Far from the Light of Heaven

by Tade Thompson, Clifford Samuel (Narrator)

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake.

Answering Campion's distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths. Soon a sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, one that will have repercussions for the entire system—from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed to Earth itself.

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Space, Adult, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

Audiobook

First published October 26, 2021

About the author

Tade Thompson is a British born Yoruba psychiatrist who is best known for his science fiction novels.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s disappointing when the book starts with so much promise, but by the end you are just slogging through, constantly checking to see when it will finally be over.

Tade Thompson captured my attention with his Rosewater series, and I welcomed this more overt science fiction venture of his, set in space on a giant starship. (I love giant starships — I mean, who doesn’t???)

“Nobody trained her for this. Astronaut training anticipates everything one can reasonably expect to come across. A killing spree is not reasonable. A murderer on board is not reasonable.
And the murderer is still on the ship.”

The set-up is great — a “locked room” murder mystery set on a spaceship. Michelle “Shell” Campion is the first mate to the Captain AI on the starship Ragtime that ferries a thousand passengers in suspended animation to the colony planet Bloodroot. (No, I’m not sure why the names are so odd, but there’s also a mention of the failed colony Nightshade). But when Shell wakes up in the orbit of Bloodroot, she finds out that the AI is mostly out of commission and there’s trouble (and a wolf) on board:

“The disposal unit is thirty minutes away. As soon as Shell enters, she sees the problem.
The entire space is filled with the chopped-up bodies of passengers.”

Joined by Fin, a Bloodroot “repatriator” (basically he send aliens back to their spacetime dimension or something), and his “Artificial” Salvo, and later by a couple of people from the nearby space station Lagos, Shell is trying to figure out what the hell happened here — and as the things on the ship go terribly awry, they switch their priorities to mere survival. And yes, there just may be a rogue AI, but less obviously telegraphed than this set-up suggests.

“If personhood can be contemplated, why not malfunctioning personhood?”

There was quite a bit of fun to be had here, with this set-up. And indeed for the first third I pretty much loved it all. Rather than a locked room mystery in space it became more of a haunted house in space, and I got a kick out of the creepy vibe and the breakneck speed with pretty relentless pacing that feels deliberately urgent, and clipped short scenes that matched the clipped “staccato” narration (to borrow my buddy reader Dylan’s phrasing here).

“So many ways to die on the Ragtime, so little time.”

——————
But the strong start started to fizzle out as the book progressed.

I love complex stories and ideas, and Thompson definitely does not shy away from introducing more and more plot threads even well into the second half of the story — but in order to be truly successful with that you need to be able to still remain focused. What this story suffers from, however, is unfocused execution, with plot threads sometimes making a messy tangle rather than a well-constructed pattern.

It often seemed to be a bit of a literary casserole concocted of bits of everything, even oversalted too-lumpy potatoes.

“Salvo says, “Who are we fighting?”
“Space pirates,” says Shell. “Lagos space pirates. Mutants hiding in the service ducts. Diseased Earthmen hiding in service ducts. Rogue AIs. Fucking Ragtime’s robots. I don’t know, take your pick. We were just knocked out of the sky by a demon AI that possessed our ship.”
“Um, are we worried that we’ve seeded experimental organisms into this biosphere?” says Joké.
“I can’t worry about that right now,” says Shell.
“That’s how it happens, you know. Nobody worries until it’s too late,” says Joké.”

——————

Some more annoyances, in no particular order:

- The aliens — I found the reveal quite disappointing, and Joké annoyed the daylights out of me with her endless magical whimsy and “Um” utterances.
- The wolf — for all the buildup, what did it matter? But it does look good on the cover.
- Fin and Joké — at the breakneck speed of the plot I just fail to see any grounds for any meaningful connection, except that apparently flirting with Shell got her nowhere, so she turned to the next human not related to her.
- The ultimate goal of the rogue AI? Yeah, I’m underwhelmed as well.
- The random half a page of dream demon sex among lava — yes, that’s straight out of Rosewater playbook.
- The characters are not quite fleshed out, and besides Shell I could not care much if they lived or died — even Salvo who got the short stick in the whole story.
- Oh, and Shell — it really wasn’t Ragtime’s fault any more than yours, so get off your high horse.
—————

And so by the time we reached the last third of the book I realized that I don’t really care much about how it ends, and “why’s” and “how’s” of the initial plot ended up mostly irrelevant. I liked the ambiguity of the interpretation of the supposed antagonist’s actions (Shell cannot view him in the positive light regardless of the motives or justification of his initial plan because the ultimate carrying out of that plot led to the carnage of the innocents) but it did not outweigh the overall feeling of tired indifference about the outcome as my interest slowly waned by the end. And when it all ended up a bit unfinished, I did not care all that much.

So instead for rogue AI try Murderbot books; for truly weird aliens try Embassytown; for weird stuff on a starship try Non-Stop; for a better Tade Thompson book with more demon sex try Rosewater.

2.5 stars, rounding up down - because a few days later I’m even more irritated by it than I was when I finished it.
——————

Buddy read with Carol, Dylan and Stephen.

