Format: 352 pages, Paperback Published: January 24, 2023 by Tor Trade ISBN: 9781250778543
Titanic meets Event Horizon in this SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn’t yet ended.
Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed―made obsolete―when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.
What they find is the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick search of the ship reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold on to her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
My Review
I ordered this book after seeing it on one of the GoodReads challenge lists. I hadn’t heard of it before although the author’s name pinged something in my brain. I liked the description and thought it would be entertaining.
Oh boy! I read the hype at the beginning of the book when it arrived and thought it might be exaggeration, just a touch.
I was wrong! It’s really good!
I read this book in an evening. At one point I had to skip forward to find out what happened, and then I went back once I was reassured at least some people would be alright.
The story is told from the perspective of the traumatised and quite likely psychic Claire Kovalik, team lead for a maintenance crew. The five-person crew service the comms network that’s scattered across the solar system, they live for weeks at a time on a tiny space vessel, being picked up and dropped off by larger freighters. It’s Claire’s last rotation, at 33 she’s considered too old, and due to her history, too unstable, to carry on.
Then, they hear a beacon. After an argument, they head out into uncharted territory to find the source of the beacon. What they find is the first and only luxury space liner. Twenty years lost, the Aurora’s disappearance destroyed the company that built it, allowing Verux, the company Claire works for, to take over. It’s worth a fortune to those who find and salvage it. But there are secrets.
Claire and her crew go aboard the Aurora and find terrible things.
We swap to Claire in the mental hospital, some time after she boards the Aurora with her crew. She doesn’t remember much. Her old mentor, Max, and a bully from Verux, Reed, a nepo-hire, who is determined to prove she murdered her crew for money, are questioning her. Claire tells them everything she can remember, up to the point where her skull is fractured. The hallucinations, the violent deaths of her colleagues, the developing romantic relationship between her and Kane, her number two, and the plan to get the Aurora back to the comms network so they can call for help.
Reed fails and Max recruits Claire to go back to the Aurora with him – she’s the only person who survived. Her mental illness might actually have helped. When they get there, Claire finds the neatly wrapped bodies of three of her colleagues and the last hallucinating in a room padded with mattresses. She also finds a conspiracy that Verux really don’t want to get out.
There is madness. There are explosions.
I loved it!
Claire is a beautifully flawed character. She blames herself for everything when it’s clearly not her fault, she refuses to let people care for her and fears what will happen when they do – convinced she’ll cause their deaths somehow, and she’s severely traumatised by events of her childhood. Also, she can see ghosts.
The relationship between Claire and Kane is sweet and develops naturally as they go through difficult events. The resistance Claire feels about getting close to people is a response to her trauma, and Kane’s calming presence, knowing her past, slowly helps her build trust in herself and him.
The corporate evil of Varux is entirely believable – destroy a competitor and then try to clear up the mess by murdering people. I know this has happened in real life, although usually the firms involved distance themselves by saying it was rogue contractors – see VWs slave plantations in the Amazon during the 1980s, or mining companies that regularly allow their ‘security contractors’ to murder local activists – especially in the Amazon. Putting it in space makes it sound like fiction, but this shit is happening in the real world now. I direct you to Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy by Claire Provost and Matt Kennard ( I have a Left Book Club copy that I’m reading at the moment) for more information.
I was absolutely rivetted by this book, by the mystery of how the people went mad and what happened to Claire, allowing her to escape and return to rescue what was left of her crew. Definitely going on my favourites list for this year.
Format: 448 pages, Paperback Published: March 26, 2019 by Tor ISBN: 9781529001587
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan’s unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.
My Review
This is another one from my TBR Pile that I’ve been meaning to read for years. I finally sat down and read it a week or so ago.
Mahit is a 26 year old Stationer, sent to the imperial capital of Teixcalaan as Ambassador. There, she finds her predecessor has been murdered and then her implant with his memory on it breaks, leaving her flailing around without help. Her only ally is her cultural attaché, Seagrass. They are blown up, held prisoner by a friend of the old ambassador, and have to get help from rebels, as the Emperor weakens and several successors fight for the throne. Eventually, Mahit hears from a possible ally on her Station that aliens are attacking human space, and this is enough for the Emperor to bring a halt to the fighting at home by focusing forces on the alien threat, and away from Stationer space.
