The Compelled by Adam Roberts and Francois Schuiten

I would like to thank Nigel from Neotext for a copy of this novella/flipbook in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Neotext

Published – Out Now

Price – £0.77 Kindle eBook

A mysterious change has occurred in humanity. Nobody knows how, why or exactly when this change came about, but disparate, seemingly unconnected people have become afflicted with the uncontrollable desire to take objects and move them to other places, where the objects gather and begin to form increasingly alien, monolithic structures that appear to have vast technological implications. Some of the objects are innocuous everyday things—like a butter knife taken still greasy from a breakfast table or a dented cap popped off a bottle of beer. Others are far more complex—like the turbine of an experimental jet engine or the core of a mysterious weapon left over from the darkest days of WWII.

Where is the Compulsion coming from? And—possibly more importantly—when the machines they’re building finally turn on, what are they going to do?

It’s often said (wrongly) that movies and TV can add a visual scale that a novel cannot quite replicate. And with so many tv shows that love a mysterious arc how can any book give us that sensation. Well good news for you I was hugely impressed with the scale, mystery, and visual wonder of The Compelled written by Adam Roberts and beautifully illustrated by Francois Schuiten the first half of a two book SF mystery.

The world is slowly getting to grips with an unusual spate of people behaving in strange ways. Suddenly drawn to taking everyday objects (or removing them from others) and creating new machines or statues all over the globe. They are labelled ‘The Compelled’ as they abandon their old lives until no longer required. These may be simple items such a knife in a drawer or a WW2 sunken submarine. Nothing gets in their way, and no one knows what the purpose of this effect is. We meet a small group of people all either trying to help, stop or act out their mission and try to piece together exactly what this means for humanity.

This is a highly entertaining thriller that if you enjoyed TV shows like Lost then well worth experiencing something similar in book form. Roberts creates quite quickly the central mystery and then we spend time following a variety of arcs focusing on groups of characters we just know are destined to follow paths. We meet Vida Dominic a US advocate for the Compelled working to prevent the US police treating the Compelled as just another group to beat up when they feel like, and Vida finds themselves getting closer to the life of one of the Compelled named Lee who we see has lost his family thanks to his new drive to assist the other Compelled. Billionaire Marcus and his husband Roy are navigating a dangerous stormy piece of sea to get their hands on a WW2 mystery that Roy knows he must bring back to the surface no matter how much danger everyone on the ship is brought in. Stand-up comedian Simone is experimenting with a new routine on The Compelled and in one show grabs the attention of mysterious Congressman Al Paugh who may or may not be compelled but knows many a lot of classified information about what the Compelled are doing. Finally in France rural police officer Serge finds himself a hostage of the literally disarming Aline and on a road-trip to who knows where.

I really liked how Roberts creates different tones for each plot strand from action with Serge and Roy’s thread to traditional conspiracy plots with Simone. Roberts paints the characters very effectively, so the cast all feel like human beings and not just plot mechanisms. Roy’s scenes of loss and grief are particularly well handled and draw you into caring what awaits all these characters. The central mystery is also fascinating. Even by the end I am not sure if the Compelled are a menace to us or doing something that will be wondrous, and this is a very very effective mystery. The global scale of the mystery and the number of people affected make this feel like a huge moment for humanity; combined with the eeriness of the creations of the Compelled from huge statues of humans or aliens or strange machines that in turn build even bigger machines are discussed in various interludes all help puzzle us as to if it is an endpoint or start of a new phase for our world. It’s a brilliant example of a story creating the mystery. Of course, being only the first part of the story there is little explanation so far so can the landing match the opening is the big unanswered question.

This is a perfect time to note that this book has rather gorgeous eerie and strange artwork via Schuiten who paints unique pictures either of our world with strange objects plonked in the middle of busy streets or even surrounding a giant city; plus, we get examples built in nature itself on coasts or towering above mountains. They add to the sense of mystery and the unique flipbook Neotext allows means that this fits and flows very easily on a smartphone or reader in landscape mode. This makes it a really unusual book in itself which is always something to be applauded.

The Compelled is an addictive novella that has scale, mystery and set-up that matches many of these mystery shows. I think it has better grasp of making us care about characters and the artwork for me beats a lot of TV CGI so all in all this is an intriguing mystery I dearly hope we get a satisfactory ending to but for now worth dipping you toe into this unusually deep water. Life in the old book format yet I say!