Tade Thompson

Tense and thrilling, Far from the Light of Heaven is an unforgettable vision of humanity's future in the chilling emptiness of space by Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tade Thompson. The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years from home to bring thousands of sleeping souls to safety among the stars. Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake. As a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, its skeleton crew makes decisions that will have repercussions for all of humanity's settlements—from the scheming politics on Lagos station to the colony planet of Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed Earth itself. For more from Tade Thompson, check out: The Wormwood TrilogyRosewaterRosewater: InsurrectionRosewater: Redemption

Far from the Light of Heaven

Colleen

4 Stars
 
*A creative and fascinating blend of Afrofuturism, space opera, survival horror, and locked room mystery*

ARC provided by Orbit Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


Orbit Books is my go to publisher. I never used to pay attention to publishers, but Orbit’s curated collection of creative and diverse books has gotten consistently better ratings from me than any other publisher. So when I saw that they had a locked room mystery set on a spaceship, I was thrilled. And I was even more excited when I got approved for an advanced copy!

I was so excited, in fact, that I forgot to check what tense this was written in prior to requesting. And that’s totally on me. This doesn’t seem to bother most readers, but I really have a hard time connecting with novels written in present tense – which unfortunately Far From the Light of Heaven is. This isn’t an ultimate deal breaker, but I have a bad track record of not being able to like them. So I try to avoid present tense novels particularly for ARCs, because I know it affects my enjoyment. But I was still excited to read this book, so I kept an open mind. Even aside from the present tense narration, it admittedly took me a little bit to get used to Thompson’s writing style. It was very clipped and full of short, to-the-point sentences. It wasn’t the type of writing to meander around giving long descriptions. But after a couple of chapters, I got used to the writing style and was quickly absorbed in the story.

Far From the Light of Heaven is about a young woman named Michelle Campion embarking on her first space mission as first mate for a long haul transport of colonists from Earth to a far-off space colony. The roll was supposed to be mostly ceremonial with all crew and passengers spending the ten year journey in stasis while the ship AI runs things. But when Michelle wakes up as the ship approaches Lagos Station, she finds that she is now captain, the ship is barely functioning, and at least thirty passengers have been murdered and their chopped up body parts left in a heap.

The colony sends a disgraced investigator named Rasheed Fin and his Artificial partner to investigate just what went wrong on the ship.

I can’t say much about the plot without giving things away. And this is a story that is best to avoid spoilers for. But it is fast-paced and compelling with plenty of action. The book turned out to be less of a murder mystery and more of a space survival story, but it was still quite the page-turner.

The story also included commentary about exploited workers and social inequalities. On top of that were explorations about cultural heritage, guilt, retribution, the afterlife, and the impact of artificial intelligence. It was a complex story with a lot of intriguing elements.
 

  “Lagos was established by mainly Black Afrofuturists. Space is the Place. With considerable effort, all their fiscal and human resources and a rich, funky cultural history mixed with African myth and mythmaking, they willed the space station into being. More than a few white supremacists liked the idea of a large proportion of Black people leaving Earth. They were disappointed when Lagos flourished.”

The reason I gave this four stars instead of five was that things were jumbled and confusing at times. This seemed like the type of story to have a limited number of characters, but new characters kept being introduced. The story would be talking about events on the spaceship and then would suddenly jump to some random person on the planet. Sometimes those new characters would turn out to important. Sometimes they only led to yet another character and would never be mentioned again. I had no idea who was supposed to be important or who was just a side character. On top of that, the story was non-chronological. Some of those narrative jumps were back in time, and while the story said where each section took place, I don’t recall it saying when it was taking place. So I got thrown off quite a few times when something turned out to be a flashback. And jumping around made some of the characters’ actions seem abrupt rather than natural development. It didn’t ruin the story, but it definitely kept it from being a five star read.

Overall, Far From the Light of Heaven was still a creative and engaging space mystery story about the survival both of individuals and societies as a whole. Told through the lens of Afrofuturism and pulling from multiple genres, this exciting yet cerebral story will appeal to many different readers. 


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having travelled light years from home to bring one thousand sleeping souls to safety among the stars. Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake - and a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel. Its skeleton crew are forced to make decisions that will have repercussions for all of humanity's settlements - from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet of Bloodroot, to other far flung systems and indeed Earth itself. Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tade Thompson makes a triumphant return to science fiction with this unforgettable vision of humanity's future in the chilling emptiness of space.

Didi Chanoch

Closed room murder mystery in space? Check
Afrofuturistic space colony? Check
A variety of interesting AIs? Check
A cool alien race? Check
All caps REVENGE? Check

As is usually the case for Tade Thompson's work, this book does a lot, and does it very well.

Fraser Simons

This was a fun murder mystery that has a pretty cool setting that wasn’t super fleshed out. I got pulled out of the story trying to figure out how some things worked, which isn’t central to the story, but coupled with somewhat lacklustre character work, I kept wanting to know more about stuff not central to the core conceit. If you don’t care about that stuff and solely want the … semi locked room Murder mystery component? I think, is what it would be, I think those readers would really love this.

Lauren Sullivan

This book is everything I want in a space mystery. I love locked room mysteries, and this book utterly blew me away with its version on a spaceship. It’s utterly thought-provoking and extremely hard to put down!