Mahit and Seagrass go through some terrifying events but the writing is so good that every emotional turn is understandable. Her immersion in a culture that she previously thought she knew so well when she was studying it, but finds so confusing in person, really captures the dislocation of immersion in a new culture. Without her imago to guide her, Mahit doesn’t have the local knowledge that she’d need to fit it, and she is made to feel alien and not quite human because she is not Teicalaanlitzlim. She is an amusing barbarian to her hosts. Mahit does use this to her advantage, and sometimes disadvantage, in the complex court of the Emperor.
I enjoyed the narrative, structure, and tone of this novel. It explores empire from the perspective of an outsider, showing the hypocrisy of imperial states. The descriptions of the city and the people are rich and detailed. There is a hint of both the Byzantine and the Aztec empires in the descriptions of the clothes, culture and architecture, but the living conditions in the out regions of the city feel more Victorian London. The author has clearly drawn on many sources but it feels cohesive and inspired by those sources, rather than direct copying.
I enjoyed this book, and I can see why it’s so lauded. I’ve started book two, so expect a review of A Desolation Called Peace at some point.
Release Date 2025-01-28 Formats Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202956 | epub | £5.99/$9.99/$11.99 Paperback ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202949 | Paperback | £9.99/$18.99/$24.99
When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.
As they try to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone is… up.
And so begins a race to the top with the group fighting to hold on to its humanity, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares. Can they each overcome their differences and learn to work together or does the winner take all? What does the tower want of them and what is the price to escape?
Beam aboard your own Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror classroom with the next volume of the BSFA-shortlisted writing-guide series!
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Spec Fic for Newbies breaks genres into bite-sized pieces for students or for any budding writer. It offers a welcoming introduction to how writers, filmmakers, and other creatives can begin to explore the infinite potential of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror to create new stories beyond the boundaries of the ordinary.
This is not another dusty rulebook. This is a portal to endless other worlds!
EBook ISBN 25th March 2025 | 9781915998514 | epub | £5.99/$9.99/$11.99 Paperback ISBN 25th March 2025 | 9781915998507 | Trade Paperback | £9.99/$18.99/$24.99
Johnny Gomez, a custodian – or space broom – on Kilgore Station, teams up with a pair of smugglers to sell a stolen data chip full of video game avatars and finally make his fortune
Everyone aboard Kilgore Station is living their best life. Everyone except for Johnny Gomez.
While humans, the augmented, and aliens of all shapes and sizes enjoy exotic cuisine on the dining deck, or gamble away their credits on the entertainment deck, Johnny is elbow-deep in oily, black, alien excrement. A ‘space broom’ custodian for the entire station.
This was obviously not the life Johnny dreamt of. Ten years ago, he travelled to Kilgore, the farthest space station in our solar system, in search of fortune like everyone else. Some people are just luckier than others.
Yet his meaningless, uneventful existence is immediately turned upside down when he happens upon a tiny glass data-chit, hidden amongst the alien poop he must clean up. Unbeknownst to him, every nefarious creature in the solar system will soon be after him to claim it for their own.
With the help of his augmented roommate, a pair of smugglers and a mysterious and beautiful stranger, Johnny fights off thugs and sails as fast as possible to earth’s moon, Luna, in effort to sell the chit to the Obinna Crime Syndicate. But with assassins and mobsters on their tail, the trip is anything but a cakewalk. And Luna itself proves to be nothing like a safe haven, when Johnny’s painful past finally catches up to him…
Space Brooms! is a heart-warming, tongue-in-cheek homage to all things sci-fi, from television and movies, to video games and books.
Release Date: 2024-09-24 Formats: Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 24th September 2024 | 9781915998019 | epub | £4.99/$6.99/$7.99 Paperback ISBN 24th September 2024 | 9781915998002 | epub | £9.99/$18.99/$23.99
Description
On the heels of the terrorist attacks on the planet Nova’s capital, the Special Projects Team finds itself targeted by the ambitious new head of the Commonwealth Intelligence Directorate, Aidan Kester. When Kovalic and General Adaj are arrested on charges of treason, Tapper, Brody, Sayers, and Taylor are forced to go on the run. While Kovalic and the general attempt to uncover an Illyrican mole within the Commonwealth’s intelligence apparatus, it’s up to the rest of the team to clear their friends’ names, even if that means making a deal with an old enemy to carry out a daring heist that might just get them all killed.