[carol. · Rating 2 out of 5]

If there is any hook guaranteed to make me sit up and pay attention these days, it's the futuristic mystery-in-space. After the peaks and valleys of the Rosewater series, I wasn't itching to try more Thompson, but when my friends put together a group read, I couldn't resist. It turns out that a group read was a benefit--had I read it on my own, I would have put my reaction down to one of those reader-mood mismatches, along with a healthy dose of comparisons-are-odious syndrome. But now I can feel comfortable saying this is genuinely Not A Good Book. 

Reading with a group also helped identify the callbacks and parallels to the Rosewater series. Problematic as it may have been, I'd actually recommend reading that series--or even just the first book--over this one.

Quit at 81% because I couldn't be bothered, and I'd rather talk on the phone for an hour than read this. Extra thanks to Nataliya for the Cliff Notes version!!

Many thanks to Dylan, Nataliya and Stephen for your book discussion!

[K.J. Charles]

A sort of Afrofuturist locked room murder in space (a spaceship being the ultimate locked room) although it isn't really a murder mystery as much as a thriller, and a well drawn SF, and also a strong anticolonial/anticapitalist critique. Genretastic, basically.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Information is doled out at just the right pace, the setting is very well realised, the writing obviously terrific. The characters are lightly drawn--I found them engaging, but it's not a character piece. And it is super tense and scary. I settled into it as a thriller and enjoyed it a great deal.

[Dylan · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I had to choose one word to sum this up, I'd go with stupid, a word I used in a fair few of my status updates for this book.

This is soft scifi (borderline fantasy with how little science there is at times) mixed with a crime thriller with aliens, anti-capitalism and a random (completely unnecessary) sex scene with a demon (in a pool of lava) thrown in, for seemingly no reason.

We've got:
-Poorly executed multi-POV
-Bad "science"
-Random aliens
-Far too many plot threads
-A rushed ending
-Dull characters
-Staccato writing
-So MUCH stupidity
-A rogue AI who has zero limitations (a great example of how soft this scifi is)

I honestly have so many issues with this I'm not even sure I'm up for giving it a full review! I started out enjoying it despite some of the flaws that are immediately apparent, but by the end I was rolling my eyes non-stop. It was almost fun from a hate-read point of view, but man I just think it's an awful book.

My favorite example of the stupidity in this book is when the mass-murderer crashlands on Bloodroots, one of the characters in power there questions whether or not they need to go after him as he may not be dangerous, we don't know his motives! HE KILLED 31 PEOPLE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!

Nonetheless, thanks to Carol, Stephen and Nataliya for the buddy read!

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
This is essentially a closed room mystery novel set on a generational spaceship. I loved the premise. The book reminded me a lot of Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, which I would recommend as a read-a-like. This had a very similar plot with a mystery at the heart of the story. The characters, story and mystery were all good, although not particularly memorable. If you enjoy sci fi mysteries and are looking for a new diverse story then I would encourage you to give this one a try.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh...
Really looked forward this one.
So very disappointed.

Far from the Light of Heaven begins well. Michelle Campion is “captaining” the starship Ragtime to the far off colony of Bloodroot, captain in quotes because an AI will control all aspects of the ten year voyage while Campion and the roughly 1000 colonists aboard are asleep. She is there only if something goes awry. And awry it does. When Campion awakes, thirty-one colonists are dead and the AI has gone rogue.

And that should have been the story: Campion wakes on Ragtime. People are dead. Campion investigates as the ship tries to kill her. An eerie ghost ship whodunit. Full stop. Thompson in fact writes in the afterword that this was his goal - a murder mystery modeled on Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue. If only.

The opening third is wonderfully clear, concise, and interesting in this vein. The exact page and sentence when the story goes off the rails to a miserable end is page 177, chapter Bloodroot: Mission Control, first sentence. Everything after is a mess. The eerie ghost ship whodunit becomes a laughable critique of rich tech billionaires in space - think Musk, Bezos, Tony Stark, with every random idea passing through Thompson’s head committed to paper. An awful muddle that reads like the combined result of an eight grade sci fi club attempting to write a novel, with each member getting their own chapter. No artistry. No subtlety. No consistency. No care. It’s also at least seven (probably twenty) chapters too long. None of this was necessary. Campion is a great character. She is heroic. She needs no help, sidekicks, love interests, etc. And the “villain’s” convoluted back story — too tropey for words. The avenging Tehani are Wakanda in reverse. Vibranium fell from the sky and the Tehani got enslaved by Tony Stark vs building a hidden tech empire led by the Black Panther. Seriously. Had Thompson championed Campion and continued the ghost story of the first third, Heaven could have been a great read. As is it’s a mess.

Thompson is undoubtedly a talented author with some interesting ideas. His downfall is believing every idea is worth committing to paper. Far from the Light of Heaven and Rosewater convince me that Thompson is best at novellas and short stories. Long form is not his forte. Too many opportunities (in his case accepted) to wander down blind alleys to no purpose, obscuring whatever he means to say.