“Let me get this straight. You have never investigated a killing on board a large spacecraft?”
“Any spacecraft, really. But don’t worry. The principle is the same, except all your culprits are locked in here. With murder, some things never change: means, motive, opportunity.”

Shell has trained for years to go into space and now finally has her chance as the captain of the Ragtime, a passenger transport bound for the colony of Bloodroot. It’s a bit of a joke, though, that all that training is mostly superfluous as all the real work is done by the ship’s AI while she and the passengers are in an induced sleep. But when she’s woken on the other side, it’s to disaster. Ragtime isn’t responding and dozens of passengers are dead. Desperate to save the rest, she contacts Bloodroot for help, and they send her Fin and his Artifical partner Salvo. Fin’s currently in disgrace due to a repatriation job gone wrong, but surely even he can figure out what murdered her passengers. But more importantly, they need to figure out how to survive, because the actions they take on this one spaceship may soon affect the future of the entire galaxy.

“Why am I insane?”
“Because you are still trying to solve a murder when you should be trying to survive. Tick-tock, Rasheed. Life support is running out.”

The book is mainly told from the captain and the investigator’s point of view, though there are several other POV characters. I loved Shell from the first page. As someone who’s known from the start that she’s basically an overtrained babysitter, she rises to the occasion of having all of that knowledge suddenly be very, very necessary for her (and the ship’s) continued survival. She’s lacking in a few of the soft skills – she comes off as an insufferable know-it-all occasionally – but her focus is always on her duty to her (remaining) passengers. Fin, on the other hand… well, Finn hates space, and he knows the reason he was sent on this mission – which has nothing to do with repatriation – was because he’s already someone his bosses feel willing to wipe their hands of if he screws it up. What exactly repatriation is is something that it takes a good chunk of the book to explain, but, like the rest of the breadcrumbs throughout the book, it’s totally worth it. There’s a few other characters, including retired astronaut Lawrence, a quasi-uncle of Shell’s and now the in-title-only governor of Lagos station, and his daughter Joké, who come rushing to Shell’s aid when he hears that something’s gone wrong. Beko, the actual administrator of the station, originally struck me as nothing more than another politician, but by the end of the book, I was firmly a fan.

“The pressure of living is the pressure of the reader of a story who wants something to go awry, otherwise what’s the point?”

And that’s one of the things I loved about this book. Hints of the plot are scattered like breadcrumbs, and your initial interpretation of events (or characters) is likely to be shaken as the book progresses. It’s hard, though, to talk too much about the plot without going into spoilers. The pacing is terrific, with one discovery or twist after another keeping the plot moving, and the book was extremely hard for me to put down. The mystery portion itself is top notch, but it’s also exploring themes of inequality and colonialism; both Lagos and Bloodroot are based on Afro-futurist principles, with Bloodroot especially adhering to living with their new planet, in direct opposition to the climate-wrecked Earth. The only thing that stopped me from giving it 5 stars was some “men-writing-women” stumbles that took me out of the story.

Overall, easily a 4.5 star book, and one I’ll be thinking about for a long time. I’ve already added the author’s previous trilogy to near-the-top of my TBR and cannot wait to see what he writes next!

Content notes: (view spoiler)[violence (including murder, dismemberment), cannibalism, racism (including the n-word), grief, PTSD, colonialism (hide spoiler)]

Erica LeBlanc

Locked room whodunit in space???? YES PLEASE!

I really enjoyed Far From the Light of Heaven. It was really well written and I was completely invested in figuring out what the hell happened on the ship and who the killer was!!! And it wasn’t just a typical murder and hide. It was SO GOOD! It’s one of those books that I wish I could just delete from my brain so I can read it for the first time again!

There were a bunch of AI characters (YAY!), a found crew, a philosophical clusterfuck on what qualifies as “good,” a wolf, and, of course, lots and lots of violence!

I want the wolf, just saying.

My only complaint is the completely random mini-romance that actually decreased my enjoyment. (Which is really weird for me because I normally LOVE romance in books!) I didn’t like it partly because of the hint of sapphic that was never delivered and partly because if just didn’t make sense. It was exasperating. You’re on a compromised ship with a mystery killer… probably not the best moment for this. It might have bugged me less if it was just a hookup. It just felt a little too insta-emotional attachment for my tastes. Especially when I’m way more interested in who the killer is and what’s going on!

Other than that, I really dug this book!!! I definitely recommend.

Thanks Orbit Books for sending me an earc of this book!!

Stefanie Viens

Lesley McNeil

Michelle Miller

shellybn

Tense and thrilling, Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tade Thompson's new science fiction is an unforgettable vision of humanity's future among the stars. The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years from home to bring thousands of sleeping souls to safety among the stars. Some of the sleepers, however, will never wake - and a profound and sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel as its skeleton crew make decisions that will have repercussions for the entire system - from the scheming politicians of Lagos station to the colony of Nightshade and the poisoned planet of Bloodroot, poised for a civil war. For more from Tade Thompson, check out: The Wormwood TrilogyRosewaterRosewater: InsurrectionRosewater: Redemption

Far from the Light of Heaven

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