In a near future Nigeria the city of Rosewater has grown up around a strange biodome, Utopicity, with life-enhancing powers (thought there's a creepy flipside to the 'cures' that happen when the dome opens). Kaaro is a 'sensitive', by day providing psychic security for a bank, but, when called for, an operative of the government's secret Section 45. He's actually one of their most senior psychics, but there's still an adversarial element to his relationship with his bosses and Kaaro has never quite outgrown the echoes of his youth when he spent most of the time using his talents to steal. He doesn't like working for the government. He especially doesn't like having to interrogate prisoners, using his talents.

When his fellow sensitives begin dying, Kaaro is motivated to investigate before he becomes the next victim - always circling back to Utopicity. This isn't a linear story. We get flashbacks to Kaaro's less than admirable past and Kaaro acts as our tour guide to the xenosphere and a greater understanding of what it is. There's a gritty realism, and Kaaro is no hero, but he tells it like it is.

Extremely well-written, this is essentially an alien invasion story, or possibly an aftermath story. They're here. They're staying, and they don't give a flying f**k what humans think about it. We gradually come to understand as Kaaro does.

This book is one of those discoveries that not only is enjoyable for itself; it's good enough to make me feel overall cheerily optimistic about the future of science fiction writing. Of course, this is not to be confused with 'feeling cheery about the future;' the effect here is quite the opposite, in fact.

It's also one of those books where everything takes some time to come clear - though it's not as inaccessible as some of the reviews/blurbs calling this 'weird' made it sound.

In the near future, it's discovered that some kind of alien has landed (?) surfaced (?) appeared (?) outside Lagos, Nigeria. Some kind of dome blocks off an area, and outside that dome, a shantytown has sprung up, rapidly growing and evolving. You see, periodically, the alien influence emanates some kind of 'healing' ray - and those with an eye for the main chance, as well as those who are desperate, are eager to take advantage of it.

As well, the alien influence has created a small group of telepathic 'mutants.' Of course, the government has rounded up these people, molding them into an elite group of secret agents. Kaaro, formerly a thief, has been recruited, and might be the most powerful of those who can access the 'xenosphere.' But something odd is going on in this psychic realm. Now, his fellow agents are mysteriously dying. Is someone assassinating them, or does it have something do do with the alien? How does the bizarrely sensual woman he keeps meeting on the psychic place tie in? And what does the nomadic revolutionary and activist called 'Bicycle Girl' fit in with what's going on?

Alien invasion, mystery, x-men-style mutants, political schemes, crime drama, a touch of radical revolution, all set against a dirty, gritty, utterly convincing backdrop... sound good yet? I hope so! I can't really name any other book that's just like this one, but it's engaging and immersive as well as wonderfully original. Kaaro is not a particularly admirable character, but he's written extremely well, and comes off as very human.

Definitely on my Hugo nominating ballot.

Many thanks to Apex and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are unrelated to the source of the book.

I read Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor about the same time last year and even though I enjoyed it, a lot of things went over my head. However, I have come to really appreciate Okorafor's writing and ideas after reading four of her works last year and when I saw on Netgalley that Rosewater, another book about the aftermath of an alien invasion in Lagos, Nigeria, I was sold. Also, it helped that I had previously read a really good story by Thompson ( The Apologists, Interzone #266) two weeks prior and that one of my favorite bloggers Tammy at Books Bones & Buffy did an amazing review of it and put this title in her list of favorite books of 2016.
So, of course, I had to request it immediately.

Well, I'm happy to say that I really, really loved this book and that it put me in a very good reading mood, I now have the feelings that I'm going to read great things in 2017!

This book follows Karoo, an incredibly frustrating character that manages to have every aspects I usually dislike in characters ( he's a coward, mysogynist and selfish) but that I couldn't help but to root for. Karoo feels so humans that even if he's frustrating because of all his flaws, they made him look more relatable because, even if we don't want to, I think that everyone can see themselves in him.

As I said, this book follows the aftermath of an alien invasion in Nigeria, after their arrival, the aliens decided to live under a dome near to Lagos. This city is now called Utopicity by the inhabitants of Rosewater, a city that surrounds the alien dome. Every year, the dome opens and fills the air with a substance that can heal every illness, even death.

The arrival of the aliens gave some people called sensitives the ability to access the xenosphere, an organic network that allows all of them to access information. Karoo is a finder, a type of sensitive who can sense people's thoughts and feel their connections to what is dear to them. Because of that, he now works for a government agency, Section 45 that uses him as an interrogater. His life is pretty miserable because everyone want to use him for something and even if his job made him extremely rich, he's always alone and sad. When he thought that his life couldn't be worse, he learns that sensitives are getting killed off by a mysterious virus and that he might be the next in line.
I thought the concept of this story was amazing, I was hooked right at the beginning of the story and I really liked discovering things about Karoo and the alien invasion. This book has an interesting structure since it jumps between three time lines and they all allows us to get a grasp on what's happening. Non-linear stories can confusing when they aren't done well but it wasn't the case here, everything worked really well, I wasn't bored or confused at all and it was hard to put the book down.

The writing was really good, I recently described on of his short story, The Apologists (Interzone #266) as "brutal and fascinating" and those terms can be applied to Rosewater. Thompson doesn't hold back and some passages can be quite explicit and bloody. As a reader, I liked to be pushed out of my confort zone and Rosewater definitely did that, if you had any doubt on how much humans can be inventive in matters of cruelty and torture, this might surprise you.

In my opinion, Rosewater is required reading for everyone who call themselves SF readers, it's definitely very different from what's currently on the market and it's pretty weird and disturbing but it's fantastic.

Highly recommended, I can't wait to read Making Wolf, his award winning debut.