Two stars for the beginning. Zero for the rest. On my buy, borrow skip scale: Far from the Light of Heaven is strong skip even at the $3 asking price on Amazon. For much much better Thompson try his Molly Southbourne series.

[Alexis Hall]

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you!)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

This is a legitimately fascinating twist on the ol’ locked room mystery. The basic premise here is that when Michelle Campion, first mate of the Ragtime, wakes up after ten years in statis she discovers that, instead, of the AI having handled everything they way it should, it has been reduced to basic functions and the service bots have begun dismembering passengers. As she struggles to regain control of the ship and find out what’s happened, she’s joined by Rasheed Fin, a disgraced investigator from the colony that was the Ragtime’s original destination, along with his Artificial partner (crime solving partner, I mean, not romantic partner), and then by Laurence Biz, a retired astronaut and family friend who is the governor of nearby space station, and his half-human daughter Joké.

In the author’s note at the back, Thompson describes the book as inspired by The Murders in the Rue Morgue (a mystery to which the solution is “it was a rogue monkey”) and I kind of wish I’d known that going in, because I was expecting something more Agatha Christie-ish. Whereas actually Far From The Light of the Heaven isn’t really a whodunnit in the traditional sense—after all, despite Fin entertaining mild suspicions of Campion, the reader knows the murderer can’t be any of the POV characters, the intended target HAS to be the gazillionaire because who else deserves a hearty space murderin, and the only possible suspect is one of the other passengers currently accounted for). It’s more of a whydunit and a howdunnit, coupled with a “how do we all not die horribly in space as our ship turns against us” type situation. Taken in those those terms, Far From The Light Of Heaven is really successful: it’s a genuinely tense (and well-researched) survival situation and the various mid-point revelations are satisfying.

I think where I struggled with FFTLOH was not over the mystery or the action but with kind of wanting … more? The characters, with the possible exception of Joké who is charming and pansexual and yet far too content to bonk Fin for, as far as I could tell, no particular reason, are all really well-drawn, but they’re fighting for their lives almost every second they’re on the page so there’s very little space to let them just … breathe and be, and connect with each other. The world is equally fascinating, full of complex ideas, all of which are introduced deftly. I sincerely appreciated this organic and non-pace denting approach but at the same time, without wanting someone to drop an anvil of exposition of my head, I once again found myself wanting to spend more time in the places, and among the cultures, we are whisked through on our quick sharp trip to disaster. Although I should note that I’m not really putting this forward as an actual critique of the novel’s structure or the author’s decisions in constructing it: “I liked this book so much there wasn’t enough of it: ONE STAR.”

Ultimately FFTLOH feels like a familiar and a unique story at the same time: it’s drawing on a lot of recognisable influences, but the way they’re deployed creates something full of surprises. It’s a little bit murder mystery, a little bit space opera, a little bit gothic horror, a little bit survival adventure, all re-imagined through the lens of Afrofuturism. But it’s also about capitalism, and exploitation, particularly the exploitation of indigenous communities, the boundaries between justice and retribution, and the impossible cost of both.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Far From the Light of Heaven” has a title that, like Steinbeck’s East of Eden, evokes Biblical cosmology and ultimate stakes. The story though was actually inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders on the Rue Morgue and is a space-age locked-room mystery. The story starts off sounding like any junior space explorer novel with a new first mate, Michelle Campion, onboard her first flight, second in command to only an AI (artificial intelligence), named for the ship, Ragtime. Of course, the story is not so simple as Shell (as she’s known) wakes up from her ten year slumber and realizes that, of the 1,000 sleeping colonists, a few dozen are missing. The count is off. And, Ragtime is strangely unhelpful. It’s then that the story really starts rolling. Although Shell is soon joined by a detective from the colony below, it is more a space adventure than a mystery solved by painstaking stakeouts and clue-following. The author, Thompson, does a fantastic job of ratcheting up the tension and constantly expanding the scope of what could go wrong on a ship marooned above a distant colony, quarantined until investigation is completed.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no need to know what no one will ask.
Walking on gravel, boots crunching with each step, Shell doesn't know if she is who she is because it's what she wants or because it's what her family expects of her. The desire for spaceflight has been omnipresent since she can remember, since she was three. Going to space, escaping the solar system, surfing wormhole relativity, none of these is any kind of frontier any more. There will be no documentary about the life and times of Michelle Campion.
She still wants to know, though. For herself.

The Ragtime; a spaceship sent from Earth to the far-off colony of Bloodroot, with a thousand passengers sleeping away the ten years it’ll take to reach it.

Michelle (Shell) Campion is the newly graduated captain, but even she will only be woken up on arrival; but when she does, it’s clear something is horribly wrong. Thirty-one passengers are missing; Ragtime’s AI has been compromised; and Shell’s suddenly facing any new captain’s worst nightmare.

