Our story follows a trainee engineer who lives below decks. Ravi Macleod is not officer class. He comes from the infamous Macleod family who are notorious for their semi-legal lives and behaviour. Nonetheless talented Ravi wants to become an engineer and an officer. Together with his friend, and ex-convict, Boz, he studies, explores and anticipates the day the ship will rotate to fire its thrusters and slow them down. It's a time of lots of work, training and stress.
But somethings not quite right. Ravi notices odd things. Boz's illegal tech is also out exploring and they also spot strange goings on with tech and personal. Ravi starts to see things, including people who aren't there (a young woman outside without a spacesuit) and he has strange dreams.
Its a great context for a novel, and I firmly like the inherent locked in mystery of generation space ships. Adam Oyebanji handles the concept well, and gives it enough of a futuristic feel with the characters implants and tech, without making the story seem to overdone.
Nonetheless I found it dragged. The episodic nature of some of the novel was annoying. More frustratingly, despite the unusual context, the story of outsider child learning in a strange environment felt unoriginal. There's even an inter-spaceship games competition to distract our characters.
Frustratingly, the best thing about generation ships - arrival - is absent from this story. Though the reveal of the reason for all the unusual happenings is a decent enough twist. Not as good as I had hoped however.
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