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The Osiris Project #1
Osiris
Nobody leaves Osiris.
Adelaide Rechnov
Wealthy socialite and granddaughter of the Architect, she spends her time in pointless luxury, rebelling against her family in a series of jaded social extravagances and scandals until her twin brother disappears in mysterious circumstances.
Vikram Bai
He lives in the Western Quarter, home to the poor descendants of storm refugees and effectively quarantined from the wealthy elite. His people live with cold and starvation, but the coming brutal winter promises civil unrest, and a return to the riots of previous years.
As tensions rise in the city, can Adelaide and Vikram bridge the divide at the heart of Osiris before conspiracies bring them to the edge of disaster?
450 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 5, 2012
18 people are currently reading
1810 people want to read
About the author
E.J. Swift
26 books96 followersE. J. Swift is the author of The Osiris Project trilogy, a speculative fiction series set in a world radically altered by climate change, comprising Osiris, Cataveiro and Tamaruq. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies from Salt Publishing, NewCon Press and Jurassic London, including The Best British Fantasy (Salt Publishing, 2013 and 2014).
Swift was shortlisted for a 2013 BSFA Award in the Short Fiction category for her story “Saga’s Children” (The Lowest Heaven, Jurassic) and was longlisted for the 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for “The Spiders of Stockholm” (Irregularity, Jurassic).
Swift was shortlisted for a 2013 BSFA Award in the Short Fiction category for her story “Saga’s Children” (The Lowest Heaven, Jurassic) and was longlisted for the 2015 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award for “The Spiders of Stockholm” (Irregularity, Jurassic).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
December 23, 2012
I can see how people who are fans of certain other writers (Bruce Sterling for sure, Neal Stephenson maybe) would enjoy this book. I can say with certainty that it isn't terrible, it's a quick read, and if you're reading it because you liked something else and wanted another in the same vein, it'd work for you.
It has several problems:
1) main female character has absolutely no goals that don't revolve around the men in her life. I mean, seriously, none. Chasing her missing twin brother, rebelling against her father and her brothers, or wanting/pushing away the two men she's having sex with. Aside from maybe one brief conversation in a party scene toward the end, and one quick conversation with a poor teen girl from the West, this book fails the Bechdel test in a big way.
2) The author uses language as a shorthand for the book's time period (the future) but obviously doesn't know much about linguistics. She uses only a few non-English words in a very English-speaking community, and uses them when there are English words that mean the same thing, so She's making a point about the exoticness of the words. Plus she's created tech based on the fact that they live on a floating island, so it's all ocean-based, giving us things like "Reefmail" instead of "email". Yes, really. Also she uses very florid language, but occasionally throws in "fuck" to seem ... relevant? Street? I don't know, and it doesn't fit the prose.
3) There's a very us vs them feel to the book in terms of race, white/upperclass (they're described as pale, and the main female has red hair) while the lowerclass is either Chinese (and some racist comments made along the lines of "how cute it is that the exotic Chinese servants kept their Mandarin", as if the author is unaware that they'd be a lot more likely to have kept Cantonese and that there's actually dozens of other major options instead of Mandarin - unless you're getting your knowledge of future Chinese people from Firefly) or some undescribed "outsider" that's probably Russian/Slavic. Other than the few Chinese - who are literally waiters in a restaurant - it doesn't describe anyone as being a person of color, so basically there's good white and bad "slightly darker than white only because they're Eastern European instead of British/American".
4) You can tell from the first 20 pages what the entire series is about. Who's going to rebel, who's going to fall for who, even the great big lie being told to the people of Osiris. Especially because those particular plot points have been done over and over again.
5) The book is largely told through narration, instead of action or dialogue.
Ignoring all of that, it gets readable about half-way through, once the author has accepted that you get what she's trying to establish and just tells the rest of the story.
It has several problems:
1) main female character has absolutely no goals that don't revolve around the men in her life. I mean, seriously, none. Chasing her missing twin brother, rebelling against her father and her brothers, or wanting/pushing away the two men she's having sex with. Aside from maybe one brief conversation in a party scene toward the end, and one quick conversation with a poor teen girl from the West, this book fails the Bechdel test in a big way.
2) The author uses language as a shorthand for the book's time period (the future) but obviously doesn't know much about linguistics. She uses only a few non-English words in a very English-speaking community, and uses them when there are English words that mean the same thing, so She's making a point about the exoticness of the words. Plus she's created tech based on the fact that they live on a floating island, so it's all ocean-based, giving us things like "Reefmail" instead of "email". Yes, really. Also she uses very florid language, but occasionally throws in "fuck" to seem ... relevant? Street? I don't know, and it doesn't fit the prose.
3) There's a very us vs them feel to the book in terms of race, white/upperclass (they're described as pale, and the main female has red hair) while the lowerclass is either Chinese (and some racist comments made along the lines of "how cute it is that the exotic Chinese servants kept their Mandarin", as if the author is unaware that they'd be a lot more likely to have kept Cantonese and that there's actually dozens of other major options instead of Mandarin - unless you're getting your knowledge of future Chinese people from Firefly) or some undescribed "outsider" that's probably Russian/Slavic. Other than the few Chinese - who are literally waiters in a restaurant - it doesn't describe anyone as being a person of color, so basically there's good white and bad "slightly darker than white only because they're Eastern European instead of British/American".
4) You can tell from the first 20 pages what the entire series is about. Who's going to rebel, who's going to fall for who, even the great big lie being told to the people of Osiris. Especially because those particular plot points have been done over and over again.
