This is a clever alternate science-fiction history that makes the space race of the 1960s the product of the machinations of a group of alien interlopers, rather than the imperial interests of the Soviets and Americans. Or rather, the Kibsu, exploit human international rivalries to encourage humanity towards the moon in order that they might themselves get off planet.
The Kibsu are a group of women who can breed with human males, but whose female children have superhuman abilities to move and fight. They've been with humanity for thousands of years, and through flashbacks Sylvain Neuvel tells us some of their origin story - riding with the Mongol hordes and playing Viking chieftains off against each other. They pass their story down from mother to daughter, and each generation aims to gain wealth and power to influence humanity on to the stars. But they are also pursued. The "Tracker" is hunting them down, trying to kill the Kibsu off and foil their plans. The origin of this conflict is left somewhat unclear at the end of this first volume of a trilogy.
This book focuses on how Mia, a young nineteen year old woman, gets humanity into space. Her mother fled Germany with the rise of the Nazis, and Mia, is sent back into Germany as part of Operation Paperclip to get the best Nazi scientists out to work in the US on rockets. But Mia and her mother realise that American inertia will never get rockets off the ground, so they move to the Soviet Union, understanding that if Stalin gets an ICBM and a person in space then the Americans will be forced to catch up. Once the Americans move their superior economy will do the rest.
Its a clever idea, and Mia is a great character. Her ability to fight back, manoeuvre social forces and organise the mainly male Soviet elite make her a great hero. All this is done in the context of some great asides and background. Neuvel gives us the an interesting moment during the Witch Craze in the Little Ice Age which serves to demonstrate the Kibsu's powers and another of the themes that runs through the book - the growing concern over climate change that makes the alien's quest more urgent. Neuvel also throws in some other interesting events. He places Mia in the clutches of Stalin's henchmen and murderer Beria, and gives her mother a possible role in the death of the dictator himself.
The book suffers a little from lack of clarity about who the Kibsu are. The reader learns this through the book, though much remains unclear at the end. But the structure doesn't quite work and I was left confused in places. Nonetheless this is a fun counter-history and I look forward to the sequels.
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