especially his boss Femi (who I wanted to hear much more about) although I found his attitude to her a bit crass at times. (That's Kaaro...)

The story leaves a number of key threads unresolved (the power struggle in S45 itself, the eventual outcome of the encounter with the aliens, the fate of Aminat's brother who is an intriguing wildcard in this story, and indeed, what becomes of the relationship between Kaaro and Amina) - enough of these to encourage me to hope for more from this world, but even if that doesn't happen it's still left a vivid impression of two distinct cultures working in each other to ends that, perhaps, both sides are unable to foresee (even the super advanced aliens).

Strongly recommended.

For more about Rosewater see the Orbit website here.