I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Science fiction is the perfect setting for horror stories. Space is scary and hostile to life. But, for the safety of the human species, we need to become explorers and colonizers of space. Eventually humans will want to look beyond our local solar system for deep space colonies. When this happens, what new horrors will we encounter? In Paradise-1 by David Wellington, a deep space colony has stopped responding to Earth. It’s up to Fire Watch agent Alexandra Petrova and a crew of two other humans and an artificially intelligent robot to figure out what’s happening. When they arrive in the space above Paradise-1, they’re unprepared for the horror that awaits them.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
© PrimmLife.com 2023
TL;DR
Paradise-1 by David Wellington is a big book full of big ideas. It’s also a fun read with interesting characters like Alexandra Petrova. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
An electric blend of sci-fi and horror, Paradise-1 begins a terrifying new trilogy of exploration and survival in deep space from Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author David Wellington.
“A superior space thriller that never flags….Readers will be on the edge of their seats.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Paradise-1. Earth’s first deep space colony. For thousands of people, it was an opportunity for a new life. Until it went dark.
No communication has been received from the colony for months. And it falls to Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova and the crew of the Artemis to investigate.
What they find is more horrifying than anything they could have imagined.
Review: Paradise-1 by David Wellington
Alexandra Petrova has lived her entire life in her mother’s shadow. She joined Fire Watch; well, her mother ran it. But her mother left in disgrace; she shipped out with colonists to the deep space colony, Paradise-1. Being out from underneath her mother’s shadow, Petrova finally had a chance to make a name for herself. And she has just the case to do it; Petrova is going to catch a serial killer. On the eve of her big arrest, Alexandra is stymied by the Fire Watch bureaucracy. Ordered to return; she instead chooses to follow the alleged killer. Instead of bodies, she finds feral human beings and learns that she’s made a huge mistake as the new head of Fire Watch ships her, a doctor, and a pilot on board a ship bound for Paradise-1. It turns out that humanity hasn’t heard from the deep space colony in some time, and Petrova’s new mission is to find out why. While waiting to board the ship, Petrova receives a message from her mother. It’s come from Paradise-1; only there’s something wrong with it. Her mother is happy. When the crew awakes from cryosleep in the space around Paradise-1, they find a ship on fire. Someone or something has attacked Petrova and crew. All is not well in the orbits around Paradise-1, and Petrova has to survive long enough to figure out what’s going on.
Paradise-1 by David Wellington is a third person novel set in the far future. The book features three narrators: Alexandra Petrova, Doctor Zhang Lei, who is haunted by his past, and an artificial intelligence named Rapscallion who occupies a 3D printed body. Paradise-1 is fast read but a long book. My ARC weighed in at 677 pages. This is the first novel in a series.
Fire Watch Agent Alexandra Petrova
Petrova has a chip on her shoulder. She has to prove that she earned her spot in the Fire Watch; she didn’t get it because of her mother. That makes her a good agent; that also makes her reckless. When she and her crew get to Paradise-1, she’s running around putting out a lot of fires, in some cases, literally. However, in crisis mode, she’s actually more effective and competent than when not in crisis mode. In space above Paradise-1, she’s trying to survive and not dwelling on whether she measures up to her mother.
In fact, the mother plot gets pushed back to near the end of the book, and it was an unexpected turn of events, which I liked. So much emphasis is put on her mother at the beginning of the book, and then it remains dormant as more immediate survival issues take place. I began to suspect that we wouldn’t meet Petrova’s mother in this book. But we do. Wellington doesn’t make us wait until Book 2 to learn her mother’s fate.
Artificial Intelligence
Paradise-1 by David Wellington makes good use of fictional AI in it. Rapscallion is a fun character, and I might like it more than any of the human characters. Wellington includes AI as characters in this book; they aren’t immune to the ills plaguing people above Paradise-1. Wellington also uses their inhumanity as good horror set pieces. It’s interesting seeing the novel flit back and forth between human and machine horror scenes.
As AI is currently big in the news now, I have to say that Wellington’s depictions do not resemble modern AI like ChatGPT. He’s writing about the real thing, not just statistical programs plagiarizing from the material human authors upload to the web. The AI that Wellington describes is the AI that everyone fears; yet we are so far away from true, autonomous AI that I find the comparison laughable. I also find it hard to extrapolate from ChatGPT programs to the sentient robots like Rapscallion. More of what should bother us is that ChatGPT is just remixing in statistically significant ways concepts and ideas someone else created. Rapscallion is a character readers will come to know and care for. In a way, it’s funny to think that ChatGPT might be one of Rapscallion’s ancestors.
Space Battles
Most of the book takes place in space. The planet-side scenes that I remember happened in the first few chapters of the book. This was a bit of a disappointment. I really wanted to meet the colonists, but I’ll have to wait until Book 2. All the action in space was enjoyable and heightened the mystery of what was going on, but at the end of the book, I still don’t know what’s going on. I have a better idea, but a lot of unanswered questions linger through the last page.
As an aerospace engineer, I usually nitpick how space is portrayed in fiction. (Although it is getting better every year.) Wellington does a great job portraying space as the other-worldly place it is. At one point, he uses a crate of yams as a weapon. While silly, this is something that can be done in space.
Also, there’s a lot of space battles. Some felt redundant, which I know intellectually it wasn’t redundant, yet it felt that way. Over 600 of the 677 pages took place in space above Paradise-1. A lot of interesting stuff happened, but I soon found myself wondering when we were gonna make down to the planet. This, though, is a small complaint and is, also, very subjective. With any criticism, you should take it with a grain of salt.
Conclusion
David Wellington’s Paradise-1 was a fun, huge, fast novel set in an interesting world plagued with interesting problems. Alexandra Petrova carried the novel for me despite Dr. Zhang and Rapscallion being wonderful characters. Paradise-1 leaves readers hungry for more, and I know I can’t wait to read Book 2. Highly recommended.
Paradise-1 by David Wellington is available from Orbit Books now.
© PrimmLife.com 2023
Pingback: Review: Built from the Fire by Victor Luckerson – Primmlife