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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
Tense and claustrophobic, Tade Thompson's latest does a good job with the "locked room" mystery idea by transferring the action to a AI-run spaceship with a thousand colonists on a long journey to a planet founded years earlier by Black Afrofuturists. They named the system Lagos and the habitable planet Bloodroot.
The colonists are on their way to far-off Bloodroot, traversing through several wormholes. The first officer awakes at Bloodroot to find the ship malfunctioning, the AI down or damaged, and several colonists murdered with no idea how this happened.
There are several point of view characters in this story:
-Michelle “Shell” Campion, head stuffed with knowledge, but short on experience. This is her first time on a long space journey, and she’s to be mostly sleeping there and back while the AI runs everything on the ship.
-Rasheed Fin, an investigator on Bloodroot. He’s been off work for a year since his last assignment resulted in a death. He sees his opportunity to return to to work by investigating the unexplained murders of colonists.
-A former pilot, who is also a friend of Shell’s father, and now the governor of Lagos station. His daughter is Joké, an unusual young woman.
-The head of the Lagos Council; she is fascinating, and all the other councillors are terrified of her.
-An artificial being called Salvo. He’s been Fin’s partner for years.
-A gazillionaire from Earth, who sees his next big opportunity off Earth.
I found the story moved at a good clip, and the tension ratcheted up nicely with each new calamity on board, or with growing questions on Lagos station and elsewhere about what was happening with the ship and its colonists.
The characters and their interactions were well handled, with misunderstandings in approaches, mindsets and communication causing tensions to rise further.
I particularly appreciated how Thompson showed the mental costs of the chaotic situation in Shell’s need to continually work her worry beads and watch the Lagos star rise, all while maintaining her stoic demeanour. And we see how detrimental Fin’s year off work has been to his mental health.
As an aside, I also liked how the aliens on Bloodroot are not inimical to the human population on the planet, which is a nice change from the usual. There are misunderstandings, but no desire to hurt one another.
The murder part of the plot is full of moments of revulsion, fear and danger, and the relationship amongst the characters, as well as the implications of the murder investigation for Lagos, evolve believably. The reveal of the motive points to problems far off on Earth, and this, along with the way the story ended, left me hoping Tade Thompson eventually returns to Bloodroot and Lagos, as I think he's set up some interesting points for later stories.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Orbit Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.
The colonists are on their way to far-off Bloodroot, traversing through several wormholes. The first officer awakes at Bloodroot to find the ship malfunctioning, the AI down or damaged, and several colonists murdered with no idea how this happened.
There are several point of view characters in this story:
-Michelle “Shell” Campion, head stuffed with knowledge, but short on experience. This is her first time on a long space journey, and she’s to be mostly sleeping there and back while the AI runs everything on the ship.
-Rasheed Fin, an investigator on Bloodroot. He’s been off work for a year since his last assignment resulted in a death. He sees his opportunity to return to to work by investigating the unexplained murders of colonists.
-A former pilot, who is also a friend of Shell’s father, and now the governor of Lagos station. His daughter is Joké, an unusual young woman.
-The head of the Lagos Council; she is fascinating, and all the other councillors are terrified of her.
-An artificial being called Salvo. He’s been Fin’s partner for years.
-A gazillionaire from Earth, who sees his next big opportunity off Earth.
I found the story moved at a good clip, and the tension ratcheted up nicely with each new calamity on board, or with growing questions on Lagos station and elsewhere about what was happening with the ship and its colonists.
The characters and their interactions were well handled, with misunderstandings in approaches, mindsets and communication causing tensions to rise further.
I particularly appreciated how Thompson showed the mental costs of the chaotic situation in Shell’s need to continually work her worry beads and watch the Lagos star rise, all while maintaining her stoic demeanour. And we see how detrimental Fin’s year off work has been to his mental health.
As an aside, I also liked how the aliens on Bloodroot are not inimical to the human population on the planet, which is a nice change from the usual. There are misunderstandings, but no desire to hurt one another.
The murder part of the plot is full of moments of revulsion, fear and danger, and the relationship amongst the characters, as well as the implications of the murder investigation for Lagos, evolve believably. The reveal of the motive points to problems far off on Earth, and this, along with the way the story ended, left me hoping Tade Thompson eventually returns to Bloodroot and Lagos, as I think he's set up some interesting points for later stories.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Orbit Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Solid book. Fun , fast read with the right amount of action and ideas. Rosewood is also a good series by the same author.
Far from the worst space opera, or closed-space whodunnit, that I have read. But also quite forgettable. As a colony vessel nears its destination, the first mate, Campion, wakes to find several other sleepers, including a VIP, are dead. She and an investigator, Fin, from the colony planet, Bloodroot, work to a solution, and chase after the guilty party. The motive seems quite noble, but does it fit the crime? Unfortunately, this dichotomy is never investigated and developed in the novel.
Afrofuturism at its best. I absolutely loved this book, and will definitely keep an eye out for more from this author. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
I wanted this book to be good. It has such promise. The story plot got my attention…but man it took forever for the book to ‘grab me’ and then when it finally did the end came so quickly I was left disappointed.
There seemed to be so much extra ‘fluff’ that took away from an otherwise interesting plot. You spent so much time being introduced to new characters, half of which did nothing for the plot and really could’ve been left out. This results in thinned out characters that fell flat.
Damn shame.
There seemed to be so much extra ‘fluff’ that took away from an otherwise interesting plot. You spent so much time being introduced to new characters, half of which did nothing for the plot and really could’ve been left out. This results in thinned out characters that fell flat.
Damn shame.
Finishing its ten year voyage, the colony ship Ragtime arrives at the colony planet Bloodroot, but when the Captain wakes from hypersleep, she finds some of her passengers dead and the ship AI unhelpful. Bloodroot sends her an investigator to help, and working together they try to find the culprit. What they find is weirder and more far-reaching than either of them could have imagined.
This was a really interesting mystery/thriller/space opera. It starts off as pure mystery, then is very definitely a ticking-clock thriller, all with lots of space opera. It starts off really strong, but then as things get explained and connecting stuff happens in other places, it peters off and stuff just ends abruptly. The ending has a lot of “and this happened” with very little explanation or development, and feels very unsatisfactory. I feel like things needed to be fleshed out a bit at the end, just so it’s not so abrupt and jumpy. Still, a really strong start and interesting world-building, so still going to give it 4 stars.
This was a really interesting mystery/thriller/space opera. It starts off as pure mystery, then is very definitely a ticking-clock thriller, all with lots of space opera. It starts off really strong, but then as things get explained and connecting stuff happens in other places, it peters off and stuff just ends abruptly. The ending has a lot of “and this happened” with very little explanation or development, and feels very unsatisfactory. I feel like things needed to be fleshed out a bit at the end, just so it’s not so abrupt and jumpy. Still, a really strong start and interesting world-building, so still going to give it 4 stars.
This is how I like my Sci Fi, not too tech heavy. There's a lot going on, perhaps too much for a 350 page book but I found it really enjoyable, a sort of Event Horizon meets Poseidon Adventure in space with some 2001 thrown in. Moral of the story is..... AI, just let it play chess, don't give it anything important to do, nothing good will come of it.