I have an iffy relationship with science fiction.  I find that most of the sci fi that I have read is meh.  It's either very technical (boring) or all military action (boring) or something weird like dolphins flying spaceships (could be good but usually not). I especially need good characterization in the sci fi that I read or I find that I tune out very quickly. Consequently, I am very picky about what science fiction I read. Which brings us to Tade Thompson's Far From the Light of Heaven. This is what great science fiction looks like!

A murder mystery set within a science fiction framework, this novel is able to blend both genres into a pleasing whole.  On a 10 year journey to deliver passengers to the outer colonies, First Mate Michelle Campion is woken early, from something like cyrosleep, aboard the AI piloted spaceship Ragtime. Once awake she determines that something is drastically wrong.  31 of the passengers have gone missing.  The ship's AI is not responding correctly. Campion send a distress signal which is answered by Rasheed Fin and his robotic partner, Salvo, investigators from the planet Bloodroot. But another complication has occurred: it seems the ship is now trying to kill them. The question becomes, can Campion, Fin and Salvo survive long enough solve the mystery of the missing passengers?

First, I have to say this is not just a mystery set on a spaceship.  There is a solid sci fi foundation for the novel.   In fact, the technology and the other sci fi elements (aliens, space travel, corporations in space, space politics, etc.) are all represented in the novel but done in a way that they add to the story instead of just being an info dump that happens and then is ignored. The universe that Thompson created is so inventive and realistic that you could believe that the future might look like this. It's the attention to detail, such as the fact that natural circadian rhythms are out of sync while in space, that make the universe feel real.

The characters of Campion, Fin and Salvo, among others, are so genuine.  Each one comes off as a complex person with their own hopes and fears. Thompson is not afraid to make his characters unlikeable. Although no one is really unlikeable, but can be prickly, sensitive and combative at times.  Just like real people. There is nothing in the characterization that will drop you out of the  story. I particularly enjoyed the interaction of Fin and Campion. They are allies by circumstance and yet, they both continue to mistrust the motives of the other.  I can completely see that happening in this type of situation.

As for the mystery itself, I loved it.  It was logical, surprising and so inventive.  All too often trying to write any sort of mystery within sci fi causes either the mystery or the sci fiction to be lacking. Not here. I honestly had no clue who the murderer was until the end. And there was no surprise twist or deus ex machina to ruin the ending.  The clues are there from the very beginning. This was a suspenseful, gripping mystery. I ende3d reading this is one sitting, ignoring everything else for the day.

Tade Thompson is an incredibly talented author. I am going to be checking out his other books as well as put him on my "authors to follow" list. This book is that good.

Far From the Light of Heaven is a book that no science fiction fan wants to miss!

This is a weird mash up of a novel. Blurbed as a locked room mystery, I wouldn’t characterize it as that (need the breadcrumbs of clues IMHO). Sci-fi and Space Opera in parts. Moves to the fantasy in places.

Tense and claustrophobic, Tade Thompson's latest does a good job with the "locked room" mystery idea by transferring the action to a AI-run spaceship with a thousand colonists on a long journey to a planet founded years earlier by Black Afrofuturists. They named the system Lagos and the habitable planet Bloodroot.
The colonists are on their way to far-off Bloodroot, traversing through several wormholes. The first officer awakes at Bloodroot to find the ship malfunctioning, the AI down or damaged, and several colonists murdered with no idea how this happened.

There are several point of view characters in this story:
-Michelle “Shell” Campion, head stuffed with knowledge, but short on experience. This is her first time on a long space journey, and she’s to be mostly sleeping there and back while the AI runs everything on the ship.
-Rasheed Fin, an investigator on Bloodroot. He’s been off work for a year since his last assignment resulted in a death. He sees his opportunity to return to to work by investigating the unexplained murders of colonists.
-A former pilot, who is also a friend of Shell’s father, and now the governor of Lagos station. His daughter is Joké, an unusual young woman.
-The head of the Lagos Council; she is fascinating, and all the other councillors are terrified of her.
-An artificial being called Salvo. He’s been Fin’s partner for years.
-A gazillionaire from Earth, who sees his next big opportunity off Earth.

I found the story moved at a good clip, and the tension ratcheted up nicely with each new calamity on board, or with growing questions on Lagos station and elsewhere about what was happening with the ship and its colonists.

