Far from the Light of Heaven
Book cover via Orbit/Hachette, 2021.
One surefire way to get me to pick up a book is by telling me it’s a locked-room murder mystery. And if it’s set in space? Well, then I’m sold twice over. That’s the premise of Tade Thompson’s new book, Far from the Light of Heaven, out 10/26. Mild spoilers follow.
The story begins with Michelle “Shell” Campion, the top-ranking human on interstellar vessel Ragtime, en route to recently-settled human colony Bloodroot. Along with a thousand other souls, she was in suspended animation for the long journey, until she’s awakened by the ship’s malfunctioning AI. She then finds that the ship has reached its destination in orbit around Bloodroot, but also finds a grisly scene of mass murder. Thirty-one passengers were killed and mutilated during the ten-year trip.
Soon enough the Ragtime receives help from the planetside colony, in the form of investigator Rasheed Fin and his cyborg partner Salvo. Also responding to the scene is Shell’s father’s old friend Lawrence Biz and his half-alien daughter Joké, both hailing from Lagos space station, the last waypoint on Ragtime’s journey to Bloodroot. Despite (or maybe because of) the grisly circumstances that bring them together, the makeshift crew becomes a found family of a sort.
It’s immediately evident that the pile of dead bodies is just the beginning, and soon they have to contend with airlock malfunctions, containment failures, rogue service bots, strange creatures, and a ship AI that seems determined to make their lives harder. Problems escalate and cascade into one another, and the story quickly expands from a murder mystery into a bit of space horror thriller with some VanderMeerian imagery and elements. The shift doesn’t come as a surprise (it’s very well-orchestrated), but the plot’s tensions turned out to be a lot less understated than I’d expected when I picked it up. That’s not a failure of the story at all, just a mismatch between reader expectation and marketing, perhaps. The action is pulse-pounding and, more importantly, deepens the initial mystery; in combination, they’re a kind of twin-engine that propelled me to finish the book so quickly.
I also enjoyed Mr. Thompson’s vision of space: it’s very Afrofuturist and shows space exploration and off-Earth settlement in a non-imperialist fashion. Bloodroot is unlike many of the new planet colonies I’ve seen. The story also has a sharp critique of capitalism that is highly relevant in an age where more and more of the 1% set their sights toward space. Overall, Far from the Light of Heaven is a thrilling and terrifying journey, one that I’m glad I got to go on.
Other things I’ve read lately:
Certain Dark Things tells the story of Atl, a young female vampire on the run, hiding out in Mexico City where their kind are illegal. Blending vampire clan wars with narco gang wars, the book does a swell job of combining the best parts of the supernatural and noir. I also really enjoyed the fully realized neighborhoods and locales of Mexico City, as well as the layered characters that inhabit them, human and vampire alike.
Letter 44 is a comic book series whose title comes from the recent tradition of outgoing US presidents writing transition letters for their successors, often with statements of support and a bit of advice. Here though, the letter informs incoming president Stephen Blades about the existence of aliens and of the secret government space program launched to make first contact at one of their installations in the asteroid belt. Think of the series as Scandal meets X-Files.