The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz

I would like to thank Nazia from Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Orbit

Published – Out Now

Price - £9.99 paperback £5.49 Kindle eBook

Destry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her.

But the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn't exist, hidden inside a massive volcano.

As she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she's devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E's future for generations to come.

It has been said that Science Fiction is often about problem solving and its consequences. Often we get tales where a device makes things better or sadly worse. The space of time is fairly short but many types of problems are not going to be solved in a day or a week and that long-term view is something we humans struggle with. In Annalee Newitz’s ambitious and very interesting new novel The Terraformers we get to witness over a few thousand years an incredibly varied new world grows, battle its competing interests and see if a perfect future can ever be possible.

In the far future Terraforming is all the rage and also good business. One of the latest is the far-off planet Sask-E owned by the large corporation Verdance who tale worlds and offer pristine new untouched Earths for future (and rich) to colonise. But it takes thousands of years to make a new world and Verdance grows and owns a vast collection of beings to nurture and take care of the planet often applying the skills of the illustrious Environmental Rescue Team one member is Destry and her sentient companion (and flying moose) Whistle. A mission to explore an anomaly discovers a community hidden from the eyes of Verdance and Destry and her friends finds themselves soon in the firing line for a battle between corporate strategy, short-term gain and a desire for environmental and social freedom.

I was asked when I told someone I was reading this if it would be suitable for a newbie to SF and overall my sense is this would not. But for those who enjoy a challenging and ambitious piece of SF then this would appeal. It is absolutely full of ideas, concepts and plays with structure and time in ways that will mean the reader needs to be kept on their toes and be prepared for a few unexpected terms. There are not many stories that will have scenes of animal burlesque, sentient cows and have a starring role for a talking flying train and their friend a journalist cat! Newitz has created a fascinating world where everyone is technically company property and also sentience is fascinatingly now spread across articifical and enhanced life which stealthily the novel gently gets us to accept.

Newitz initially starts with Destry as a central character and she takes lead but her friends are drones, creatures and humans. In this story while each character may have views on other species they all interact as equals and indeed as the story develops one key plotline is intelligence. Verdance has strict intelligence assessments but most of Destry’s group scathingly refer to them as ‘Inass’ as the story develops we see how people all re-appraise if some ‘lesser’creatures really cannot be the equals of the superior hominids. Destry’s tale though ends in about a third of the novel and the second of the three parts is set 500 years later and we gradually meet more and more enhanced creatures so that by the final part of the story our heroes are not human at all. Its great to see a story push the reader to accept a character that can be far more than just a lantern jawed hero.

For me this feels a novel more of ideas rather than a standard hero sorts things out. Newitz in the first segment of the story explores a theme of environmental conscientiousness versus a company just seeing profit and not caring about the consequences. Destry’s group are communal problem solvers; happy to debate and take a consensus while the Verdance are all about the bottom line and care not for the long-term consequences. It’s very much conflicting point of views like this that drive the tale. As the story develops this looks into issues of urban planning and transport networks. Not the usual focus of an SF tale but skillfuly I can see Newitz making reference to issues facing many cities today. A lack of planning that means we don’t have good public transport; high rents forcing out long-term citizens and slowly you may realise that we have a story telling us a lot more about modern day life than you may have initially expected. Newitz also makes the point that the seeds of good and bad planning take centuries to work themselves out hence this tale that covers a few millennia. Ponder what just 500 years means for your neighbourhood! This means it can be disconcerting that pretty much all the cast change less than half way through the story. The idea that the past passes the torch to the future generations to now manage is useful but I think the second act slightly suffers from Destry’s absence as we lose a character who is warm, questioning, good hearted and has just discovered some key facts changing their whole view of the world and their own personal history and it doesn’t feel quite resolved before we say goodbye to Destry for good. Our next main character Misha is hiding secrets which will be revealed but they are a little too removed from the reader to initially warm towards for quite a large part of their story which makes you miss Destry even more.

The drawback for me is all these storylines require a huge amount of exposition and every scene gives us characters discussing facst and changes. A lot of scenes feel more about that process and argument. Now I like processes and argument so this book quite works for me and the look at how a lack of understanding about our natural and urban environment leads to our current messes works well for me but sometimes I think a few more glimpses at what life is like for people on this world and showing how things have got worse over the centuries would have really helped gel readers into the plot.

I really enjoyed The Terraformers because it’s challenging; daring to do its own thing in both world and character creation and is always focused on the themes. But I think this may alarm some. Personally I think books should be occasionally unsettling and take us out of our comfort zone as to what heroes and story are but it’s a caveat to warn. If you though like a brave piece of storytelling run and get this and stretch your mind.