The characters and their interactions were well handled, with misunderstandings in approaches, mindsets and communication causing tensions to rise further.
I particularly appreciated how Thompson showed the mental costs of the chaotic situation in Shell’s need to continually work her worry beads and watch the Lagos star rise, all while maintaining her stoic demeanour. And we see how detrimental Fin’s year off work has been to his mental health.
As an aside, I also liked how the aliens on Bloodroot are not inimical to the human population on the planet, which is a nice change from the usual. There are misunderstandings, but no desire to hurt one another.
The murder part of the plot is full of moments of revulsion, fear and danger, and the relationship amongst the characters, as well as the implications of the murder investigation for Lagos, evolve believably. The reveal of the motive points to problems far off on Earth, and this, along with the way the story ended, left me hoping Tade Thompson eventually returns to Bloodroot and Lagos, as I think he's set up some interesting points for later stories.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Orbit Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Many thanks to Netgalley & Orbit for the ARC — I would like to emphasize, firstly, that if you’re a plot-driven, frequent sci-fi reader, I think you’d connect with this and should give it a shot.

That said, I really wanted to love this one, but it just didn’t quite click with me. When I heard “locked room mystery” with a limited cast, I was imagining more active roles for, and driving power from, the characters. The characters certainly had some interesting qualities and dynamics, but they didn’t do much to truly drive the action, in my opinion, until the end. I felt that the investigative aspect was overshadowed by more of a survival story than an active mystery for large chunks of the book, so I hope others go into it prepared for this fact and not expecting a hands-on unraveling of the truth but for a few parts and some accidental discoveries. The beginning was abrupt in a way that made it difficult for me to get my feet on the ground for a good chunk of the story — for a moment I almost wondered if I’d accidentally wound up reading a second book in an established world, without knowing it. This got better as the book went on, but I think it may have had a role in my overall enjoyment. Still, I can tell that this story has a solid audience out there and would recommend it to the right reader. <3

Far from the Light of Heaven is the kind of book that grips you, shakes you around a bit, and leaves you ruffled up in the end. And how could it not? Shell, our main character, is the captain of a spaceship that is taking civilians to a colony who, upon waking, finds 31 of those passengers dead. Murdered.
Far from the Light continuously throws unsettling events at you, chapter after chapter, setting a pacing that kept me hooked. With the setting of an isolated spaceship, each new oddity that occurred gave me chills and had me flipping page after page.
And while the book may be relatively short, it packs in loads of content. From aliens (unique ones!) to AI, artificial humans, several new space colonies, etc. Far from the Light of Heaven feels like there isn't a single chapter, or sentence really, that isn't vitally important to the world building and the mystery at large.
This book was such an unexpected adventure that I fell madly in love with.

I had some gaps of days between reading this, so I didn’t always know what was going on and had to read back to get some context. However, once I had that context, I always got right back into the story. Thompson spins a hell of a locked door mystery, and I love that he set it in a ship where everyone’s been in cryosleep and wakes up to a bunch of dead bodies. There is a bit of an info dump at one point, but honestly, the way that it’s framed is very well done. How the politics of the colony play out in all of this is also a fun counterpoint to everything going down on the ship. I don’t entirely understand one of the alien races, but tbh, I can live with it. Definitely worth a read.

This sci-fi space opera novel has pretty much everything that is great about the genre. It is also diverse, nuanced, and still has enough twists to remain a fresh entry into the genre.

A number of perspectives are offered in this novel: (1) a beleaguered (and yet rookie) captain of a spaceship, (2) a detective trying to right past wrongs, (3) the detective's AI-partner, (4) an old ex-pilot turned governor of an Afrofuturistic space station, Lagos, (5) murderous AI systems, (6) an awful Elon Musk-esque kazillionaire (truly don't know how rich he is...just super rich), (7) the lead Council Member of Lagos, (8) the ex-pilot's half-human, half-"alien" daughter who sometimes slips out of space-time and into another dimension, and OTHERS...yes, there's more. At a certain point it could become confusing or tiresome, but it never does. It makes things more interesting to have such a cast of characters.

Michelle (Shell) Campion wakes up and finds that while she was asleep for a decade of space travel, dozens of her passengers have been brutally murdered. Rasheed Fin is sent to investigate what happened. Things spiral even further out of control from there, including wolves?! In space?!

This was a fun ride. It didn't drag at any point, and it wasn't weighed down by some of the usual jargon-packed sci-fi novels. I highly recommend it, especially for those who tend to avoid sci-fi for that reason.