5) The book is largely told through narration, instead of action or dialogue.
Ignoring all of that, it gets readable about half-way through, once the author has accepted that you get what she's trying to establish and just tells the rest of the story.
February 20, 2012
Here's my blurb:
A novel like the sea surrounding the city of Osiris: full of deep mystery, ineffable beauty, and the siren call of forbidden love. Swift has gifted us with a mesmerizing debut, and I eagerly await her next work. –Mike Mullin, author of Ashfall.
A novel like the sea surrounding the city of Osiris: full of deep mystery, ineffable beauty, and the siren call of forbidden love. Swift has gifted us with a mesmerizing debut, and I eagerly await her next work. –Mike Mullin, author of Ashfall.
January 10, 2015
I wanted to like this book. It's got an eye-catching cover, and seems like it could have been a cool post-apocalyptic story.
50 pages in, I was almost ready to DNF it (something I very rarely do) but I persisted until the end out of stubbornness, and because I was just barely interested enough to see what happens.
This is a far future in which the last remnants of mankind live in an isolated floating city-state called Osiris. After some unspecified environmental apocalypse, refugees from all over the world flocked here, and they then barricaded themselves within the city's boundaries and shut off all entrance or egress from the city. Now everyone believes that no one else survives anywhere else on Earth, and they've had no contact with the outside world for generations.
This makes Osiris somewhat like a more traditional "generation ship" story, where inevitably you find out that there is some deep, dark secret behind whoever is running the ship, or where it's going, or other survivors or whatever. Such is hinted at in this book.
E.J. Swift (another of those women writers hiding her gender behind initials, though the writing gave her away pretty quickly) does turn a pretty phrase, and throughout the book, the imagery of Osiris brings it to life, a sea-born city in which the presence of the ocean and their fearful dependence on it is always present.
Unfortunately, the plot itself is predictable and buried beneath excessive prose-smithing and overwrought metaphors. Everything in Osiris is nautical - they read "Reefmail" on "Neptunes" and watch things on the "o'vis" and chat via "o'voys." They eat kelp squares and fish, and even the alcohol is apparently fermented kelp. (Yuck!)
The two POV characters are Adelaide Rechnov, the super-wealthy daughter of one of Osiris's ruling families, and Vikram, a would-be activist living in the city's neglected, oppressed western district, where after the initial wave of refugees arrived, the rest were fenced off and made to eke out a precarious, subsistence living in unheated slums while the Citizens dwell in high-tech towers and throw gala parties. Adelaide is not a very sympathetic character, being motivated partly by spoiled rich-girl rebelliousness against Mommy and Daddy, and partly by a desire to find her psychologically troubled twin brother, who disappears as the book begins. Searching for him brings her into contact with Vikram, and the two of them use each other (in more ways than one) until the inevitable bad end. Rich girl picks up a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and then violence.
Really, nothing unexpected at all happens. The anticlimactic resolution of the central mystery was telegraphed in the prologue, while the intriguing bits of worldbuilding are left dangling as loose threads to be picked up in future books, which I'm not interested enough to read.
E.J. Swift is a talented writer, but the writing alone could not hold my attention, and in the end it was a chore to finish this.
50 pages in, I was almost ready to DNF it (something I very rarely do) but I persisted until the end out of stubbornness, and because I was just barely interested enough to see what happens.
This is a far future in which the last remnants of mankind live in an isolated floating city-state called Osiris. After some unspecified environmental apocalypse, refugees from all over the world flocked here, and they then barricaded themselves within the city's boundaries and shut off all entrance or egress from the city. Now everyone believes that no one else survives anywhere else on Earth, and they've had no contact with the outside world for generations.
This makes Osiris somewhat like a more traditional "generation ship" story, where inevitably you find out that there is some deep, dark secret behind whoever is running the ship, or where it's going, or other survivors or whatever. Such is hinted at in this book.
E.J. Swift (another of those women writers hiding her gender behind initials, though the writing gave her away pretty quickly) does turn a pretty phrase, and throughout the book, the imagery of Osiris brings it to life, a sea-born city in which the presence of the ocean and their fearful dependence on it is always present.
He has spent hours in this space, high in the eyries of Osiris, where gulls and other birds wheel and screech their hunger. Sometimes he stands and leans over and peers into the depths of the morning mist. Other times he perches on the railings, with death at his side like a neighbour. Occasionally he sleeps. The cold is hostile, and he is not dressed to face it. He wakes in the frost, trembling, surprised still to be here.
In the brittle air he feels, acutely, the internal heat of his body battling with the outside draught. His blood pulses, torrid and bright. His heart tattoos a rhythm in his chest. Icy stone pushes against his bare feet. When the storms come, the elements sweep around him in multilingual conference. Rain lashes the windows and his skin, wind claims the moisture back. He has forgotten that he is afraid of storms. He turns his face to the heavens and closes his eyes.
Unfortunately, the plot itself is predictable and buried beneath excessive prose-smithing and overwrought metaphors. Everything in Osiris is nautical - they read "Reefmail" on "Neptunes" and watch things on the "o'vis" and chat via "o'voys." They eat kelp squares and fish, and even the alcohol is apparently fermented kelp. (Yuck!)
