★★★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: An Unkindness Of Ghosts
• Author: Rivers Solomon
• Year: 2017 (mine was 2017 trade paperback)
• Pages: 349
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Publisher: Akashic
• ISBN 978-1-61775-588-0 (trade paperback)
• Wikipedia page
• Author’s Wikipedia page

 

Summary

I admit I never would have selected this book from a library shelf based on the title or cover, which was another tangible lesson for me in the literal meaning of “don’t judge a book by its cover”. I got here by seeing an announcement of upcoming sci-fi books, including Solomon’s recently published The Deep, which sounded interesting, and looking into their bio, which listed their debut novel, An Unkindness Of Ghosts. Despite the false impression I took from the title, this is a “hard” sci-fi book; there are no literal ghosts.

The story is set inside a “generation ship” on its way from Earth to distant worlds unknown, more than 300 years since departure. Whatever its original state, the ship is now governed by an autocratic theocracy (aren’t all theocracies autocratic?) with a good deal of racism and sexism thrown in for good measure — much like real life today but even more like the plantation economy of the 1800s southeastern U.S. states and also somewhat like the Jim Crow era. It follows Aster as she moves from helpless acceptance to willful rebellion.

 

Commentary

The overall story arc reminded me of Heinlein’s 1963 novel Orphans Of The Sky (Wikipedia), which was the first story I read set inside a generation ship. Other parts reminded me of Heinlein’s 1957 work Citizen Of The Galaxy (Wikipedia), especially some of the shipboard culture and anti-oppression bent. This is not to say that Solomon’s writing style is anything like Heinlein’s, nor that any parts of her story were derivative (other than the general sense in which most fiction is somewhat derivative of older fiction), but only that these two comparisons kept popping up — favorably — as I read.

Though most of this book is third-person, focused on Aster, a handful of chapters are first-person, from the perspective of a few other main characters — Theo, Giselle, Melusine. The author brilliantly describes the characters, both their appearance and their personalities, without losing any pacing by doing so. I very quickly appreciated that several characters were presented as neurodivergent — a term I recently learned and hope I’m using correctly. I specifically identified with Aster in her struggles to relate to other people, her difficulties in detecting when others were joking or using figurative speech, her preference for being alone (while also sometimes desiring meaningful company), her use of self-distracting mental patterns to regain equilibrium, and so on.

As other reviewers noted (that’s a very good review, by the way), “it is not a happy book”. And: “like a vaccine, it is briefly painful, leaving a lingering soreness, but armors you from the inside out.” Normally, I don’t enjoy art that is too terribly reflective of the horrors of real life. Often I decline movies or shows because “If that’s what I want to feel, I can just look at real life.” I enjoy fiction because parts of it don’t resemble reality, because there are solutions and end-points and possibilities of redeeming the irredeemable. Yet this story resonated with me so strongly that I couldn’t turn away. At times I was left emotionally ragged, yet also brutalized into numbness.

Both in its tiny details and in its grand scope, this book was impressive — especially for a debut novel. The world-building — both the parts left behind the scenes and the parts revealed to the reader — was incredible.

 

Points Off For...

I can’t think of a single criticism.

 

Conclusion

If Solomon’s forthcoming books are in the same class as this one, then I have no doubt they will quickly be recognized as a modern-day sci-fi juggernaut.

 

 

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