A locked-room murder mystery is compelling as much for the how-dunnit as the who; when you transplant that situation into space, and a spaceship with both passengers and crew locked into a decade of sleep, it only makes that mystery even more compelling. Space is the ultimate in locked rooms, and for Captain Shell Campion, newly awakened and faced with her first mission gone drastically wrong, her life might just depend on unravelling that seemingly impossible puzzle. Bloodroot sends her assistance in the form of Fin Rasheed, disgraced former investigator, and Salvo, his synthetic partner, but it’s clear that no-one quite knows how to handle the first incident of this kind.

It’s that side of the story that really pushed this book firmly into fantastic, for me. A locked room and a possibly rogue AI aren’t, on their own, new; but the context of the mystery and the investigation absolutely were. Add to that, too, Tade Thompson’s excellent and almost mesmerizing writing, and you’ve got an absolutely fascinating book that’s so readable it’s easy to forget you’re reading and just get lost in the story. Like all the best horror, there’s a healthy dash of social commentary to break up the scares a bit and allow the reader to relax before ramping up the tension again, and characters much too easy to care about, making the stakes actually matter. I didn’t just want these people to get out alive, I wanted them safe and well at the end of it! (I also want more Joké - of four characters I really liked, she's the solid favourite).

Far from the Light of Heaven is an excellent addition to Tade Thompson’s already impressive body of work – long may he continue to terrify us.

[Starlah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a "locked room" science fiction mystery thriller that is about murder in an enclosed environment. We follow Shell who wakes up from cryosleep on a spaceship to find that dozens of her passengers have been murdered and the ship's AI has gone a bit off the rails. We also have multiple perspectives that takes us across different planets.

Tade Thompson's writing is compelling and made it easy to continue to turn the page. Despite this, I found myself not invested in this story as I have been with the author's other works. I think this story would have benefitted from more character development; having the characters more fleshed out. I understood the characters but there was no depth to them which made the story itself feel like it didn't have much depth to it. However, I still did enjoy the writing and have enjoyed Thompson's other works so I will continue to read from him.

As for the mystery, it was easy to be skeptical about it and the tension built was good! I also enjoyed the twist at the end and would definitely recommend this to folks looking for a fast-paced standalone sci-fi thriller.

[thefourthvine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is quite, quite bad, and for much of it I couldn’t understand why. I mean, I am fully aware of how hard it is to write a science fiction mystery, and because I love that subgenre, I have experienced a lot of the possible failure modes for it. But this book is *so* bad at doing what it set out to do that it’s astonishing. It never tries to be science fiction, asking “what if” and explaining why and doing the worldbuilding. It never tries to be a mystery, setting up a problem and then taking the reader through the solving of it. Instead, it’s a bumbling, stumbling React Plot (characters have no agency and only react to plot devices as they arrive) inside a spaceship, with no reason for it to be there. I was mystified; it was so bad that it wasn’t even clear what Thompson was *trying* to do.

Then I read the Afterword, and it all became clear. Thompson committed that most embarrassing of authorial errors: he wrote something in an existing genre without bothering to *read* in the genre first, and decided he was doing something groundbreaking and new, when actually he was reinventing the wheel. (Worse, his particular wheel is essentially a triangle made of sandstone: completely useless and disintegrating.) The entire Afterword is him saying, well, I wanted to set something in space, but without reading any science fiction, because it’s so unrealistic and boring, and then listing off some facts he learned in his research that — uh, everyone who reads hard science fiction already knows. Because every hard SF author knows them, too. Thompson is really proud of himself for doing something that has been done before, done frequently, and done so, so much better.

So, yeah, this book just sucks. I’m leaving out a lot of the ways, because at the end of the day, this book never had a chance. And I’m just — sad and frustrated, because it’s a cool idea with cool characters that the author let down completely.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Far From the Light of Heaven wasn't my first outing with Tade Thompson, but it was probably the least satisfying.

I've read Rosewater and The Murders of Molly Southbourne, and liked both of them. They had unique premises that felt fresh, and the writing was sharp and engaging.

This latest book by Thompson is a murder mystery set in space, presented in tidy chapters and with steady pacing. The problem for me was that the plot didn't unfold as smoothly as I would have liked. There was a choppiness to the story that made me feel distanced from the locked-room setting in which the story takes place.

While there were many interesting ideas, it felt like they often branched off or were introduced at odd moments in the story. At times I was completely engaged, but just as often I was also slightly confused. For me, the overall result felt a bit too unfocused to really love it the way I wanted to.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant. A locked room mystery in space in an imagined humanity beyond the stars with some absolutely banging good characters and a right old page turner.

Tade Thompson writes so beautifully and so descriptively this is often randomly horrifying there are certainly scenes in it that might subtly haunt your dreams.

Wonderful imagination and cleverly executed this is scifi mystery at its best.

Highly recommended.

[Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are few things I love as much as a space mystery, but this is unfortunately less concerned with solving a space mystery than in introducing more characters in more places that produced less interest in this reader every time I turned a page and was confronted with yet another new person who supposedly affected the plot. The impact of the who and how and why of the crime was so diluted by the time it was revealed especially the how, since Brisbane was conveniently unconscious the whole time and poof, then he woke up since there was so little time allotted to the character and their motivations and too much random space bureaucracy muddling things up legitimately every single thing about Lagos space station could have been cut; the pointless, racist posturing from Sinistral and the "no one fights in space, oh no!/I guess it was pretty easy to fight in space" thread especially because it seemed artificially fraught and went nowhere. If the book had been the same length but contained to only Shell, Fin, and Salvo trying to figure out what went wrong on the Ragtime, this may have been more satisfying.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong concept (spaceship captain wakes up after a decade of hibernation to find out that a number of the still sleeping colonists she's transporting have been murdered) that gets weirder and weirder until it ultimately ends up going ALL over the place...but Thompson still manages to (more-or-less) bring it all back together by the end. In any case, whether you love it or hate it, you will NEVER have any idea where it's going next...and in my book (no pun intended), that's always a good thing.

Probably enjoyed it more than I should, but as my first experience with a new and previously unknown author, I was pleasantly surprised and consistently intrigued. WIll definitely read more.

[Holly (The GrimDragon) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She is surprised to be still alive, but her spacesuit must be part of that. God, it hurts, but she can still move. The helmet is not working well. Fuck it. She is going to bite him. Gross, but...fuck it. She removes the helmet and the stench almost knocks her back down. A mixture of a synthetic thing like a chemical toilet mixed with organic waste. Not shit. Worse. Rot. Decay."

Thank you to the rad folks over at Orbit! This bonkers novel about humanity's future in the chilling emptiness of space has become a top read of the year!

Tade Thompson is for sure a favorite writer of mine! His brain is just brilliant. If you haven't read the Wormwood series yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Taking place on the ship Ragtime, which happens to be carrying a thousand sleeping passengers from Earth to a new planet, Far From the Light of Heaven is a clever sci-fi locked room mystery IN SPAAACE.

A found crew, aliens, mutilated bodies, AI's, tentacles & blood.. like, a lot of blood. OH, AND A WOLF!! A FUCKING WOLF!!

Far From the Light of Heaven is an interstellar whodunnit, with a fucking ton of heart! It's compulsively readable & Thompson is an exciting, inventive, mind-expanding writer. I seriously cannot recommend his books enough!

BUCKLE THE FUCK UP, YOU'RE IN FOR A WILD RIDE!!

Far From the Light of Heaven comes out October 26th.

CW: Gore, cannibalism, racism, colonialism, sexism.

[Mogsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2022/01/17/...

I’ve read Tade Thompson before, more specifically his Rosewater series which I found to be quite good, and I maintain if you’re looking for one-of-a-kind sci-fi, his stuff is not to be missed.

That being said though, I did not enjoy Far from the Light of Heaven as much, despite appreciating its ideas. When I first learned of its premise of a locked room mystery set in space, a blend of my favorite genres, it sounded perfect for me. The story begins on the Ragtime, a starship carrying a thousand passengers in suspended animation to colony Bloodroot. Everything is being taken care of by the ship’s A.I., known to be the most reliable system there is, leaving not much for human first mate Michelle “Shell” Campion to do, though she could hardly complain. After all, the job is simple, and she’s also living her dream of traveling through space.

But once Ragtime arrives in the orbit of Bloodroot, Shell wakes up to a shock. The ship’s A.I. has been knocked out, and not all the sleeping passengers on board have made it through alive. On planet, Rasheed Fin is the investigator who receives Shell’s distress call concerning “multiple fatalities” and arrives on the Ragtime to try and figure out what went wrong.

One wouldn’t think such a straightforward plot could turn into something convoluted and meandering, but unfortunately that’s how things eventually played out. I don’t want to belabor the point, since I have much respect for Thompson’s writing, but I feel he might have been overambitious this time around. His first mistake was not keeping things simple, which would have made for tighter, far more entertaining storytelling. What I wanted was a locked room mystery, but what I got was that and a whole lot more—and not exactly in the good way.

Without spoiling the mystery, I’ll also say there was a lot in here that went absolutely nowhere. I was left with the feeling that Far from the Light of Heaven might have worked better as a novella, pared down to its main points without all the extras. By the end, it was difficult to even stay focused because we’d drifted so far off the point, and when the ending came around and not everything was resolved, that was the final straw.

Suffice it to say, I can’t really recommend this novel, though I definitely won’t let this stop me from picking up future works by Tade Thompson. His imagination is still unparalleled, but my opinion is that this is simply not the best example of what he’s capable of, especially if you enjoy more concise storytelling and closure.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Ian]

Tade Thompson likes to weave his webs tangled. A non linear story line with parallel narratives; red herrings; frequent introduction of new characters; these are all common literary devices. It takes a deft hand to stack them up in one novel and keep it coherent and Thompson doesn't have it. After a promising start, the book becomes unfocused and cluttered. I lost interest at 64% and with the library demanding their book back, I gave up. I was disappointed because I had liked Thomson's
"The Murders of Molly Southbourne" and was looking forward to a story in a traditional science fiction setting (spacecraft/ colony planet).
Clearly, Thompson can write and can even write books I enjoy. This one, unfortunately, gets bogged down in it's own cleverness and loses track of its story. I found myself not caring how it ended, never a good sign.
I'll give Thompson another try because he can write well when he wants to and he has a superior imagination. But this book, sadly, was not for me. -30-

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a space opera (even if the author disagrees) murder mystery. I read it as a part of monthly reading for November 2021 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. My previous experience with the author, namely the first two volumes of Rosewood trilogy was quite positive so I was eager to read his new novel.

