Far from the Light of Heaven

Paperback, 384 pages

Published Oct. 25, 2021 by Orbit.

ISBN:
978-0-7595-5791-8
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2 stars (1 review)

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.

2 editions

Far from the Light of Heaven

2 stars

I read this book because it was on a list of genre-defying sf books that looked interesting[*] and also because I had enjoyed the Rosewater books by Tade Thompson as well.

That list billed this book as a "locked starship murder mystery", and having that expectation disappointed me a little. This is no The Spare Man or Six Wakes where the plot involves chasing clues about the killer and the climax is the reveal of what's been going on. There is definitely a detective and a starship captain and a mystery, but the pacing of when the reveal happens makes this book feel much more like thriller/action/horror than an out and out mystery book. This is mostly my own expectations ruining things, but that structure removed a lot of the tension for me.

I enjoyed the aliens in this book (as expected from Tade Thompson). I won't talk details to …