Today we’re going to escape Earth for a new beginning in a
new solar system—sounds pretty good given everything going on right now—in this
science fiction/detective mystery “The Ark” by Patrick S. Tomlinson. Don’t
worry—people are still shitty generations later and in space.
What I love about
this book:
It’s an interesting concept because the plot is essentially
a murder mystery baked into a science fiction setting. You might think that
blending the two genres might weaken both elements, but Tomlinson has the chops
to do both justice.
I was pleasantly surprised that “The Ark” is pretty
consistently hard science fiction despite having one of those high-concepts
that could easily shift into soft science fiction. You’d think a murder mystery
in space would be more focused on the more psychological elements, typical of
crime fiction, and shared by soft science fiction. Tomlinson does address the
psychological motives, so it isn’t unaddressed, but he also never takes his
hand off the wheel when describing the science and engineering behind “The Ark.”
What I don’t love
about this book:
Our main character, Benson, for the most part, is a likable
gumshoe to be following around, but his follow-through feels inconsistent to me
at times. So when they discover the body of a murdered crew member, floating
out in space outside of the ship, he personally goes out in a maintenance pod
to retrieve it. Then there is the bit where he alienates the owner of his
favorite restaurant and another time where he storms onto the bridge to demand
answers from the captain, to get the truth, damn it! So you’d think, this here
is a guy that will do anything to get the job done right. Except he also sleeps
with his girlfriend at a crime scene. Then there is the time he calls off a
manhunt half-way through because, eh, he doesn’t feel like they’re going to
find anything.
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Author's Website: https://www.patrickstomlinson.com/
***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***
The quick and dirty
synopsis:
So the story begins with Benson at a sports event. It’s a
game called zero played at—you guessed it—zero gravity. Benson is a big fan
because he used to be a captain of one of the teams when he was younger and
before he was a cop. Now, he’s “chief,” such as it is of his own police
department on his side of the Ark, the great generation starship humanity
created to save a select few and find a new homeworld when Earth was destroyed.
Benson doesn’t get to enjoy his game, however, when the
first officer calls him personally to inform him of a missing crewman.
He gets dragged away to investigate the missing crewman
because it isn’t just any person who is missing, but one of the scientists
deemed mission-critical to the whole settling humanity on a new homeworld
project.
After meeting with the missing person’s coworkers, and
checking out his, oddly lavish living quarters, bad news strikes. Sensor data
picks up an object floating in the wake of the Ark that appears to be a body.
Benson goes out to retrieve the body himself and confirms that it’s the
scientist he’s been looking for all along. A micrometeorite strike nearly kills
Benson in his pod, but he barely makes it back to the Ark with the body in tow.
As the story progresses, Benson becomes more-and-more
convinced that someone high up in the crew had the scientist killed and is
covering up the evidence. In fact, Benson suspects that the killer is the first
officer himself, despite being the person who put him on to this case in the
first place. This turns out to be false, and the first officer’s big secret was
he was in a relationship with the scientist. The reason for the secrecy is the
first officer is married with kids, so it was an illicit affair.
With the help of a one-time art thief, Benson eventually
gets wind of other people, stowaways who had been living in the bowels of the
ship for generations, outside of the Ark’s normal crew. Following a lead that
one of these stowaways may have been acting as an assassin, being off the grid,
for someone high up, Benson makes contact with a small community of them. There
he learns there are two sets of people living in the shadows of the ships lower
decks, one led by a former Ark official, Benson had thought dead, and the other
a more violent splinter group further out on the fringes. Benson is told one of
them must be the culprit.
This turns out to be a false trail, however, and after a
disaster that kills half of the Ark’s inhabitants, which Benson gets blamed
for, he learns that the long thought dead Ark official was actually one of the
conspirators all along. Benson has to escape his own men who have arrested him,
to clear his name and stop the mad man from killing the rest of the Ark.
After the final confrontation, while Benson is in the
hospital for his injuries from that conflict, he has one last interview with
the dead scientist’s boss. There he confronts her—after she tries to poison him
and fails, of course—with his knowledge that she was also one of the
conspirators. She reveals why they did it was because the Ark’s sensors
discovered that the new world they are flying to isn’t uninhabited. It’s been
kept a secret from the general population. Some, like her, put forth a plan to
sabotage the Ark. They feel that humanity was punished by God, who they
attribute with having sent the black hole that destroyed Earth, and that humans
mustn’t be allowed to kill another society.
The story ends with the captain speaking to Benson and how
he will be needed when the Ark does finally arrive at their new home.
Analysis:
Like most murder mysteries, “The Ark has a wide range of
characters/suspects that Benson has to consider. Along the way, he chases more
than one red herring and false trail, which is all pretty pro forma, but what
makes this book special is the unique setting. The massive generation ship of
“The Ark” is more like a flying city than a traditional starship, making it an
exciting place.
On the science fiction end of things, Tomlinson aptly describes
several speculative technologies. All of which has roots in things we currently
have today. Even the unique method of propulsion used by the Ark, riding the
shockwave of nuclear explosions, while sounding outlandish, is something I’ve
heard scientists discuss as a possible method of acceleration for vessels
ranging beyond our solar system.
True to another tradition of science fiction, Tomlinson also
extrapolates how society would adapt and change generations into such a lengthy
endeavor. All of his suppositions are couched in how the technology of the day
influences culture and impacts human development. I found his descriptions of
the primary preoccupations of the Ark’s passengers, which are focused on
conservation to make a whole lot of sense given their circumstances.
Character work-wise, “The Ark” has some touching moments and
conversations but primarily doesn’t rise above the level of pulpy detective
noir. It isn’t bad by any means; it’s just not the shinest element of this
story.
Parting thoughts:
One of the things I mentioned above that I liked about this
book is its blend of sci-fi and detective genre stylings. Genre blending or
cross-genre isn’t a new concept by any means, but it’s a neat element when done
right, as I feel “The Ark” does. My favorite cross-genre is a mixture of horror
and science fiction—I know a Lovecraft fanboy loves sci-fi/horror, go on, but I
think the mix works incredibly well.
Other science fiction cross-genres that work well, in my
opinion, is the ever-popular space western, which is typically done soft
science fiction style—Star Wars and Firefly leap to mind. I feel, most
cross-genres involving science fiction tend to be a shade of soft science
fiction, which there is nothing wrong with that, but it does make a story such
as this all the more unique since I can see the effort that Tomlinson made to
keep this book closer to true hard science fiction. Even “Altered Carbon,”
which predates this book by a decade and some change, also sci-fi/mystery,
doesn’t try too hard to explain its science.
“The Ark” isn’t the first to pull off this trick of hard
science fiction and mystery, while I’m sure I don’t know who might have been
the first, I know Asimov wrote in that specific vein with “The Caves of Steel”
back in the 1950s. Still, the point Asimov made back then, and the literary
argument carried forward by Tomlinson today, that science fiction is robust
enough to work with any other genre is still vital even now.
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