This is the story of Michelle “Shell” Campion, the first mate, whose first job is to control a flight of a colony ship with about a thousand passengers in hibernation. Actually, the ship, named Ragtime is captained by the AI with the same name and Shell should in fact also hibernate for the flight duration of twenty years (10 each way). Her role is purely ceremonial, because her duty is to take control if there is a problem with the AI, but AIs never have problems.

However, she is woken near their destination point, planet Bloodroot, to find out that the AI is dumbed down and there are scores of dismembered passengers. The colony received her not very coherent distress signal and fearing infection (she informs about many deceased) they send from their Space station a detective Rasheed Fin, whose job is described as a repatriator and related to some mysterious aliens called Lambers together with android Salvo to find out what happened and how can if affect the colony. Also Shell’s father’s friend Governor Lawrence and his daughter Joké who is a human-Lamber hybrid, arrive.

This group should solve the mystery, prevent further murders and/or at least survive, for the ship it seems started actively impede their investigation.

The story is interesting, even if I liked it less than Rosewater. In the afterword Thompson said that he studied what he could find about astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts to make the story more real than usual space operas, but I guess we just differ in our definitions, for there are space operas with no faster than light travel and blaster-holding pirates and princesses…

[Mona · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

A weirdly compelling science fiction tale of crime in space.

The spaceship Ragtime (I love the ship's name) is to make a fairly routine ten year journey from Earth through space to drop off one thousand passengers (asleep in individual pods for the trip) at the colony planet Bloodroot. There are a number of space jumps, the last one controlled by the planet Lagos. And then there's to be a ten year return trip.

Young, bright, recently graduated Michelle ("Shell") Campion will be the First Mate (not the Captain, because technically Ragtime's AI is the Captain of the ship). It's her first long haul space flight and her first time in charge of a spaceship.

There's never been a problem with such space flights or with any spaceship AIs, so what could go wrong?

It's a strange and peculiar story, and one that kept me reading. It didn't quite make it to "great book" territory for me, though, maybe because the characters were fascinating but remote. It was impossible to emotionally invest in any of them.

The characters were interesting, although I didn't feel terribly connected with any of them.
I respected Shell's sense of responsibility and capacity to stay calm under pressure. I also liked "Uncle Larry", an old man with lots of space flight experience, used to being ignored and disregarded, but courageous. The other characters are also unusual and entertaining. These included Rasheed Fin, the driven and abrasive investigator who’s trying to improve his social skills and save his foundering career; Salvo, his "Artificial Assistant"; Joke (pronounced "Jo-Kay" not "Joke"), Larry's competent, elusive and pretty daughter; and a number of others.

I had mixed feelings about British actor Clifford Samuels' audio narration. Sometimes his robotic vocal tone seemed just right for the material. Sometimes he was subtly expressive. But at other times he sounded bored, like he was reading on auto-pilot and wanted to be finished with it already. He also made some weird errors in word emphasis, as if he weren’t really paying attention at times.

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It kept me hooked throughout, but parts of it confused me, sections concerning "the aliens," and some of the ending. My score is a solid 3.5*(stars). Lots of cool ideas and a pretty good "closed room" mystery to solve..I also think that I didn't rate it better, due to some of the characters obstinate "ways" irritating me, but that's just part of the story...

[MadProfessah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far From The Light of Heaven is my first Tade Thompson book. Thompson is a Nigerian-British author best known for the Wormwood Trilogy featuring the books Rosewater, The Rosewater Insurrection, and The Rosewater Redemption. He won the Arthur C. Clarke award for Rosewater in 2019. This series is set in Nigeria in 2066 and is often referred to as part of the Afrofuturism movement. I have only read a few Afrofuturism books (Lagoon by Nnedi Okrafor comes to mind) but so far I haven’t been that impressed (although I am a big fan of N.K. Jemisin's award-winning Broken Earth trilogy). The description of Rosewater as genre mashup of “Africanfuturism, cyberpunk, biopunk, Afropunk, zombie-shocker, [and] love story” is not appealing to me so I haven’t read it yet, although I do typically like genre mash-ups (like the apocalyptic police procedural The Last Policeman by Ben Winters). However, Far From The Light of Heaven piqued my interest when I saw the official summary for the book:

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake.

Answering Campion’s distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths. Soon a sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, one that will have repercussions for the entire system—from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed to Earth itself.

From this we can tell that there are two primary protagonists in the story, Rasheed and Michelle (Shell). We are introduced to Shell first, meeting her on Earth even before she boards the Ragtime as first mate. Surprisingly, even though we meet Rasheed last, I identified with him more than her.

