Atlas Alone - Emma Newman

Atlas Alone is the fourth in Emma Newman’s ‘Planetfall’ series, though (as I can attest) it also works as a standalone novel. There are some callbacks to the earlier works, but while they add additional flavour and context, you can quite happily read this book on its own.

This is a story which examines big ideas in a futuristic setting. And a story about one person, and the choices which they make, and why. And a story about the near future, and what it may look like. And a story about colonising other worlds, and what that may look like. All these facets of the narrative are wound together into a narrative which crackles with potential, and works hard to live up to that potential.

Our protagonist is Dee. Dee is clever, and driven, and very goal oriented. Dee also struggles with people, with the kind of social cues that most of us take for granted. Where people are kind to her, or affectionate, or less than selfish, Dee is always looking for their angle, trying to understand what their behaviour means, refusing to believe that everyone will not, at some point, fail or betray her. Part of this is due to events of her past, the sort of childhood trauma which could leave anyone on edge. Part is perhaps due to some more interventionist conditioning received as part of an (initially vague) corporate debt deal. The genius of the writing here is in giving us a character so wrapped up in containing their own past, and so affected by it as to be atypically non-empathetic – and getting the reader to feel empathy for that character, to understand them on their own terms.

Dee’s internal voice is an angular, precise, edged thing, which makes for sometimes difficult, but utterly believable reading. It matches perfectly with the self-contained emotional chameleon that Dee has perfected as an exterior – giving people what they expect, and hiding what remains of herself, past the façade, behind barriers of pain and emotional armour.

Given we’re in Dee’s head, I’d be hard put to describe her as a good person – but that’s one of the questions the text gives to the reader as it progresses. Whether the actions which Dee takes are the right ones is, it seems, a matter of moral perspective. Because Dee is on a spaceship, which appears to have barely escaped the ruination of Earth in a cataclysm of fire. And it appears that whoever ordered that catastrophe to unfold made sure they were also on that ship. Dee’s initial plan is to find that person, and to make sure they pay for their crime. Doing so will require intelligence, guts, quick thinking, and a mile-wide streak of ruthlessness. As the reader walks that long mile with Dee, we can see the decisions she makes in the face of moral expedience, deciding when enough is enough, shaped by her own remembered pain.

That moral journey is matched by an investigative one, as Dee delves into some rather dark corners trying to work out what happened, who did it, and how she can get to them. That investigation moves between the sterile corridors of the spaceship Dee calls home, and a variety of sweeping virtual environments. The corridors of the ship are described in a clipped, bare way which leaves them feeling cramped and utilitarian as much as their descriptions do; by contrast, the virtual environs are vividly imagined, richly detailed worlds – and they give us an opportunity to dig into our own future history – such as seeing the prelude to widespread riots in near-future London. In all cases, the world has its own feel; you can taste the smoke in the virtual air, and smell the tang of machined cleaning product in the sparse corridors of the ship around Dee’s compartment. The wider world is there in flashes, in cultural indicators in dialogue, in the studied disdain and flatly keen analysis Dee provides for most of her personal interactions.

Both edges of this world fit together seamlessly as Dee investigates what she believes is democide, and both feel real. Often bloodily, horrifyingly so. This is a world which pulls no punches, which wants both its characters and the readers to know that every action will have a consequence, and it may be swift and brutal, or it may be slow and corrosive. Dee begins as a prisoner of her past, of her past actions, the actions imposed upon her, and her reactions to them – shaped by trauma and circumstance into who she is – an open blade.

So, this is a really strong and intriguing character piece, and the world-building is plausible, tight and detailed. But is the story any good? I’d say so. The investigative threads are drawn ever tighter as the narrative progresses, until the tension is as taut as a piano-wire garrotte. There’s some snappy, visceral action scenes wrapped around that thread, and they’re not afraid to be dangerous or bloody or packed with narrative consequence. The threads were never quite going where I expected, which combined with the relentlessly paced prose to keep me turning pages to find out what happened next, and to see my questions answered.

In the end, this is a story which takes excellent characterisation with an interesting world and an intriguing plot that blends mystery and personal discovery, and combines them into a sterling piece of top notch science fiction.