The two POV characters are Adelaide Rechnov, the super-wealthy daughter of one of Osiris's ruling families, and Vikram, a would-be activist living in the city's neglected, oppressed western district, where after the initial wave of refugees arrived, the rest were fenced off and made to eke out a precarious, subsistence living in unheated slums while the Citizens dwell in high-tech towers and throw gala parties. Adelaide is not a very sympathetic character, being motivated partly by spoiled rich-girl rebelliousness against Mommy and Daddy, and partly by a desire to find her psychologically troubled twin brother, who disappears as the book begins. Searching for him brings her into contact with Vikram, and the two of them use each other (in more ways than one) until the inevitable bad end. Rich girl picks up a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and then violence.
Really, nothing unexpected at all happens. The anticlimactic resolution of the central mystery was telegraphed in the prologue, while the intriguing bits of worldbuilding are left dangling as loose threads to be picked up in future books, which I'm not interested enough to read.
E.J. Swift is a talented writer, but the writing alone could not hold my attention, and in the end it was a chore to finish this.
May 3, 2013
This story revolves around two main characters. Adelaide Rechnov is the grand daughter of the man who built Osiris after the water wiped out most of the planets population. He is called the Architect.
The Rechnov’s are one of 3 families who rebuilt and thus control Osiris. Adelaide does not appreciate all the rules and expectations that the Rechnov family requires of all their members, and she is rebelling against that even to the point of adopting the last name Mystik. Here the author has inserted a little gotya in that this is very close to “mistake” ; which is how Adelaide feels about every thing.
Adelaide’s twin brother Axel goes missing and no one seems to be working very hard or fast to find him.
Vikram, again the authors gotya on “victim” , lives on the other side of the track if you will in an area called the Westerns. Here is where you would say the down trodden left overs of society live. Electricity is scarce. Food is scarce. Basically it’s the slums. But Vikram wants to change that. However to get any improvements he will have to get support from someone in a power position in Osiris.
His best bet is Adelaide and he is soon sneaking into Osiris to get her help.
While originally put off by Vikrams lack of manners, general lack of cleanliness she does eventually come around and start to help him. She is also still looking for her twin brother Axel.
The book is an interesting expose of an ultra rich culture versus an ultra poor culture with Vikram tryingto get a better balance.
The pace of the book is slow and I note the author states that this is the first book in a trilogy so the story ends with a cliff hanger.
The Rechnov’s are one of 3 families who rebuilt and thus control Osiris. Adelaide does not appreciate all the rules and expectations that the Rechnov family requires of all their members, and she is rebelling against that even to the point of adopting the last name Mystik. Here the author has inserted a little gotya in that this is very close to “mistake” ; which is how Adelaide feels about every thing.
Adelaide’s twin brother Axel goes missing and no one seems to be working very hard or fast to find him.
Vikram, again the authors gotya on “victim” , lives on the other side of the track if you will in an area called the Westerns. Here is where you would say the down trodden left overs of society live. Electricity is scarce. Food is scarce. Basically it’s the slums. But Vikram wants to change that. However to get any improvements he will have to get support from someone in a power position in Osiris.
His best bet is Adelaide and he is soon sneaking into Osiris to get her help.
While originally put off by Vikrams lack of manners, general lack of cleanliness she does eventually come around and start to help him. She is also still looking for her twin brother Axel.
The book is an interesting expose of an ultra rich culture versus an ultra poor culture with Vikram tryingto get a better balance.
The pace of the book is slow and I note the author states that this is the first book in a trilogy so the story ends with a cliff hanger.
September 13, 2012
I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. I thought the world was interesting and exciting, and several times throughout the book I thought, okay, now we're getting somewhere good. The problem was that none of the developments amounted to anything except to go read the second book. I thought the end was convoluted and confusing, and the pacing throughout the book was very odd. It was difficult to keep track of how much time had passed between the chapters, as some chapters it was 10 seconds, and some seemed to be a week or more. I will still likely read the next book, because I want to see a wider view of this world, but sadly was disappointed in the lack of clear plot in this novel.
September 16, 2012
Osiris is a confidently written, fast-paced dystopian thriller with an intriguing set of characters and a very well fleshed-out world. The vivid descriptions and action sequences are strengths in this novel and Swift is able to also include some social commentary and political subtext in her depiction of a sleek island city ruled by an elite class of sophisticates who look down on the less privileged dwellers in the outlying districts. Lots of twists and turns. Lovers of the dystopian sub-genre should enjoy this novel.
August 13, 2012
The Osiris Project is promising to be a very interesting series and, while there were issues with a clunky, disjointed pace and lackluster characters, I’m anxiously waiting to see what Swift has coming at us next. Osiris is the start of a fascinating series which proudly showcases the evolution of speculative fiction.
Read my full review here:
http://www.bookwormblues.net/2012/08/...
Read my full review here:
http://www.bookwormblues.net/2012/08/...
May 16, 2018
DNF at page 25
Maybe my attention span is terrible right now but there is absolutely nothing interesting about this book to keep me going. I instantly disliked the main female protagonist "Adelaide," who has no personality. The two points of view (Adelaide and Vikram) are indistinguishable. The world building makes little sense. I feel like I've read this book before. Ok. I didn't read enough of it to say anything more. :/
Maybe my attention span is terrible right now but there is absolutely nothing interesting about this book to keep me going. I instantly disliked the main female protagonist "Adelaide," who has no personality. The two points of view (Adelaide and Vikram) are indistinguishable. The world building makes little sense. I feel like I've read this book before. Ok. I didn't read enough of it to say anything more. :/
March 8, 2017
Started out with promise. DNF'd. Turned to literal shit, with the actual interesting parts of the plot being drowned by all the fucking love interests.