Their motivations for why they act the way they do in response to the extraordinary series of events that befall them on Ragtime are very different from each other. Shell is responsible for the welfare of the one thousand passengers in suspended animation and is shattered that 31 of them have been dismembered on her watch (even though it happened while she was sleeping for 10 years like all the other humans on the spaceship). But (somewhat bizarrely, I think) she insists on maintaining her exercise and sleep schedule while the ship (especially the A.I. which is the actual captain of Ragtime) becomes more and more erratic. In the end, I didn’t really connect with Shell or empathize with her. Rasheed on the other hand we are introduced to with the context that he has a problematic incident in his past that involves an on-duty killing of an alien. He's the assigned investigator to the incident on the ship and he’s single mindedly focused on discovering who committed the murders (even when paying more attention to surviving his time on Ragtime becomes more and more urgent). I was more interested in what happens to him (and his partner Salvo, a humanoid android or Artificial).

There are other important characters in the book but I don’t want to mention them because to do so would reveal spoilers. However, I will say one strength of the book is the diversity of its characters. As a mystery-science fiction genre mashup, Far From The Light of Heaven works much better as science fiction than as mystery. We do find out who committed the crime(s) but there’s really no way we could have figured it out from the information provided to the reader.

Overall, I am glad that I read Far From The Light of Heaven although I don’t think it’s outstanding or very memorable. That’s fine, not everything has to be a barn burner or award-winning. An entertaining genre novel with a diverse cast and a vision of the far future that is centered around the existence of black people (or people of African descent) is a net good in of itself, in my view.

[Graham | The Wulvers Library · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far From The Light of Heaven is a vapid science fiction murder mystery by Tade Thompson that reads like a detailed escape room trapped in a complex universe of descriptive history and interstellar life. This is the story of the colony ship Ragtime, docking in the Lagos system, which has travelled light-years to bring thousands of passengers safely in the cosmos. Some of these sleepers never wake as we discover a sinister mystery unfolding aboard this vessel and it is up to Shell Campion and the ragtag crew to determine the best course of action. This is a sci-fi novel filled with political intrigue, crafty AI and a hopeful journey.

The characters deepen the story here and Thompson has added a dimension to each character that is hardly rivalled. Shell Campion is introduced as the Second-In-Command signed with a private space organisation to serve on the colony ship. Daughter of the famous Hal Campion, she is incredibly nervous about her first mission but what can go wrong when the AI running the ship is guaranteed to take care of everything? The AI never fails and we can definitely be sure that the AI has played no part in what is occurring aboard the Ragtime.

Thompson has played the story in Far From the Light of Heaven brilliantly and it became an intriguingly nervous but ambitious space mystery. The themes of virtue, spirituality and colonialism are prevalent in this novel and are not overshadowed but the exploitation of power. The idea of personification with artificial intelligence bonding with humans and legality is in scope with current affairs. Sometimes this can draw back from novels, especially science fiction, but Thompson weaves an expert storyline that encompasses bravery in the scope of loss.

This novel is a surprisingly engaging read but these elements can easily be lost whilst reading. Thompson has a wonderful way of helping you think twice about the surface level narrative but layers this over an imaginatively deeper story that keeps us entertained in a fast-paced ride.

[Paul Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it took me a little while to settle into the voice of this (due to the audio reading, see below), Far From the Light of Heaven is a very effective locked room murder mystery on a deep-space hypersleep transport, set in an interesting universe where humanity has spread through hyperspace "bridges". We see little of the homeworld, but are introduced to the politics of the control of these bridges by the permanently-inhabited space stations that orbit, maintain and control them, and the destination planet of the transport, Bloodroot.



An especially intriguing aspect is the interaction with the alien species that seem to have a narcotic effect on humans they come into contact with, with an idea toward the end that another type of alien is more closely associated with humanity.



As with his excellent Rosewater trilogy, Thompson writes strong characterisation and plots well, although on occasion character interactions feel rather forced, here giving information on characters' backstories and reveals about the mystery to keep us going forward apace, and includes some of the horror imagery he is also known for. Not quite on a par with Rosewater, but well worth a read.



I switched between the audio and ebook for this, and the two experiences were quite different. Thompson is of Nigerian Yoruba background and much of his writing is in a formulation you often find in English-speakers of West African origins - short sentences, direct plain language, minimal contractions - and on the page this was very effective, however the audiobook reader somehow made this sound infantile, like reading a book to a toddler. Had I solely used the audio this would likely struggled to reach 3 stars.

[Silvana · Rating 3 out of 5]

What worked for me:
- The stressors of having an unsolved murder mystery in space (likely the most hostile environment to humans). I sometimes felt like I was reading a Mary Roach's book and chuckled when indeed the author cited her book as reference.
- Mostly competent characters especially the captain - I liked her coolheadedness.
- Portrayal of Lagos. I have yet to read many Afrofuturism as in what it would look like outside Earth so this is rather new.