Format: 332 pages, Paperback Published: June 1, 2021 by Titan Books ISBN: 9781789096620 (ISBN10: 1789096626)
Blurb
Ten Low is eking out a living at the universe’s edge. An ex-medic, ex-con, desperate to escape her memories of the war, she still hasn’t learnt that no good deed goes unpunished.
Attempting to atone for her sins, she pulls a teenage girl from a crashed lifecraft. But Gabriella Ortiz is no ordinary girl—she is a genetically-engineered super soldier and decorated General, part of the army that kept Ten prisoner. Worse, Ten realises the crash was an assassination attempt, and that someone wants Ortiz dead…
My Review
I’m on a bit of a space western kick at the moment after reading Frontier last week. I’m reading Hel’s Eight next.
There are spoilers below, don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens.
Summary: I enjoyed this one. going to read Hel’s Eight now, as soon as I finish writing this review.
The unmissable follow-up to the highly acclaimed Children of Time and Children of Ruin.
When Earth failed, it sent out arkships to establish new outposts. So the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carried its precious human cargo to a potential new paradise. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive on Imir, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost.
Then strangers appear, on a world where everyone knows their neighbour. They possess unparalleled knowledge and thrilling new technology – for they have come from the stars, to help humanity’s lost colonies. But not all is as it seems on Imir.
As the visitors lose track of time and memories, they discover the colonists fear unknown enemies and Imir’s own murky history. Neighbour turns against neighbour, as society fractures in the face of this terrifying foe. Perhaps some other intelligence is at work, toying with colonists and space-faring scientists alike? But not all questions are so easily answered – and the price may be the colony itself.
Children of Memory by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky is a far-reaching space opera spanning generations, species and galaxies.
Format: 16 pages, Audible Audio
Published: November 24, 2022 by Tor
Language: English
My Review
I have copies of all of the books in this series and have listened to them all as audiobooks.
I found this one really confusing. On the surface it’s simple, a team of Humans, portids, uplifted octopuses, the aggregate lifeform from Nod, and a pair of corvids, visit a new planet, called Imir. Something strange is going on there though. The people are afraid of something outside of their small colony and they don’t know what it is. Things keep going strangely wrong. They keep happening over and over again, in slightly different ways. Miranda, the person who embodies the aggregate lifeform from Nod, is deeply invested in the events and can’t escape from Imir.
The simulation hypothesis is explored in this novel; are we living in a simulation? What is sentience? The ideas are explored through the characters of Gethi and Gothi, a pair of Corvids who need to be together to explore and draw conclusions.
I really liked Gethi and Gothi, they’re funny and drive the plot forward. I love the way they talk back to Avrana Kern and their discussions about sentience, and their conclusion that they aren’t sentient, and also that either everyone is or no one is.
If you enjoyed the first two books in the series I highly recommend this third book. I think this is the final book in the series, which would be a shame, as I want to know where else the sentient species go and who they meet.
Paperback, 480 pages Published July 7th 2022 by Head of Zeus (first published October 5th 2021) ISBN13: 9781788543248 Edition Language: English Series: Burningblade & Silvereye #2
Blurb
Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, two siblings discover that not even ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.
Four hundred years ago, a cataclysmic war cracked the world open and exterminated the Elder races. Amid the ashes, their human inheritor, the Dawn Republic, stands guard over lands littered with eldritch relics and cursed by plaguespawn outbreaks. But a new conflict is looming and brother and sister Maya and Gyre have found themselves on opposite sides.
At the age of five, Maya was taken by the Twilight Order and trained to be a centarch, wielding forbidden arcana to enforce the Dawn Republic’s rule. On that day, her brother, Gyre, swore to destroy the Order that stole his sister… whatever the cost.
Twelve years later, brother and sister are two very different people: she is Burningblade, the Twilight Order’s brightest prodigy; he is Silvereye, thief, bandit, revolutionary.
For centuries, the Dawn Republic has ruled over the land unopposed. No more.
Deep below the Gap, Gyre Silvereye discovered a city, hidden far from human eyes. There, the ghouls have dwelt for four hundred years in hibernation, awaiting the moment to wreak their vengeance on the Dawn Republic.
With their help, Gyre can finally see a way to overthrow the all-powerful Twilight Order. But the ghouls do not give their trust easily, and Gyre will need to secure the alliance of the human rebels to the south if they are to even stand a chance. And uniting the two won’t be simple.
His sister Maya still fights for the Order. But after recent events, she is no longer certain where her loyalties lie. Chasing the origins of a mysterious artefact to a long-lost library, she just might find the truth – whether she is ready for it or not.
