I’ve talked about quite a lot of instances prior to now that one of many sights of SF for me is its potential to have a look at present points and extrapolate them to make some form of level.
Certainly, it’s typically mentioned that in addition to being a method of a attainable future (or futures!) such distancing permits the reader to look at tough points extra objectively.
SF is as a lot in regards to the time it was written as it’s about ‘the longer term’.
In a overview of one in all Stephen’s most up-to-date novels, The Thousand Earths (reviewed HERE) I wrote about it being his tackle the problems of refugees, a problem once more in present dialogue. With this in thoughts, Stephen Baxter’s newest novel, Hearthspace, once more lets us take a look at some harder and complicated modern ethical points while within the guise of an SF novel.
From the writer: “Hundreds of years in the past, an enormous colony ship arrived on the Fireplace – the celestial birthplace of thousands and thousands of planets, starting from liveable earth-like worlds to unimaginable hellscapes of strain and warmth. Utilizing lightsails to navigate, humanity has unfold itself throughout dozens of those worlds. However they’ve additionally forgotten their beginnings, the place they got here from… and a horrible secret is about to be unveiled.
For Commander Ulla Breen, on her first tour of responsibility aboard a patrol sail-ship, the universe is about to alter round her. Attacked by an unknown and unthought-of enemy, she and her fellow crewmembers will face slavery, punishment and dying – and so will their house planets. As a result of another person has seen the richness of the internal Fireplace, and plans to take it for themselves. A brand new enemy, however one who appears disturbingly acquainted. And maybe is aware of extra in regards to the historical past of the Fireplace than even Ulla and her crew.
Confronted with a whole upheaval of all she thought she knew, Ulla should survive lengthy sufficient to provide you with a plan – one which is able to unite all of the disparate components of the Fireplace, and maybe uncover the explanation why humanity got here to Hearthspace within the first place . . .”
Ulla’s seize and incarceration by area pirates leads her to be in a tough place. Ulla finds herself the go-between between the slavers and the slaves due to Ciren Pulet, senior protector of the Hierarchy. He sees his primary goal to probe for science and in addition exploit assets for the nice of the Hierarchy. He’s mercurial, eccentric and probably insane – one minute jovial, the subsequent violent, with an odd tolerance for Ulla. Pulet’s unpredictable actions are to his personal thoughts completely appropriate and acceptable – even important for the graceful working of the area ship and the better profit to the Hierarchy.
Ulla is given a neater trip because of this, but additionally has to observe punishment being given out to these deemed to deserve it, as a result of as one character places it, individuals should be seen to be punished*. Ulla finds the duty demoralising and onerous, endlessly responsible that she has been chosen for such a job while on the identical time others haven’t. There’s additionally a fear that the sufferer has grow to be a part of the method, permitting such a scenario to proceed.
The situations that the slaves reside in are actually terrible – claustrophobic, disagreeable, unendingly grim. There are kids compelled to work in lethal situations, mutilations, beatings, rape and even homicide because the slaves wrestle to exist. The slaves are successfully dehumanised, turning into mere cogs within the machine that retains Pulet’s spaceship working, a crude but workable design. I used to be moderately reminded by the descriptions of the area ship of these ideas again within the 1970’s of issues produced by the Soviet state – useful, but on the identical time crude and fundamental.
A lot of the principle a part of the guide offers with these points. Baxter’s muted writing fashion permits the reader to look at actually horrible issues and but on the identical time see the understanding behind it. We could also be repulsed by what we learn, however we’re proven the misguided logic behind their actions. It’s at instances not straightforward studying, nevertheless it does have a goal. How to deal with, and act in opposition to, a clearly insane particular person in energy, might have a message for us all.
After all, all of that is set in a universe crammed with Baxter’s ordinary ‘huge concepts’. It was good to see Arthur C Clarke’s thought of solar-sailed spaceships reappear, however in addition to that we now have darkish matter stars producing power, and 1000’s of households of planets present in Mars-like, Earth-like and Jupiter-like zones round these stars, which Pulet and his crew are hoping to discover and mine. Oddly it’s Pulet’s love of such issues that connects him to Ulla, as he enthusiastically reveals such sights off to her while maintaining additionally her close-to-heel.
After such a protracted build-up, the ending, surrounded by an enveloping substory, appears to come back round moderately rapidly. Most points are resolved, and sensibly, though it did really feel moderately quick by comparability of what has gone earlier than.
In abstract, then, Hearthspace is a compelling learn that raises tough questions and actions entwined inside a science fictional setting. This can be a darkish novel coping with problematic points – slavery, freedom (or lack of it), torture, rape, homicide, mutilation… and but ultimately there’s a diploma of positivity and hope.
Above all, Hearthspace tells us that, regardless of our variations and every part unhealthy life throws at us, extra unites us than divides us.
*It jogged my memory of these conditions the place individuals are punished after being instructed, “It’s on your personal good.”
© 2025 Mark Yon
Hardback | Gollancz
HEARTHSPACE by Stephen Baxter
September 2025 | 374 pages
ISBN: 978 139 961 466 5
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