Adelaide is not a loveable or even admirable character. She's a very easy character to hate, which is not okay considering you, as the reader, are supposed to root for her.
Vikram's personality fizzled out. From cool Mr Rebel Leader to some distant, bland love interest.
The pacing was beyond slow, like, half the shit that happened and was described did fuck all to move the story in any direction aside from down - deeper into a cesspool of filler. Nearing the end, the chapters and sentences themselves lost meaning. So many obscure metaphors, not enough cohesive thought processes. Just words minced together through some random generator.
Oh god, this book pissed me off.
Adelaide is not a loveable or even admirable character. She's a very easy character to hate, which is not okay considering you, as the reader, are supposed to root for her.
Vikram's personality fizzled out. From cool Mr Rebel Leader to some distant, bland love interest.
The pacing was beyond slow, like, half the shit that happened and was described did fuck all to move the story in any direction aside from down - deeper into a cesspool of filler. Nearing the end, the chapters and sentences themselves lost meaning. So many obscure metaphors, not enough cohesive thought processes. Just words minced together through some random generator.
Oh god, this book pissed me off.
April 16, 2013
Occasionally derivative, (shades of China Mieville, I thought, maybe even a little bit of Philip K Dick), but nicely written, with some wonderful world building.
A city of glass, towers above the endless ocean. Some disaster has befallen the Earth and the people of Osiris believe they’re the last humans alive – though it seems that some of the city’s rulers have gone to a lot of trouble to ensure Osirans believe they’re the World's last people, making it virtual heresy to even question the matter.
There are a lot of secrets in Osiris, an urban fantasy-come-SF novel with a political slant – how does the world treat its refugees? Written from the point of view of two characters - rich, spoiled, thoroughly dislikeable Easterner Adelaide, and oppressed Easterner-woobie, Vikkram - Osiris is a tale of two cities, the slick, rich, glossy East and the abandoned West, home to refugees from the rest of the ruined Earth.
Osiris is slow to get going, the characters take a while to truly grow, but as it all begins to come together, as you come to know the – well rounded, shades-of-grey, very believable – characters, it becomes hard to put down. There are several plots that run together and none of them are completely resolved by the end (this is the first in a trilogy), but don’t let that put you off; this is a very engaging novel by a talented writer. I’m looking forward to seeing the loose ends tied up in the next instalment.
A city of glass, towers above the endless ocean. Some disaster has befallen the Earth and the people of Osiris believe they’re the last humans alive – though it seems that some of the city’s rulers have gone to a lot of trouble to ensure Osirans believe they’re the World's last people, making it virtual heresy to even question the matter.
There are a lot of secrets in Osiris, an urban fantasy-come-SF novel with a political slant – how does the world treat its refugees? Written from the point of view of two characters - rich, spoiled, thoroughly dislikeable Easterner Adelaide, and oppressed Easterner-woobie, Vikkram - Osiris is a tale of two cities, the slick, rich, glossy East and the abandoned West, home to refugees from the rest of the ruined Earth.
Osiris is slow to get going, the characters take a while to truly grow, but as it all begins to come together, as you come to know the – well rounded, shades-of-grey, very believable – characters, it becomes hard to put down. There are several plots that run together and none of them are completely resolved by the end (this is the first in a trilogy), but don’t let that put you off; this is a very engaging novel by a talented writer. I’m looking forward to seeing the loose ends tied up in the next instalment.
October 11, 2014
It took me a while to put together a review for this book. I'm not sure why. It was an enjoyable read, albeit not a particularly sophisticated one. And I am not quite sure why I even say that - it just had that feel. A pot-boiler.
Diving into that that, the book is not particularly dense. Its sentences lacking the vibrancy of a Banks and the urgency of a Morgan. It was dark. But not nearly as dark as other post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel. Its characters interesting, but not particularly memorable. Its plot moving slowly at first and then accelerating to exciting conflict at the end - one that seems to tie itself up just a little neatly for my tastes.
That being said, there is something about Osiris that has hooked me in the back of my mind. Its the setting. Even if its not as well described as other futures, the concept itself is alluring. Rising seas. Storms. A self-sustaining city in midst of the ocean, completely alone. Its a fantastic concept. An intriguing pallet upon which to world build. And even if Swift didn't paint the most vibrant picture in her first go round, I think that with the setting she has imagined, I will be sure to give Osiris another chance in her second attempt.
Diving into that that, the book is not particularly dense. Its sentences lacking the vibrancy of a Banks and the urgency of a Morgan. It was dark. But not nearly as dark as other post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel. Its characters interesting, but not particularly memorable. Its plot moving slowly at first and then accelerating to exciting conflict at the end - one that seems to tie itself up just a little neatly for my tastes.
That being said, there is something about Osiris that has hooked me in the back of my mind. Its the setting. Even if its not as well described as other futures, the concept itself is alluring. Rising seas. Storms. A self-sustaining city in midst of the ocean, completely alone. Its a fantastic concept. An intriguing pallet upon which to world build. And even if Swift didn't paint the most vibrant picture in her first go round, I think that with the setting she has imagined, I will be sure to give Osiris another chance in her second attempt.
March 30, 2013
Osiris was a dream that turned to dust, but then what kind of dystopic post-apocalyptic book would we have if everything did not go to hell?
