This book manages to be many things at once: historical fiction but also sci-fi/ space opera; clever but not too cerebral; and examination of whether we should do something because we can do it; and an engaging space conflict story. Others have already summarised the plot so I won’t go into that. Suffice to say that I’ve never seen historical fiction and sci-fi mashed up quite like this although Kim Stanley Robinson probably comes closet. The two main characters – Nicoluccio, a fourteenth century monk, and Hebidah, an intergalactic anthropologist – are well depicted and engaging. I enjoyed the parallels of the two plague story lines too. This takes a little while to get going with the first half of the book really concentrating on Hebidah’s outsider perspective on the Black Death in all its historical horror, it then changes to become a fraught space conflict for the last half. Unusual and compulsive, I highly recommend this clever sci-fi.

Niccolucio is a devout monk of the Florentine Carthusian order. When the plague known as the Black Death claims the lives of not only most of the villagers near his order, but also all of his brothers. Despite being spared for the time being, Niccolucio can’t help but have doubts surrounding his piety.

Niccolucio is saved from near death by Habidah, an anthropologist from another universe that is suffering from the plague. She is overwhelmed with grief for all the suffering on the worlds. But in breaking the rules of observer neutrality Habidah finds herself and Niccolucio in a galaxy-spanning conspiracy.

In so many ways this book is really two different books. The first portion sets up the severity of the Black Death and the struggle to find something to believe in when in the face of devastation and despair. It is an engrossing beginning that really draws the reader in. Habidah’s arrival and the early mystery surrounding who she is also draws the reader into the story quite well. In this early going I really expected that I had found another five star book.

But all of this early work is set-up – background information on the characters and the worlds. The plot of the book comes after Niccolucio and Habidah get together and the plot actually slows the story down and makes this character study less interesting.

A big part of this is simply that author Tristan Palmgren did such a good job with the early portion of the novel that I didn’t want the story to change. I was enjoying the book and then got a big story shift that I wasn’t prepared for and so I was taken out of my reading comfort. Going in to the next book in the series (because of course there will be a next volume because no one writes just a stand-alone book any more) I’ll have a better understanding of what I’m getting in to (unless Palmgren gives us another complete story shift), which I suspect will make the progress a little easier.

Looking for a good book? Quietus, by Tristan Palmgren is a well-written historical/alternate history fantasy, but be prepared for a big story shift.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

QUIETUS is an interesting, well-written and ambitious science fiction novel.
Populated by engaging characters, and with a scope that grows as the novel unfolds, it's a very good read.
Definitely worth reading if you're a fan of hard science fiction and are looking for a debut author to try/support.