When I requested it on NetGalley, I wasn’t aware of the fact that it was first published in 2016 or that this was the first part of the trilogy but hey, I don’t mind. I love trilogies.

Anyway, whenever I talked about the book, I said that this book gave off very Welcome to Night Vale vibes and that’s not totally wrong however there’s much more obvious horror and bloodshed in the book. I loved the way it was formatted as well. At first it was a bit confusing to understand what was really happening but in a few chapters, the pace and the plot started to work together for me. One thing that really stood out for me was the fact that it was based in America. Seriously, the sheer number of books set in a futuristic or even present America are more than enough to last a lifetime. No offence meant.

Reading about the setting in Nigeria really made all the difference for me. The book starts with giving us some vague facts, like the dome that came out of nowhere in Nigeria and how Rosewater formed around it like a donut. It was initially called Donut too. How the alien?? dome opened periodically and it would ‘heal’ people. However this healing wasn’t always for the good, sometimes, people would mutate into something else, the dead would be reanimated (not brought to life, merely machines?).

Because of this dome which is called ‘Utopicity’, there were some people which were affected by it in a different way. They were given certain extra senses, shall we say? Kaaro is one of those people, he is a Sensitive and the government has managed to bring all the special people together in a separate special department. Kaaro can enter the Xenosphere and has been working for the government to stop people from stealing stuff from the banks and the government and such. However, all is not well in the Xenosphere, after a particularly deadly encounter with some people, he is informed that people like him, those with talents are dying mysteriously and he is one of the rare ones who is not affected.

Aside from all the drama that’s happening in Rosewater, Kaaro’s life is taking a dramatic turn as well, he’s met a woman he genuinely likes after a long time. When he enters the Xenosphere there’s someone calling out to him, a woman’s voice. That voice is sensual and makes him almost lose his mind in the Xenosphere. The mystery of what’s happening in his mind, along with what’s happening outside made me want to read it all in one sitting. (I didn’t manage it, real life didn’t let me.)

This book basically has it all. There’s an alien invasion, there are special powers, there’s political intrigue, crime and a revolution! All set in Nigeria in a future where everything’s flipped. I am not sure how to categorize this but if you love science fiction and horror along with some really interesting themes then this is the book for you. It’s gripping and engaging and frankly, I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did.

It feels almost miserly only giving Rosewater 3 stars but, while there was a lot I really liked about it, the fact that it's a) the first book of a trilogy and so doesn't really have an ending of its own, and b) that it jumps about between time periods and didn't quite work for me as a coherent narrative meant I ended up knocking at least one star off for just those two things.

There's also a lot to like about the book as a whole, particularly that the author manages to take a protagonist (Kaaro) who is pretty unlikeable and make you care about what happens to him. Because, make no bones about it, there's a lot not to like about Kaaro as we work our way through his history and the surrounding world-building of the book. For much of the storyline, he's pretty immature and makes at least one decision (though he seems to have some insight as he gets older about this) with his penis rather than any other part of his body. Secondly, as someone who works for a shadowy secret agency and also has mental powers whose source we discover as the storyline moves along, he's actively involved in interrogations.

Rosewater is set in a near-present day world where there has been alien contact on a number of occasions, the most recent being in Nigeria where something has fallen from the sky and built a dome that occasionally opens. When it opens, people are healed but not always in a way which is positive for them and also the recent dead are brought back to life, but as zombies. There's been previous contact with the same aliens and there's mention of London being devastated by a landing in Hyde Park and the US having chosen to shut itself off from the rest of the world as a result, but these are background details.

Kaaro discovers, as the book goes on, that not only do his powers actually come from a previous alien landing but that everyone else he knows with similar abilities is dying. He is, effectively, the last man standing for no apparent reason, like it or not. In fact, the entire world is changing as the alien influence begins to take over and human cells are literally replaced by alien ones in a larger and larger amount of people. The sequels are about resisting that change, with The Rosewater Insurrection being due out next year. Not sure if I'll read it, unless I can either get it from the library or free for review, as while I enjoyed reading Rosewater and it certainly kept me turning the pages, it didn't 100% work for me for the reasons mentioned at the start of this review.