In this world storms and well everything really turned the world to a wasteland and Osiris was a refuge for some. The rest of the world is dead..or is it? (no really is it? I wanna know!! I guess I have to wait until book 2 for that). But this Oasis is not a happy place. There are citizens who have it all, and then refuges behind a wall who has nothing and freeze to death. The perfect setting to cause some conflict. Especially since our heroine is a spoiled rich girl and the hero a poor Westerner.
The premise is interesting. A city eating itself, but some being to close-minded to see it. A world where I wonder if anyone is alive in the world? Because the rich have secrets.
The characters are not exactly lovable. Adelaide is rich and spoiled, and obsessed with finding her lost brother. Vikram on the other hand is nice, but maybe a bit naive. Sometimes you just have to storm the barricades. But they grow on you.
Osiris has a pace of it's own, it moves slowly, like a dream. And when it ends I do wonder, what's next? I enjoyed it.
In this world storms and well everything really turned the world to a wasteland and Osiris was a refuge for some. The rest of the world is dead..or is it? (no really is it? I wanna know!! I guess I have to wait until book 2 for that). But this Oasis is not a happy place. There are citizens who have it all, and then refuges behind a wall who has nothing and freeze to death. The perfect setting to cause some conflict. Especially since our heroine is a spoiled rich girl and the hero a poor Westerner.
The premise is interesting. A city eating itself, but some being to close-minded to see it. A world where I wonder if anyone is alive in the world? Because the rich have secrets.
The characters are not exactly lovable. Adelaide is rich and spoiled, and obsessed with finding her lost brother. Vikram on the other hand is nice, but maybe a bit naive. Sometimes you just have to storm the barricades. But they grow on you.
Osiris has a pace of it's own, it moves slowly, like a dream. And when it ends I do wonder, what's next? I enjoyed it.
Read
August 2, 2015A unique world, where the city itself is a character. Told from two points of view.
While this does work as a standalone, the ending felt curiously unresolved to me, as though the events in the book might be doomed to repeat over and over. Not to mention the fact that
.
As someone who doesn't enjoy reading romance, I appreciated that the relationships were kept tightly controlled as subplots. It's one of the few books I've read brave enough to resolve the love interests this way, where .
While this does work as a standalone, the ending felt curiously unresolved to me, as though the events in the book might be doomed to repeat over and over. Not to mention the fact that
.
As someone who doesn't enjoy reading romance, I appreciated that the relationships were kept tightly controlled as subplots. It's one of the few books I've read brave enough to resolve the love interests this way, where .
August 6, 2016
Vividly portrayed in a stirring dystopian, Osiris is a futuristic island society with sharp divisions of wealth and basic rights. The possibilities of this future world are haunting, and the realistically drawn characters bring it to life...to leave you thinking of them long after you put the book down.
Want to read
June 17, 2012ZOMG. This one sounds interesting. Plus that cover! Love everything about it--the composition, the light fading through the middle, the vertical landscape, the scale. <3
February 6, 2015
2.5/5.0
June 2, 2016
2.5 stars
January 30, 2018
Once I realized it was a romance novel masquerading as sci fi, I gave up.
July 10, 2017
I like my Kindle, but the sample chapters you can download aren’t enough. I have to give a book 100 pages before I know whether it’s worth persevering with. So after downloading the beginning of Osiris, I found myself enjoying it, but not really getting into it enough to actually shell out some dough and stop being tight.
Fast-forward a couple of years and I see the book in the local Book Cycle, a place where you can donate some money and just walk away with books. 50p later (yeah yeah, I’m tight) I’m walking away with a book that I half-remember had a decent opening and looking forward to getting stuck into some reading.
Osiris is the last city on Earth, a Utopian experiment battered by extreme weather and climate change so badly that it functions improperly, the East maintaining an acceptable standard of living for its inhabitants and the West containing refugees and the brutalised poor, kept out of the East and at bay by a ring fence and patrolling Home Guard who show no mercy when it comes to keeping the borders tight.
The story revolves around two characters; one a hedonistic celebrity and member of an illustrious family, the other a politicised refugee. Adelaide is the granddaughter of the Architect, founder of the city, searching for her missing twin, whom she believes alive and possibly held by her family as part of an elaborate cover-up. She uses the abilities Vikram gained from his morally-grey past in the West, to assist in her own investigations into her brother’s disappearance. Vikram on the other hand, uses Adelaide and her connections to gain audience with the City Council, on which her family sit, to plead for aid for the West.
The speed at which the character’s lives enmesh is spectacular, each seeing the other’s lives through a new lens whilst being dragged down in each others scheming, almost hating what they are doing but realising they’re too involved to back out.
Swift has a knack of drip-feeding just the right amount of information to enable you to hate some of her characters, by which I mean their motives are obviously driven by things much more complex than you, the reader are privy to. You can hate Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, but you will never know the full journey of how they came to arrive at their beliefs. Similarly, Swifts characters are more than 2D baddies, and their motives are tantalisingly under the surface, they believe what they are doing is right, but they’re damned if they’re going to justify themselves to the likes of you.
It is remarkably done, and leads to you hating the actions of both Easterners and Westerners as their own concerns impede the actions of both Adelaide and Vikram.
In short, the novel barrelled along, the dialogue and scenes were crisp and the characters multi-layered and involved. I will be purchasing the sequel(s), in full price, and will not be so tight in future.