My Review
I have two editions of this book, and the first one in the series. I have Goldsboro Books special editions in hardback, and paperbacks. The paperback from Head of Zeus arrived on Thursday, because I had it on pre-order. I have two copies of the first book in the Burningblade & Silvereye series too,Ashes of the Sun, which I reviewed in March 2021. I also have both as audiobooks. I couldn’t get on with the audiobook narration for this one, or I’d have reviewed it before now. It’s very unfortunate, since I quite liked the audiobook of Ashes of the Sun and was looking forward to listening to this one too.
Gyre Silvereye and Maya Burningblade are siblings on opposite sides of the social order. As a Centarch, Maya represents the ruling Order, heirs to the mysterious Chosen, while Gyre is a rebel, a thief and determined to bring the Order down, with the help of the ‘ghouls’, a sentient species who are almost extinct and hated by humanity.
The ghouls are a rather large, humanoid species, with hair and fangs, who use dhak, a form of magic. They live in the hidden Refuge, an ancient ghoul city that is now almost empty after 99% of the ghouls died because of the plague that also wiped out the Chosen. Ghouls use constructs to do all the heavy lifting, and have weapons that Gyre can use in his rebellion. He ropes Elariel, a ghoul who worked for Naumoriel (villain in the first book), into helping him. He offers the ruling parliament of the ghouls a way to get revenge on the Chosen and the Order by supporting his rebellion with weapons and tools. Elariel undergoes a terrible operation as punishment which makes her look human to help with the mission.
Kit is now happily running around in multiple construct bodies, lamenting only her inability to fuck, although she does discover how much she enjoys voyeurism and fighting in multiple places at once. The three leave Refuge for Deepfire, where they collect three large wagons and a lot of alchemical equipment, and Sarah, an alchemist formerly of the Order who joined the rebels in Deepfire. They travel through the Splintered Kingdoms to Khirkhaz, a mountainous and forested region where a Commune led by the ousted Apphia, Baron Kotzed, fights to retake the area from the Republic and return to her family’s tower.
Meanwhile, Maya, her partner Beq, and their scout, Varo, go looking for an Archive in the mountains in the north west, beyond Deepfire and near the coast. Many Centarchs had attempted to clear the place of plaguespawn to reach the Archive, but had failed. Maya and her small team find a village, a mystery and information about the Thing and Maya’s deiat. Beq gets over-excited by the possibilities of the archive. They return to the Forge, where they are sent out on a secret mission that involves them going to the capital of the Republic, Skyreach to break into Kyriliarch Prodominus’ private warehouse. There, they discover a great secret and more information about betrayal in the Order.
The two groups meet in Khirkhaz during the fight to defend Apphia’s claim from the Republic. They go off on a mission of their own that could destroy or save the world…
The world and its history is explored further as the two groups travel across the continent by different means, and we learn more about the Chosen and the ghouls. It becomes increasingly obvious that humans have been lied to for centuries and that the Order is fractured. Who can anyone trust? The tension lies between what the reader knows from following Gyre and his group, and what Maya believes to be true based on what she is told and what she finds in her adventures. They are both driven by idealism, which doesn’t do well in the real world. Gyre finds his Khirkhaz Commune is really a collection of argumentative, disunited factions from different backgrounds, only nominally led by Apphia. Maya discovers that she’s been lied to repeatedly, although we don’t really see how it changes things for her, other than her internal confusion about who to trust. Hopefully, it’ll become clearer in the third book.
The relationship between Gyre and Maya is fraught before they meet up in battle, but it becomes more so as they realise they need to work together. Gyre is deeply affected by his sister’s actions in the last chapters, but still helps her. I’ll be interested to see the fall out in the next book. I have a feeling that Gyre and company might be arrested and Maya is placed in an even more compromised position, or the Corruptor will overcome the Order. Pretty sure Tanax and Basal are corrupted. I hope the ghouls are able to save themselves though and humanity gets its collective head out of its collective arse. The Order and Republic are clearly positioned as compromised and controlling in these books, while Gyre and the rebels as ‘heroes’, but it’s more complicated. No one group is evil or good. They’re humans; venal, greedy and selfish in some cases, deceived and deceptive, selfless, determined to improve the world, and generous. The technology has limits even if magic is involved and people get exhausted, no one can fight forever, weapons and tools break and ammunition or fuel runs out. Like in the real world.
