- It took me a while to comprehend what on earth Inga Simpson was on about in this new novel. There are some very strange and seemingly meaningless elements, and I was tempted to bail. Thankfully, I didn't. I started over again and read it twice. And was captivated.
- It's set in the future, and the earth has been wrecked by climate change, ecological destruction, authoritarian regimentation, and abusive control of citizens and their lives.
- A new subspecies of humans has emerged, called the Incompletes. They are infertile, but have higher levels of sensory perception. And they are disliked by other people.
- The main character is Fin, a young woman whose father was a celebrated astronomer, and whose mother an astrophotographer. They join a small band of colleagues and become outliers, living off the grid.
- Simpson keeps us in the dark on so many details, which I found frustrating. What year is it? How’s the earth’s population faring? Where did these Incompletes come from? And why?
- But as the novel progresses in the second half, it gets far more dramatic and interesting, and in fact spellbinding. A full eclipse of the sun looms, and crowds of people gather in parks and ranges, determined to get the best viewing positions. What they don't know is that the astronomer outliers have a plan that will impact planet earth radically. They are determined to liberate humanity, whatever it takes - destroy space junk, power stations, gas wells, destructive mining operations, and reclaim the land by returning it to an inland sea.
- As Fin reflects prior to the eclipse: What if the thresholds I long to cross are not portals to another dimension, but the capacity to fully inhabit our own? A way of circling back, into ourselves. Our best selves. What if we could see a way to make a new world, where all beings, no matter how fragile, could thrive?
- So take it slowly at first and relish Simpson's beautiful prose and love of the natural world. You will become absorbed.
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