Fast-forward a couple of years and I see the book in the local Book Cycle, a place where you can donate some money and just walk away with books. 50p later (yeah yeah, I’m tight) I’m walking away with a book that I half-remember had a decent opening and looking forward to getting stuck into some reading.
Osiris is the last city on Earth, a Utopian experiment battered by extreme weather and climate change so badly that it functions improperly, the East maintaining an acceptable standard of living for its inhabitants and the West containing refugees and the brutalised poor, kept out of the East and at bay by a ring fence and patrolling Home Guard who show no mercy when it comes to keeping the borders tight.
The story revolves around two characters; one a hedonistic celebrity and member of an illustrious family, the other a politicised refugee. Adelaide is the granddaughter of the Architect, founder of the city, searching for her missing twin, whom she believes alive and possibly held by her family as part of an elaborate cover-up. She uses the abilities Vikram gained from his morally-grey past in the West, to assist in her own investigations into her brother’s disappearance. Vikram on the other hand, uses Adelaide and her connections to gain audience with the City Council, on which her family sit, to plead for aid for the West.
The speed at which the character’s lives enmesh is spectacular, each seeing the other’s lives through a new lens whilst being dragged down in each others scheming, almost hating what they are doing but realising they’re too involved to back out.
Swift has a knack of drip-feeding just the right amount of information to enable you to hate some of her characters, by which I mean their motives are obviously driven by things much more complex than you, the reader are privy to. You can hate Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, but you will never know the full journey of how they came to arrive at their beliefs. Similarly, Swifts characters are more than 2D baddies, and their motives are tantalisingly under the surface, they believe what they are doing is right, but they’re damned if they’re going to justify themselves to the likes of you.
It is remarkably done, and leads to you hating the actions of both Easterners and Westerners as their own concerns impede the actions of both Adelaide and Vikram.
In short, the novel barrelled along, the dialogue and scenes were crisp and the characters multi-layered and involved. I will be purchasing the sequel(s), in full price, and will not be so tight in future.
Read
February 10, 2021Full Review Here
I’ve had Osiris on my bookshelf for a few years, never quite getting to it. I’m making an effort to tackle more of my physical books and this was the first I picked up – and sure enough, I wish I’d read it sooner. I had no pre-conceptions about this novel, but enjoyed it start to finish.
Osiris is a dystopian science-fiction novel, exploring a world where one city is all that’s left. There’s a clear divide between rich and poor though, and one side cannot understand the other. Trying to bridge that gap, desperate to seek help, westerner Vikram sets up a bold proposal. Crashing into socialite Adelaide’s life, he has no idea she has her own agenda, while she does not understand how complicated emotions can be.
Vik is a fantastic protagonist. He’s passionate about making a difference, changing the dire circumstances his people live in. Vik’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, knowing he’s going to cross lines if he wants to bring about change. He’s brave and bold… and human.
Vik’s terror of the underwater cells is explored in such a visceral way: I shuddered with the same claustrophobia he feels when locked up. His fear balances his bravery and makes him a developed character.
It took longer to warm to Adelaide. By her own confession, she doesn’t get close to people and refuses to connect. It distances her from the reader. But as she grows on Vik, she grew on me too: you see through the cracks and how lost and alone she is feeling, cut adrift from her family and missing her twin.
Their relationship is an intriguing one. Both refuse to admit they care for the other, despite their actions saying otherwise. It’s satisfying watching them undermine the other’s barriers, even if it doesn’t seem possible for them to have a happy ending.
The plot was just as an engaging as the characters. It’s a city in isolation – something we can all relate to in these current times. But it’s also a city with no foundations: everything is on the water. The lack of depth, lack of roots, shows a lot about a society that came from far away.
The descriptions of the rich area – the tall skyscrapers, the luxurious wealth – paint a picture of how the mighty live. But exploring the western side is far more chilling. Poverty, sickness and death are everywhere, the cold and hunger are inescapable and the reader is thrown into this world as well.
It’s a slow start as the pieces fall into place, but the tension escalates and the plot is intense. You fear for the characters; fear for their relationship; and you fear for the survival of the west.
A thoroughly enjoyable and gripping read and I’m already hunting down the next book, eager to see where the story goes next.
If you’re looking for a futuristic story but with familiar struggles, this is a must-read!
I’ve had Osiris on my bookshelf for a few years, never quite getting to it. I’m making an effort to tackle more of my physical books and this was the first I picked up – and sure enough, I wish I’d read it sooner. I had no pre-conceptions about this novel, but enjoyed it start to finish.
Osiris is a dystopian science-fiction novel, exploring a world where one city is all that’s left. There’s a clear divide between rich and poor though, and one side cannot understand the other. Trying to bridge that gap, desperate to seek help, westerner Vikram sets up a bold proposal. Crashing into socialite Adelaide’s life, he has no idea she has her own agenda, while she does not understand how complicated emotions can be.
Vik is a fantastic protagonist. He’s passionate about making a difference, changing the dire circumstances his people live in. Vik’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, knowing he’s going to cross lines if he wants to bring about change. He’s brave and bold… and human.
Vik’s terror of the underwater cells is explored in such a visceral way: I shuddered with the same claustrophobia he feels when locked up. His fear balances his bravery and makes him a developed character.
It took longer to warm to Adelaide. By her own confession, she doesn’t get close to people and refuses to connect. It distances her from the reader. But as she grows on Vik, she grew on me too: you see through the cracks and how lost and alone she is feeling, cut adrift from her family and missing her twin.