4.5 stars rounded up.

Locked room whodunit in space???? YES PLEASE!

I really enjoyed Far From the Light of Heaven. It was really well written and I was completely invested in figuring out what the hell happened on the ship and who the killer was!!! And it wasn’t just a typical murder and hide. It was SO GOOD! It’s one of those books that I wish I could just delete from my brain so I can read it for the first time again!

There were a bunch of AI characters (YAY!), a found crew, a philosophical clusterfuck on what qualifies as “good,” a wolf, and, of course, lots and lots of violence!

I want the wolf, just saying.

My only complaint is the completely random mini-romance that actually decreased my enjoyment. (Which is really weird for me because I normally LOVE romance in books!) I didn’t like it partly because of the hint of sapphic that was never delivered and partly because if just didn’t make sense. It was exasperating. You’re on a compromised ship with a mystery killer… probably not the best moment for this. It might have bugged me less if it was just a hookup. It just felt a little too insta-emotional attachment for my tastes. Especially when I’m way more interested in who the killer is and what’s going on!

Other than that, I really dug this book!!! I definitely recommend.

Thanks Orbit Books for sending me an earc of this book!!

This is a locked-room mystery and scifi horror combined. I really enjoyed the characters in this book and the mystery was very engaging. I had never read any Tade Thompson before this but now I need to read more of his work.

The main books endorsement, calls this "wildly imaginative" which is apt. There's some smart writing here. I liked this overall, and recommend it to those seeking a scifi mystery. This should sell well.

I really appreciate the free review copy!!

This was an interesting book, I especially liked how it started in present day and the backstory of how was told later, very effective. Michelle (Shell) is a recent graduate of NASA and is pouched by a large intergalactic space line to be the human captain on a 10 year trip to a distant planet, factoring in the return trip, she'll be spending the next 20 years in space, she is second in command to an AI, the ship is taking 1,000 people to live on this planet. All the passengers and Michelle are asleep during the trip. Something goes wrong and Michelle wakes up to find that there are a number of missing passengers, she discovers they are dead and the AI that is controlling the ship is not responding to her commands as it should be. The story is told from the point of view of a number of people, though I did not find it difficult to keep track of all the storylines. Things go from bad to worse for Michelle who has two different ships dock with her ship and board, one of the people who boards is someone she knows from her past and the other is a detective of sorts sent to investigate after Michelle had sent a mayday type request. Saying a lot more about the plot would deprive readers of a truly fascinating story, I would highly recommend even if you are not someone who normally reads science fiction. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Tade Thompson has written a most intriguing novel entitled “Far From The Light Of Heaven.” Thompson, in his notes in the afterword, has described his story not as science fiction but more of a “locked room” murder mystery set in space. So Mr. Thompson has syncretized two of my favorite genres into a compelling, although for me, a difficult story to follow, I do not blame the author for my difficulty: I have found that in my advanced age (AARP anyone?) that these high concept stories written by brilliant men and women are tougher on my brain than when I tried to tackle “Dune” as a young college undergraduate.
A couple of sentences on the plot: The colony ship “Ragtime” travels light years from home to deliver thousands of comatose people to a safe new home planet. However, over 30 of these souls are murdered before they get the chance to wake up, leaving the ship’s no. 2 pilot the new captain in charge of figuring out “who-done-it.” Will she or won’t she? And will the murderer kill her, as well as others, before the ship lands? Also, will the ship land safely or will it be destroyed?
All those, and many other questions, are posed, and answered, in this unique story. Thank you NetGalley for this interesting and provocative journey to the stars…

Damn. This book was something else. At turns matter-of-fact in tone, balls-to-the-wall exciting, mind-bendingly confusing, and profoundly thoughtful. I love a genre-melding books, especially if space mystery and Afro-futurism are involved. Not to mention wolves? I’ve read a lot of space mysteries, and this one is definitely one of the most unique and intentional. Clearly the author had a really specific vision of what they were trying to accomplish with the story, not sacrificing plot for tone or vice-versa. And God, the characters. Shell and Joké were definitely my favorites. Both so clearly defined. I also really did like the resolution/question balance at the end. Artfully done.