There is a development of Maya and Beq’s relationship carries through their chapters, as they support each other and realise how important they are to each other. I like their relationship; they’re young and inexperienced, and trying to work out what they are to each other. It’s sweet. Thankfully, the author manages not to make their sexuality a big deal, it’s just a background fact that both are girls and they are in a relationship. It’s the development of their relationship that’s important, not the fact it exists.
Beq is a marvellous character, geeky, intelligent and brave, who doesn’t have much confidence in herself, but can do anything she sets her mind to. I also enjoyed the little scene where she’s reading while waiting for Maya to finish her visit Jaedia in the hospital, and doesn’t notice Maya come out of the room because the book is so engrossing. Been there, done that. Haven’t we all? She also struggles with jokes and is very literal. She’s practical and loves Maya deeply although she doesn’t seem to have many other relationships or friends.
Kit, having died and then returned as the controlling intellect in a construct army, is a lot more fun that in the first book. Death seems to have allowed her to put aside her angst and enjoy life. The abilities she has as a construct allow her to be in so many places at once, which helps her and Gyre to escape from various traps, fight battles and rescue each other. The image of chicken sized mechanical spiders carrying smoking ceramic bombs attacking Maya and Legionaries made me giggle but at the same time are very practical. They would be useful.
This is a world where both magic and technology mix to allow aircraft, long distance almost instantaneous travel, but humans still live in squalor in cities, hide behind high walls in the countryside, and the magic and tech developed by two species though to be extinct is limited to a certain class or group. It’s a blending of science fiction and fantasy that works well. I enjoyed Elariel’s questioning of the social rules and distinctions, because things are very different on ghoul society, where helping anyone in pain is an obligation, all the work is done by constructs, and decisions are made by a representative group. Her complaints about clothes are funny, and true. They are uncomfortable.
Details like Elariel being in pain because she isn’t used to walking in shoes or the difficulties of getting wagons along forest paths bring a touch of reality to this book. The descriptions of the environments people travel through and the different societies of the continent seem to have been well thought out. The writing is fluid and gripping, it’s punchy and fast paced at times while also having slower, more reflective sections. I stayed up rather later to finish the book and can’t wait for the next in the series. I know it’ll be out next year and the title ‘Emperor of Ruin’ which sounds promising.
Because I’m a bit obsessive, and I have Ashes of the Sun in the Orbit paperback edition (US publisher), and Blood of the Chosen in the Head of Zeus edition (UK publisher). I’ve just bought the opposites so I have both books in both editions. I’ll get the Goldsboro Books special hardback of the third book and the two different paperbacks. They have different covers, I’m not just being pedantic about having matching publisher’s editions. I am however aware that most people don’t do this,
Now to my criticisms. There aren’t many. Elariel’s appearance, especially the comments about her attractiveness get a bit repetitive and aren’t really adding to the plot. Other people’s reactions and her utter cluelessness get the message across adequately. The ability of the ghoul swords to cut through unmetal armour where it’s thin is mentioned in every fight, which is just unnecessary, the reader won’t forget that these swords are pretty amazing even if they do have limits. I knew we were heading into the final fight when Maya and Gyre meet up to go to the Purifier and that they would be betrayed, because the same thing happened in Ashes of the Sun. It’s a little formulaic, even though it works.
Generally, I was impressed by this solid sequel, even with the minor irritants. I recommend it to fans of science fiction and fantasy.
Paperback, 351 pages Published October 3rd 2017 by Akashic Books
Blurb
Odd-mannered, obsessive, withdrawn, Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world, save for stories told around the cookfire.
Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, who they consider to be less than human.
When the autopsy of Matilda‘s sovereign reveals a surprising link between his death and her mother’s suicide some quarter-century before, Aster retraces her mother’s footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, Aster learns there may be a way off the ship if she’s willing to fight for it.
My Review
I’ve reviewed this book on my podcast Everything Is Better With Dragons, episode 2 which will be available soon, but I’m sharing a written review for those who don’t listen to podcasts.
I liked this book.
Aster is clearly Autistic, like Rivers Solomon, and later in the book we learn Aster is probably non-binary too. A bit of intersectional representation! Aster also comes from the lower decks of the arc ship she’s travelling in. The society of the HSS Matilda is highly stratified by skin colour, the darker you are the lower down the ship you live and the worse your living conditions are. Aster, unlike many of her deck mates, has a lot of mobility between decks due to her position as assistant to the Surgeon General, Theo. Aster has a complex relationship with Theo, neither really know what they are to each other beyond their professional relationship, and both struggle to express what they feel for each other.