Their relationship is an intriguing one. Both refuse to admit they care for the other, despite their actions saying otherwise. It’s satisfying watching them undermine the other’s barriers, even if it doesn’t seem possible for them to have a happy ending.
The plot was just as an engaging as the characters. It’s a city in isolation – something we can all relate to in these current times. But it’s also a city with no foundations: everything is on the water. The lack of depth, lack of roots, shows a lot about a society that came from far away.
The descriptions of the rich area – the tall skyscrapers, the luxurious wealth – paint a picture of how the mighty live. But exploring the western side is far more chilling. Poverty, sickness and death are everywhere, the cold and hunger are inescapable and the reader is thrown into this world as well.
It’s a slow start as the pieces fall into place, but the tension escalates and the plot is intense. You fear for the characters; fear for their relationship; and you fear for the survival of the west.
A thoroughly enjoyable and gripping read and I’m already hunting down the next book, eager to see where the story goes next.
If you’re looking for a futuristic story but with familiar struggles, this is a must-read!
January 10, 2020
Review originally published in SFX magazine, issue 232 (April 2013).
--
Dystopia is back. Granted, it’s always been literary fiction’s preferred mode for dabbling in genre, and in the Young Adult field you can’t move for the stuff. But only recently have writers of adult sf begun returning, in any number, to the gloomy well labelled Tales Of Little Folks Crushed Beneath The Wheels Of The Merciless System. Yay?
Step up, little folks: Adelaide is a spoiled and disaffected scion of the Rechnovs, a ludicrously wealthy family whose members have massive political clout within the floating city of Osiris and “more skeletons than they have closets”; Vikram is a boy from the wrong side of the tracks – aka the Western Quarter, where Osiris’s poor are kept cooped up and half-starved behind checkpoints bristling with guns – with a burning sense of injustice. Together, they fight crime.
Well, sort of. Together, they form an uneasy alliance with conflicting goals related to crime in a kind of abstract sense, and spend much of their time not being entirely honest with each other. Both are compelling, flawed individuals, although Vikram never quite convinces as a fish out of water among the rich, fitting in too easily unless the story requires him not to. The plot works better as background mystery than – as it becomes towards the end – foreground drama; but it’s the characters, and what their lives show us of the fascinating, stratified world of Osiris, that are the heart of this promising debut novel.
--
Dystopia is back. Granted, it’s always been literary fiction’s preferred mode for dabbling in genre, and in the Young Adult field you can’t move for the stuff. But only recently have writers of adult sf begun returning, in any number, to the gloomy well labelled Tales Of Little Folks Crushed Beneath The Wheels Of The Merciless System. Yay?
Step up, little folks: Adelaide is a spoiled and disaffected scion of the Rechnovs, a ludicrously wealthy family whose members have massive political clout within the floating city of Osiris and “more skeletons than they have closets”; Vikram is a boy from the wrong side of the tracks – aka the Western Quarter, where Osiris’s poor are kept cooped up and half-starved behind checkpoints bristling with guns – with a burning sense of injustice. Together, they fight crime.
Well, sort of. Together, they form an uneasy alliance with conflicting goals related to crime in a kind of abstract sense, and spend much of their time not being entirely honest with each other. Both are compelling, flawed individuals, although Vikram never quite convinces as a fish out of water among the rich, fitting in too easily unless the story requires him not to. The plot works better as background mystery than – as it becomes towards the end – foreground drama; but it’s the characters, and what their lives show us of the fascinating, stratified world of Osiris, that are the heart of this promising debut novel.
July 9, 2022
Compelling enough that I wanted to keep reading, and a fairly quick read. I found the world building to be inconsistent (including a sudden, random and unexplained scene with an iceberg that I couldn’t make any sense of. Why were the icebergs important? What cultural significance? Was this a recurring thing?) and some McGuffins. Since this is the author’s first novel, I think the writing will improve over time and I did have fun reading it.
June 13, 2023
DNF. Made it 30% of the way through but it has turned into such a slog that I have no desire to read any more. I have no interest in any of the characters and I’m finding myself bored, desperately waiting for something to happen.
April 19, 2021
The ending makes little sense. How is Adelaide surviving without any experience? How did Vikram escape the 70th floor of a collapsing building? Blerg.
July 1, 2023
Stars!
November 8, 2023
Overall a good read. It took a while to get started. But when it did, it was really kept your attention.
December 28, 2024
Average dystopian book with interesting characters. Unsure if I would continue on reading the series but it was a solid book.
March 17, 2017
Twenty attempts to read this.
The story is quite peculiar and dry in some places.
Constantly was interested and bored while reading .
The story is quite peculiar and dry in some places.
Constantly was interested and bored while reading .
August 7, 2014
I was half expecting to dislike Osiris, I’m not a great post-apocalyptic fan, I’ve had more disappointments than successes with freebies (I got this as a freebie from Night Shade Books) and this was a debut novel. Not a very auspicious start and for that reason I have been putting reading this off for some time now. However I’ve now read it and… thoroughly enjoyed it.
It is a bit uneven in places, sometimes dives into some pretty severe purple prose (including the opening pages) with some very weird and unusual descriptive choices and there were a couple of passages where Swift didn’t seem to have quite made up her mind whether she was writing a thriller or a romance and even a mildly erotic one at that. But, thank goodness, she avoided this and has produced a very good post-apocalyptic, dystopian thriller which, despite my fears, never becomes a romance. I do have one other major complaint though:
[rant]
Why oh why do SF authors start inventing ridiculous new words for already established (and comfortably named) bits of technology. Certainly our words for things are going to change over time but most changes are likely to be for new technologies not existing ones and there are very few really new technologies in this book. Some examples:
Scarab – mobile phone (to be fair this and the next may have been brand names)
Neptune – computer
O’vis – something like TV
O’musaique – didn’t quite get what this one was!
