Far from the Light of Heaven

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By Tade Thompson

Publisher Description

“Simultaneously brutally grounded and wildly imaginative.” —Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award winner

A tense and thrilling vision of humanity’s future in the chilling emptiness of space from rising giant in science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Tade Thompson

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake.

Answering Campion’s distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths. Soon a sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, one that will have repercussions for the entire system—from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed to Earth itself.

Praise for Far from the Light of Heaven

"Gripping and skillfully told, with an economy and freshness of approach that is all Tade Thompson''s own. The setting is interstellar, but it feels as real, immediate, and lethal as today's headlines." —Alastair Reynolds

"[I]nventive, exciting and compulsively readable...This book is like the Tardis, larger inside than out, with a range of ideas, characters, and fascinating future settings making it probably the best science fiction novel of the year." —The Guardian

For more from Tade Thompson, check out:

The Wormwood Trilogy
Rosewater
Rosewater: Insurrection
Rosewater: Redemption

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Far from the Light of Heaven Reviews

3.0

Elijah Davies

Created 6 days ago

Flat Strong villain Unengaging Disjointed Unsatisfying conclusion Dark Futuristic Unique location Murder Violence

Victoria Elizabeth

Created 14 days ago

“2.75/5... a slightly underwhelming murder mystery set on a spaceship... The book started off well - such an interesting premise - but then it just sort of fizzled out rather than ending in a meaningful way. It's not that I didn't enjoy reading this, because mostly I did. But there were a number of elements to the story that didn't quite work for me... I failed to feel any connection between Fin and Joké - the relationship felt a bit forced and sudden, and honestly unnecessary. I'm unclear on the relevance of the wolf, given that its image appears both on the cover and at the top of each chapter. And why was there a random sex scene with a demon in a lava pool? I found the flashbacks quite confusing as I didn't always find it clear when we had flashed back and ended up saying, 'huh?' partway through a page and having to circle back to figure out what was going on. Also, some of the other POVs were not as interesting as those of the main characters, and I found my eyes skipping over these chapters. Overall... this isn't a bad story, it's just not great. There are some intriguing ideas and tense scenes, I liked the journey but found myself quite indifferent at the end.”

Shane Quinlan

Created 2 months ago

Destiny Daniels

Created 2 months ago

Gothic Booktroverts 🖤🍂

Created 3 months ago

“Murder, Sci-Fi, and a really intriguing premise. Just a shame that the actual written word couldn’t deliver. This book was tedious. It’s sets itself up as a murder mystery with a detective (of sorts) hired and tasked to investigate multiple deaths with his synthetic counterpart. Kind of like an intergalactic Holmes and Watson. The downfall is that there is NO INVESTIGATION. The reveal of how the bodies were dismembers just sort of…happens. Then it becomes a survival story for some reason. There’s a lot of jumping back and forth between multiple characters viewpoints, horribly executed, that don’t seem to go anywhere. This would have been far more effective if this was just from Shell’s point of view. It would have made her far more relatable. As a reader, we would have been seeing the story unfold through her eyes only, learning the details as we went along. Instead, she’s introduced in the first few pages as the main character but then feels like she’s sidelined for far less interesting characters. Bad choice right there. The book boasts some interesting ideas regarding expansion of humanity amongst the stars and the advancements of AI, but nothing is explored in great depth for any considerable amount of world building, and these ideas just feel like they were thrown in to pad out the page numbers and add questions about the human mind, and Jesus, you can really tell that the author is a shrink based on this latter point. I won’t be coming back to this author’s work any time soon.”

Feel distant Flat Loose ends Rushed Unsatisfying conclusion Bad writing Clear but uninspired

About Tade Thompson

Tade Thompson is the author of the Rosewater novels, the Molly Southbourne books, and Making Wolf. He has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nommo Award, and the Prix Julia Verlanger and been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Locus Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Hugo Awards, among others. He lives and works on the south coast of England.