The Rosewater Insurrection
By Tade Thompson
The Rosewater Insurrection is the second part of Tade Thompson’s Wormwood Trilogy. The first book in the series, Rosewater, introduced us to a strange structure that had arisen in Nigeria: part of a plan to download alien minds into human hosts. The main character in the series, Kaaro, is a member of a secret police unit with a special medium-like ability to navigate the fantastic alien “xenosphere,” which is one of the ways these mysterious visitors communicate with us.
In this book the story opens up considerably. The mayor or Rosewater declares independence, triggering a Nigerian civil war. Meanwhile, the alien is under attack by a plant-like creature with its own mysterious agenda. Politics make for strange bedfellows and soon the large cast of characters, with Kaaro and his partner Aminat at the center, are having to take sides, sometimes quite reluctantly.
Rosewater was a terrific start to the trilogy and The Rosewater Insurrection only raises the bar, introducing a number of fascinating new elements into an already intriguing storyline.
Frankenstein is, I think by broad consensus, the first science fiction novel. Yes, the science is only glanced at, and in the 1831 edition is actually played down to the point where it’s unclear even in the most general terms how Victor Frankenstein gives life to his creation. But it’s clear that Victor isn’t using black magic to raise the dead, and as a type of the mad scientist he would go on to have a long life within the genre. Such figures aren’t punished by God or the gods (indeed we can’t even be sure if either Victor or his creation has read the Bible) but instead must be judged by the results of their experiments. After all, Victor can’t really help himself when it comes to pursuing his passions. Elizabeth is such a cold figure — more sister than lover — and he’s so lonely. The Creature is his true love, albeit of the type one regrets in the morning.
For 35 years super-editor Gardner Dozois, who died last year, helmed the prestigious Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies. The Very Best of the Best offers up some highlights from his tenure, but the subtitle is flat-out wrong as the book only includes stories that go back to 2002. There were two previous Best of the Best volumes that included stories published from 1983 to 2002, making this book the third such selection.
The Last Iota is the action-packed sequel to Robert Kroese’s hit neo-noir mystery The Big Sheep, returning us to a mid-twenty-first-century, post-Collapse Los Angeles and the team of brainy private investigator Erasmus Keane and his brawny partner Blake Fowler.
Is it science fiction? Well, it’s prophetic. It describes itself, paradoxically, as a vision of “a future that had already taken place, and was now exhausted.” Shouldn’t that mean that its particular dystopic vision is now passé?
The Nebula Awards debuted in 1966, with Frank Herbert’s Dune taking the prize for best novel, and since their inception they’ve been accompanied by a companion volume showcasing the nominees.
The post- but still part-human cyborg has proven to be one of the most enduring figures in SF. And as our tools and technology lead to further extensions and augmentations in the best McLuhanesque fashion, it keeps getting easier to identify with these evolving human-machine hybrids.