O’dio – radio?
O’comm – communication (on the scarab)
Reefmail – email (please!)
Most annoying for me, though, was the time telling; the twenty four hour clock combined with ‘o’clock’, giving things like sixteen o’clock. But even this isn’t done consistently with sixteen hundred [hours] also used.
[/rant]
The basic premise of the book is not a million miles away from Waterworld, in that it is set in a post global warming (I presume) water world Earth. The reader never gets a full explanation for this which I did find a little frustrating especially as some aspects of it didn’t add up fully in my mind, but eventually it becomes clear that my doubts would be addressed, if not in this book then in its sequel (which, incidentally, I will be buying). However the water world setting is where the similarities end. Osiris is a semi submerged city set somewhere in the southern Antarctic seas. Half the residents are the original founders and their descendants living a privileged life of luxury and the other half are segregated refugees starving, freezing and brutalised. Making this a relevant comparison for any current conflict where the haves and have nots are forcibly separated by little more than a wall (one current conflict springs painfully to mind).
There are two protagonists from whose points of view the story is written and they are well drawn giving this a very character driven feel. Most of the future technology is glossed over – this is not hard SF – but it is mostly believable; in fact, considering this is set 350 years in the future, the lack of radically futuristic technology is probably a bit of a flaw; it really felt more like near future and that’s how I tended to think of it. However the technology is not what the story is about; it is about the two main protagonists who are both flawed and come, inevitably, from either side of the social divide. It is no Romeo and Juliet story, however, but is very much about that social divide. After a slightly wobbly start (understandable for a debut) Swift rapidly finds her feet and keeps the action moving along at a good page turning pace. My interest was maintained throughout and, despite the main protagonists being, as I have said, flawed, they are still sympathetic characters that I couldn't help liking. Whilst the ending was possibly a little weak I have endured much worse without too much complaint.
Overall I was very pleasantly surprised by Osiris; it was much much better than I had expected. That expectation was, of course, utterly unjustified and had no foundations other than my own prejudice against unknown authors and a sub-genre that is not my favourite, but it was there nonetheless and it was wrong. I do recommend this book; it is well worth a read.
It is a bit uneven in places, sometimes dives into some pretty severe purple prose (including the opening pages) with some very weird and unusual descriptive choices and there were a couple of passages where Swift didn’t seem to have quite made up her mind whether she was writing a thriller or a romance and even a mildly erotic one at that. But, thank goodness, she avoided this and has produced a very good post-apocalyptic, dystopian thriller which, despite my fears, never becomes a romance. I do have one other major complaint though:
[rant]
Why oh why do SF authors start inventing ridiculous new words for already established (and comfortably named) bits of technology. Certainly our words for things are going to change over time but most changes are likely to be for new technologies not existing ones and there are very few really new technologies in this book. Some examples:
Scarab – mobile phone (to be fair this and the next may have been brand names)
Neptune – computer
O’vis – something like TV
O’musaique – didn’t quite get what this one was!
O’dio – radio?
O’comm – communication (on the scarab)
Reefmail – email (please!)
Most annoying for me, though, was the time telling; the twenty four hour clock combined with ‘o’clock’, giving things like sixteen o’clock. But even this isn’t done consistently with sixteen hundred [hours] also used.
[/rant]
The basic premise of the book is not a million miles away from Waterworld, in that it is set in a post global warming (I presume) water world Earth. The reader never gets a full explanation for this which I did find a little frustrating especially as some aspects of it didn’t add up fully in my mind, but eventually it becomes clear that my doubts would be addressed, if not in this book then in its sequel (which, incidentally, I will be buying). However the water world setting is where the similarities end. Osiris is a semi submerged city set somewhere in the southern Antarctic seas. Half the residents are the original founders and their descendants living a privileged life of luxury and the other half are segregated refugees starving, freezing and brutalised. Making this a relevant comparison for any current conflict where the haves and have nots are forcibly separated by little more than a wall (one current conflict springs painfully to mind).
There are two protagonists from whose points of view the story is written and they are well drawn giving this a very character driven feel. Most of the future technology is glossed over – this is not hard SF – but it is mostly believable; in fact, considering this is set 350 years in the future, the lack of radically futuristic technology is probably a bit of a flaw; it really felt more like near future and that’s how I tended to think of it. However the technology is not what the story is about; it is about the two main protagonists who are both flawed and come, inevitably, from either side of the social divide. It is no Romeo and Juliet story, however, but is very much about that social divide. After a slightly wobbly start (understandable for a debut) Swift rapidly finds her feet and keeps the action moving along at a good page turning pace. My interest was maintained throughout and, despite the main protagonists being, as I have said, flawed, they are still sympathetic characters that I couldn't help liking. Whilst the ending was possibly a little weak I have endured much worse without too much complaint.
Overall I was very pleasantly surprised by Osiris; it was much much better than I had expected. That expectation was, of course, utterly unjustified and had no foundations other than my own prejudice against unknown authors and a sub-genre that is not my favourite, but it was there nonetheless and it was wrong. I do recommend this book; it is well worth a read.
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