Complex relationships are a theme in this novel.
Theo has a complex relationship with his uncle, Lieutenant, who eventually becomes Sovereign. Theo is frightened of his uncle and aware that his uncle is highly conflicted about his feelings for Theo.
Lieutenant has a complex relationship with morality. He is attracted to his feminine nephew, appalled by his attraction and also by the ‘pollution’ of the family bloodline represented by Theo’s skin colour. He’s also jealous of Theo’s relationship with Aster. He assumes it’s sexual, although it doesn’t get that far. He can’t punish Theo directly, because they are equals as Commander of the Guard and Surgeon General, but he can hurt Aster. After his ascension to Sovereign, he takes his sadistic hate out on everyone on Q deck, where Aster lives. He claims that his authority comes from a deity, and that as a ‘pure’ human he is better than lower deck residents.
The society in the book is heavily based on the Antebellum South of the U.S., so incredibly unequal, racist and screwed up. Aster and her friend Giselle are irritants in the society they are forced to tolerate. Aster because she is able to code switch in both gender and language, doesn’t get the point of a lot of the social conventions and has the ability to move about. Giselle because she’s bat shit crazy and is happy to cause mayhem and be a Devil. It is her ability to withstand abuse and trauma, and react in unexpected ways that prevent the Guards or any authority from keeping her down.
Another complex relationship, that between Aster and Giselle, defines and triggers major events in the novel. They love and hate each other, but they also need each other. Aster couldn’t interpret her mother’s notes without Giselle, who sees the world from an entirely different angle, possibly upside down and inside out. Giselle is paranoid, and has delusions of persecution; she is convinced someone is trying to poison her for much of the book. She gets into all sorts of places because she wants to hide from her persecutors.
Aster has complex relationships with maternal figures in her life, firstly her absent mother and secondly Q-deck leader, Aint Melusine. Lune, Aster’s mother, left a riddle for her child to unravel, which becomes Aster’s driving interest, along with botany, astronomy and chemistry. It is Aster’s need to answer the question of Lune and where she went that gives Aster the resilience to survive persecution by Lieutenant and to save HSS Matilda from pointless wandering.
Ainy Melusine replaced the mother Aster never knew. She is not particularly maternal despite being a Nanny on the upper decks, and teacher to the children of Q deck, but she does her best for Aster who she recognises as an unusual child from an early age and helps her to gain an education beyond that normal for a low deck child. Melusine is also Theo’s mother, which complicates her relationship with both Theo and Aster, as she can’t tell either of them. Theo’s father was a previous Sovereign, and the relationship between him and Melusine was clandestine and considered immoral on the upper decks.
These complicated relationships and characters travel through space on a large arc ship that has been travelling at near light speed for 350 years, although on Earth a thousand years has passed. They are powered by Baby, a miniature star, who provides power for the drive and provides light for the crops on a complicated layering system of fields. The ship is clearly and vividly described as is the society that has evolved in different decks and over the ship as a whole. The contrast between the metal and decay of the lower decks with the lush extravagance of the upper decks provides a visual narrative about the people of the Matilda. Despite the harshness of their lives, the lower deckers are inventive, loving and preserve their own food, languages and storytelling cultures against all odds.
The narrative is broken up with stories that Melusine has told Aster in the past. These stories are colourful and clearly draw on Black American and African stories. Melusine or Aster reflect on the stories and what they mean to them, which brings them seamlessly into the narrative.
The narrative is mostly told from Aster’s perspective but occasionally Theo, Melusine and Giselle have chapters. I found this a really interesting structure and have used a similar structure in my novels. I enjoyed the direct plotline with past events being pulled in as memories that fit into the story seamlessly. There’s no skipping between past and future. It’s a lot less confusing that way, at least for me.
The writing and the language used is particularly effective for showing the different cultures and social structure with its minute gradations based on minor differences in skin tone. The language has impact, especially during traumatic events. Some things are heavily implied and some are outright stated, depending on the needs of the narrative. I have the audiobook as well as the paperback and listening to the story had a strong impact on me.
I really enjoyed this novel. I read the last 100 pages in an afternoon, so engrossed by the action and events, I had to know what happened next, and I’d love to see a sequel.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 