I will say I was a little disappointed with the reveal of the mystery. (Potential SPOILERS?) Without revealing too much, it felt just a little deus ex machina for the killer/motive to be revealed from off-screen (so to speak) over half way through the book. It’s not that it wasn’t believable, it totally was (within the world of the book, of course), I would have just liked to have seen it hinted at a little more early on. It’s super satisfying to feel like you could have pieced it together even if you didn’t.

Michelle “Shell” Campion departs on her first mission as the first mate for the spaceship Ragtime, a colony passenger ship whose residents, including Shell, will sleep for ten years to get to their destination. Artificial intelligence is highly advanced in Tade Thompson’s Afrofuturism universe and the ship is captained by AI while the passengers sleep- but there’s no reason to worry, because ship AI have never failed. Shell wakes from her ten year sleep to find 31 dismember bodies, hostile robots, and that the ship’s AI is no longer acting quite right. She sends a distress signal to the planet they have arrived at, and an eccentric small group is sent to help investigate. But they’d better hurry, because time is running out and the situation on the ship is turning hostile.

This was a great locked room mystery. I haven’t gotten to read nearly as much sci-fi this year as I would have liked and diving into this book reminded me why I loved it so much. I got similar feels to Dead Space by Kali Wallace as well as little hints of similarities to the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. I’m not sure I would go as far as to call this a space opera as I’ve seen- the world and universe is discussed but not as flushed out as I would expect with a space opera. More of a sci-fi locked room with some foray into horror to me! I would definitely recommend Far From the Light of Heaven to lovers of sci-fi and look forward to reading more from Tade Thompson!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Orbit for the e-ARC!

My Take:

First mate ‘Shell’ Campion awakens from the ten-year slumber of intergalactic travel… this is her first journey and what is supposed to be solely a ceremonial position because the ship’s AI never… NEVER fail. Only this time it does, and there waiting for Shell’s eyes to open are 31 dead bodies of the Bloodroot colonists.

With the help of Fin and his animated partner (sorta an android and sorta not), Shell has to investigate the murders at the same time as new dangers start to develop.. Part of Ragtime breaks off, experiments escape from their pods, and the backup AI isn’t exactly helpful. Chapters start to introduce new characters and the focus pulls back and forth between people on the surface vs the quasi-team that is trying to save the rest of the thousand people still in cryo…

I liked the characters, the adventure, and most of all the inventiveness and ingenuity in the problem solving. My minor criticism is in the characterization… the author uses separate chapters to relate anecdotes and background about the characters instead of integrating this info into the storyline. Pros: Dedicated time to focus on the characters and kept the actual storyline humming. Cons: Broke up the overall pacing and was slightly distracting.

Overall, an entertaining book that can definitely be seen as a lock-room mystery in space. And, also as the author describes in the afterword, the premise partly can explain the feeling of being fresh out of medical school or training without any experience as Shell is in the novel and Thompson.

A little of a mixed review, but if you have read Thompson’s other works you know his imagination will bring Wows and Ohhhhs!

4 out of 5 stars.

Stellar! Or rather, interstellar! This is basically a murder mystery, but set on a spaceship, orbiting a far planet. The spaceship is a character, and even a suspect. There are artificially intelligences, aliens, wormholes, and plenty of advanced technology, but we don't get too deep into the scientific weeds. There are a bunch of really interesting, unusual characters, and we get to know them as we try to figure out why 31 of the 1000 passengers on the ship didn't arrive at their destination alive. Shell, the captain, is extremely cool under pressure, just as we imagine NASA trained astronauts would be. The government on the orbited planet sends an investigative team of two, but otherwise plays games throwing trash into bins while the remaining 969 orbit asleep and vulnerable. It's entirely up to the captain and investigators to solve this, with the situation escalating all the while. There's a wolf on the loose, biological science experiments are set free, and some of the robots have been programmed to attack. In spite of the high stakes, Shell inspires a lot of confidence, and it doesn't feel like horror. She gets some assistance from the last space station they passed through, but not much since the government there is only interested in getting their fee paid. There are some surprises at the end, including a very aggressive decision from the dictator/secretary of the space station. All really interesting, thought provoking, and even pretty plausible. Highly recommend!

A locked room, or ship, mystery that manages to produce delight through fancy, while maintaining an impressive commitment to scientific speculation. The ending was, admittedly, a bit abrupt, but leaves hope for a sequel!

