Book Review: A Suggestion In Space
Alan R. Paine’s debut novel, a deeply contemplative hard sci-fi space adventure.
Alan R. Paine has a particular style to his writing that is immediately apparent, but easy to underestimate. My first experience with his style of storytelling was his contributions in the fantastic sci-fi anthology, Nine Streams of Consciousness, and then later in his NaNoWriMo experiment Faraway Sky; Ocean Deep. His works all have a deeply anthropological feel to them—akin to Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing in many ways. There’s always deep explorations of aspects of humanity and the experience of life which are given so matter-of-factly that it can be a little uncomfortable at first. And the same is true for Alan’s debut novel, A Suggestion In Space, which is absolutely an enjoyable space adventure featuring rigorous scientific research, but instead of being fast-paced and flashy, we have a slower, more contemplative work that has something to say about the nature of humanity.
Blurb
A minor miscalculation has far-reaching and devastating consequences for the crew of the Kalevala. They are left to fend for themselves in an alien environment. Back on Earth, in a world where you can choose your nationality online and holiday in the Antarctic, TV presenters Annabelle and Zip await the Kalevala’s return. Somewhere in space, Lucina and her crewmates struggle for basic survival. But they are resourceful people and they build a community, albeit one with dark secrets shadowing them. Despite everything, Lucina finds herself happy rather than trapped in the small community until the day one of those secrets comes out of the shadows to confront her. And hanging over everything is a question they think they’ll never be able to answer: are they the first people here?
Review
First of all, the plot and premise of A Suggestion In Space was fascinating, and had me invested right from the start. I liked the idea of having this touch point back on Earth where we see how the fate of the Kalevala affects the world. The way it’s done with TV presenters contracted to spend their entire careers waiting for the Kalevala to make contact again was well done for the most part. Aboard the Kalevala itself, the first part of the book where the crew deal with the consequences of the minor miscalculation, and forge on ahead to explore what’s around them was something I particularly enjoyed. Add into that the robust science and physics of space travel, and the book gained a great sense of scale. However, I did find the book slowed down quite a bit after the space travel aspects gave way to community building. But the scientific underpinning and Alan’s ability to write emotionally investing characters carried my interest through to the end. I do feel like some of the fascinating mysteries set up throughout the book could have gone a bit bigger with their pay-offs. My initial reaction to the big reveals was a bit of deflation, but in hindsight the story played with my expectations and went places I didn’t see coming at all while sticking faithfully to its overall tone. Also in hindsight, the reveals were foreshadowed exceptionally well. And the questions this book left me with at the end… I’d be very interested to see what (if anything) Alan does in the future with this world.
There’s a slightly melancholic but pragmatic undertone across the whole book where the characters make the best of a bleak situation that they can do absolutely nothing about. And the worldbuilding generally takes on a more pessimistic vision of the future for humanity than I usually enjoy. That’s not to say I disliked it by any means; it was exceptionally thoughtful and somewhat existential. It’s stuck with me more than I thought it would. The more speculative aspects of the worldbuilding were excellent and meshed well with known science. The version of an interplanetary space drive in this book was executed brilliantly, for instance. Also, the way that Alan built the ecology of the planet on which the small community struggles to survive was thoroughly immersive and well researched. I think the worldbuilding is probably my favourite aspect of the book, and it sits very much at the hard end of the sci-fi spectrum.
Next we come to characters. We get to know the crew of the Kalevala and those in its small community very well, and it was easy to get heavily emotionally invested in them and their plights. As I said above, this was where the book slowed down significantly and became less of a space adventure, and more of a deep, contemplative exploration into the nature of humanity, and of human society. The characters managed to remain distinct even though I felt like their personalities were quite similar. They all had an exceptionally open, matter-of-fact attitude towards sex and nudity, and much of the anthropological study of the book was centred around human sexuality and frank discussions thereof, though it was mostly heteronormative. Generally the book had a coming-of-age feel to it, except the characters are mostly middle-aged and older. But I think there is a case to make that it could be a classed as a kind of bildungsroman, from the way the main characters grow and change in response to this unfamiliar world in which they find themselves. And in some ways, you could say it’s a book about unburdening oneself from societal norms in the interests of survival. There’s a lot of interesting themes to sift through here.
Overall, this is one of those books where you don’t quite know how to feel at the end of it, and it takes some sitting time to sort through your thoughts. And that’s no bad thing. If you like deep thought-provoking hard sci-fi that has a classic feel—particularly if you liked Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish novels (and I absolutely do), then A Suggestion In Space fits right in alongside that, and I don’t think you could go wrong with it.