What did not work for me:
- The conclusion and how it was executed. Once we found out who's the murderer, it kinda went downhill as in not exciting enough and left me "huh that's it?" at the end.
- not sure what was the purpose of the Lambers
- there's a certain death which I thought was weird and too quick

I am still going to read what the author would write next because I still enjoyed his writing

[Anj✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Far from the Light of Heaven is a locked-room mystery set in space about a colony ship Ragtime piloted by an AI and first mate Michelle that sailed through the stars for ten years. When Michelle wakes up, a few sleepers are missing and the AI went rogue. An investigator soon joins Michelle to figure out what's happening.

What I like:
- a mix of murder mystery, space opera, gothic horror, adventure
- diverse characters
- fantastic world-building and writing style
- tension and the creepy vibe is well done
- explores capitalism and the cost of justice
- the opening is interesting, well-paced and sharp

What I did not like:
- characters are not well flesh-out except for Michelle
- messy and unfocused plot
- all those build-ups for an underwhelming end

Thanks so Orbit for the DRC via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

[Yanique Gillana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I am grateful to Orbit Books for sending me an advanced copy of this book for review.

I enjoyed this book immensely. This is the first book I've read by Thompson since the Rosewater series, and I think he is proving to be a trusted author of mine. This was a refreshing take on the "locked door mystery", being set on a space ship in the far future, which differed from Rosewater which was set on earth in the near future.

This story was intriguing from the start and was well paced. The setting was immersive, the characters and their relationships were interesting, and the mystery was very well done. The science fiction aspect was also very accessible, making it a good book for people who are hesitant about hard sci-fi, while still being fun for sci-fi lovers.

My one gripe with the story (a minor one) was that i felt like it was too short. I know I normally complain about books being longer than necessary (or longer than is bearable in some cases...) but this story could have benefitted from more exploration into the characterization, as well as the science itself. Basically, I just wanted a little more... But overall I thought it was a well constructed mystery, in a great setting, with an interesting cast of characters.

I recommend for fans of sci-fi that isn't too science heavy, and also mysteries, especially people who enjoyed Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many books, if you have good copy you can often hook me early. Far from the Light of Heaven promises a kind of locked room murder mystery aboard a sleeper ship far from Earth. Tade Thompson delivers on this premise in most senses of the word, and overall I enjoyed the book. Yet there are enough rough parts to the novel to make me hesitate to shout its praises or pick up a sequel should one be forthcoming.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Orbit in exchange for this review.

Michelle “Shel” Campion is the captain of the starship Ragtime, which will be taking 1000 sleeping passengers to another star system. She doesn’t have to do anything, though, because the ship has an advanced AI that actually runs the whole flight. She’s just there as backup. Until she wakes up at their destination and finds the ship’s AI offline and a sizable fraction of her passengers murdered. Shel has to team up with an investigator from Bloodroot, the colony that was her destination, and also deal with curious interlopers from the nearby Lagos Station. But there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and their unknown adversary will stop from nothing to keep them from solving this mystery and saving the colonists.

Probably the best part of this story is the way that Thompson writes each chapter, each scene, with a sense of urgency and drama. Even in dialogue-heavy exchanges, such as those that establish Finn’s disgraced status on Bloodroot, or Shel and Finn’s initial encounter, the tension is often electric. This is a story that feels noir despite being set in a future where humanity travels the stars, and I recognize that is quite a feat.

This tension occludes the actual mystery, however, with dramatic twists sometimes derailing the investigation. Though Thompson avoids too much exposition, often deferring explanation about an event until later in the novel when it makes sense, the result is a plot that becomes increasingly convoluted as it unfolds. Without going into spoilers, let’s just say that a significant portion of the antagonist’s motivation occurs for reasons that are largely unrelated to what’s happening here and now. While I don’t think that makes the plot bad per se, I just want potential readers to understand that this book lacks the tidy and cozy context of most locked room mysteries.

Similarly, I wish Thompson had done more worldbuilding in the sense that we have precious little understanding of the governmental structures of this society, either on Earth, within the solar system, or in other star systems. Resolving such ambiguity isn’t strictly necessary for the story—and, again, I appreciate Thompson’s forbearance of exposition—but I felt like I was left with a very incomplete picture of this future. Though nominally Afrofuturist, at least in the corner we get to see, with Lagos Station and Bloodroot both sporting predominantly Nigerian people and their descendants, the book could have given us a much richer understanding of these elements.

Finally, the Lambers. Initially presented as very alien beings who exist at least partially outside of our spacetime (including a kind of hybrid who is one of the main characters), we learn a different origin story for the Lambers later in the book. Again, I don’t mind this revelation—though it doesn’t feel particularly earned in the sense that at no time was I guided to ask what the Lambers were. It didn’t feel like that was a mystery, and then I was told what they are and I was just like … ok, cool, I guess?

With all of this criticism you would be forgiven for thinking I disliked Far from the Light of Heaven. It’s more accurate to say I’m being hard on it because I feel like it had a lot of potential to be so much more than it is. This book is a competent story, with some solid character development, excellent action sequences, and plenty of drama and tension. If you like mystery thrillers more than I, then you will enjoy this novel. In my case, I was hoping for something that I didn’t ultimately find here.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.