I've read a few other books by this author and they usually had some kind of dark violence or stress to them...most of this book (but not all of it) was a bit lighter in that respect, plus it's more far-future space opera than his definitely Earth-based other books. Still lots of darkness and a bit of gore to it though, and a long-ish flashback near the end. I would read a sequel or more in the same setting.

While Tade Thompson’s Clarke Award-winning Rosewater (2016) and its two sequels comprising his Wormwood trilogy provided extensive insight into a near future Nigerian state dealing with an inexplicable alien phenomenon, his latest Far From the Light of Heaven is more a space thriller with a locked room murder mystery. The Nigerians are again present, with a do-nothing administrator on space station Lagos, and rescue workers who take bets to secure property rights to wrecked spaceships, but Thompson’s Afrofuturism seems more to the side of the main story.

It is the story of rookie mission specialist Michelle “Shell” Campion, who has accepted a position as First Mate on an interstellar people transport captained by an AI. Her job on the Ragtime’s ten-year journey to Bloodroot is mostly to enter sleep along with the thousand passengers, but be available just in case the infallible AI fails. After the ship passes through the wormhole at Lagos Station, and into orbit around nearby Bloodroot, she is awakened to a dysfunctional AI and all hell breaks loose. Some of the passengers are missing, the ship is quarantined by the Bloodroot government, and a suspended forensic investigator named Fin is sent up to join Shell, along with his AI partner. As all the surviving passengers continue to sleep, his suspects are pretty limited – Shell being one of them. They are also joined by the forementioned do-nothing Lagos administrator Lawrence Biz and his half-Lamber daughter Joké. Just to clarify a little, Uncle Larry was the business partner of Shell’s deceased father and has known her since childhood, and the Lambers are a mysterious, possibly alien, race of beings who move through spacetime forming liaisons with human beings on Bloodroot. Joké has some of their characteristics. It’s an action-packed plot in a somewhat weird setting as Fin investigates the on-board murders and Shell struggles to save her “crew” from asphyxiation and orbital decay.

To be honest, the characters felt a little rough to me. Shell in particular, is supposed to be an inexperienced young adult, but has dialog like “On Earth there used to be this soothsayer, the Delphian Oracle. Supposedly it spouted glossolalia, gibberish and the seekers of wisdom took away whatever message they wanted to hear guided by projections of their own subconscious. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that whatever oracle we choose to consult will tell us we are cursed.” It seems digressive for a panic situation assessment, such as you might expect from a more mature, even elderly, personality.

While the first half of the novel seems to conform to tropes of science fictional realism, the true explanation of the Lambers when revealed is more mysterious, possibly supernatural, and definitely Wierd. The way the city of Bloodroot spirals around the Lamber Tower reminded me of the way the city of Rosewood grows to surround the alien artifact in Thompson’s Wormwood trilogy. So, this is kind of a genre bender, with elements of hard-sf, weird fiction, and murder mystery. Recommended reading, with a few caveats. Only Tade Thompson knows if a sequel will be written, but it is not necessary; the ending is conclusive.

I read an Advance Reader Copy of Far From the Light of Heaven, by Tade Thompson in ebook, which I received from Hachette Book Group (Orbit) through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 26 October 2021.

In Far from the Light of Heaven, Tade Thompson, author of the Wormwood Trilogy, constructs a fine murder mystery on board a colony space ship in methodical detail. Step by step he introduces characters and settings, with just enough detail to bring each person to life and give each of their worlds its full reality. Thompson refers to his story as a locked room murder mystery in space, but the fast pacing opens a complex world of compelling history that is much more than that.

Every character deepens the story of Far from the Light of Heaven and brings into play a new dimension of life in an interstellar future. First we meet Shell Campion, who signs on with a private space company, MaxGalactix, to serve as second in command on a colony space ship, Ragtime. Daughter of a heroic space-farer, she is nervous about her first interplanetary mission but is assured that the AI running the ship will take care of everything. The AI’s never fail. Of course, we can be sure that this AI, referred to as Ragtime, will do just that.

......
It’s a high-spirited book that hits a tone carefully balancing grimmer elements with a light, almost romantic touch. It’s full of surprises and always engaging. It’s also a story that stays with me, unlike so many novels these days that may be enjoyable to read but quickly fade from memory. I keep looking back through the story and finding things I missed. Thompson has a wonderful gift that way, of making you think twice about a narrative you may try to hurry through for its surface fun. His imagination goes deeper, even while keeping you entertained with a fast-moving story.