Firstly, I have to mention that this is book one of a trilogy so the overall story does not finish at the end of this book. Also, as the world that the author has created is rather complex, there is quite a lot of set up contained within, especially with regard to technology and backstory so be prepared. I did find that there was quite a lot that I just had to accept at face value initially but the majority of this was adequately explained later on in the book. I also have to note that not being the biggest reader of this genre, I did find some of the concepts a bit hard to really get to grips with but, and this is with kudos to the author, I did get there eventually; after several light bulb moments!
So, we are in Nigeria, and there's this dome and these healing particles that emanate from it, and a town that has sprung up around it to take advantage. At the beginning it is not completely clear what it is or where the dome came from but it is hinted to have stemmed from alien visitation. An encounter that has also facilitated telepathic abilities in several people; some using them for nefarious activities. But the government has intervened and has trained and now employs several of these telepaths to serve them. There are also others who are employed to try and block attacks from the bad guys. Our hero of the piece, Kaaro has a foot firmly in both of these camps. By day he works in a bank protecting it from mental attack but this is only a cover for his main government job, using his telepathic skills to fight crime and get information using his own special methods of interrogation.
But then, other telepaths start to die. Something is shifting, Kaaro himself feels different and starts to "see" another in his visions. Is this a reaction to an uprising, a nomadic bunch of people fronted by "bicycle girl"? Is this the supposed alien trying to take over? Or is it all clever manipulation by a corrupt government? Can Kaaro get to the bottom of things before he himself succumbs?
Woah! This book flitted between past and present, building up the story layer by layer, sometimes even redesigning things as it went on. Combine that non linear, sometimes contradictory, storyline with some really rather bizarre and fantastic technology and this book really should have been harder to read than I found it. I think it really helped that I took to Kaaro right from the start and was behind him all the way. That feeling didn't waver even when I found out more about his troubled past. Hey, we all make mistakes! He paid his price when he was recruited by government agency, S45 and tasked with interrogation duties. The things he had to see, to experience, phew! And then when his peers started to die off, when he feared for his own life, when his chips really were down, he showed his true colours. Yes, he had his bad points but as they say, the whole is more than the sum of its parts and that pretty much sums him up for me.
There is so much more I would really love to say about this book but the real beauty of the story contained (well, started) within is that you learn key things at the right times so I can't, and I would advise caution if you choose to read other reviews before starting the book.
I will leave by mentioning the wonderful place in which the book is set. Nigeria and the places mentioned within is such a force that it can almost be described as a character in itself. Yes, warts and all in some cases as there are some rather nasty elements also contained within the pages, but the author also includes some of the rather poetic native language in the text, but don't worry, it's always with context or translation.
All in all a very different read for me but one that half way through I knew would be a winner. Hopefully I will get my hands on the second of the trilogy soon although, due to my own memory issues, I will probably still have to re-read this book before I tackle the next.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

This was everything I wanted in a sci-fi novel and didn’t know I needed. It’s amazingly ambitious but Thompson pulls it off, somehow making the multi-layered complex and non-linear plot compelling and clear enough for those who paid attention at the beginning. And you do need to pay attention because this is not a book that ever spells things out for its readers but pays them the compliment of expecting them to keep up. The narrator is unreliable, a flawed individual who is nevertheless incredibly engaging and sympathetic. The story calls into question the nature of reality and how much we can trust our own perceptions. The outlook is rather bleak but delivered in such a delicious fashion that you’re left wanting more. Aliens, mutants, mysterious biodomes and an authentic Nigerian setting – what more could you want from a book.

Rosewater, the first novel in Tade Thompson's SF trilogy, was published by indie press Apex in 2017 but is now being republished by Orbit after it won best novel at the 2017 Nommo Awards, which are for African speculative fiction or science fiction. Set in a future Nigeria in 2066, it focuses on Kaaro, a youngish black man who has a dual role: by day, he works for Integrity Bank and by night, and unwillingly, for an underground organisation called Section 45, an underground branch of the Nigerian government. Kaaro is in demand because he is a 'sensitive'; he can pull thoughts and feelings from others' minds, and can also access the 'xenosphere', an alternate, disembodied reality where he creates an alternative identity in the shape of a gryphon so he can explore freely without his own mind being invaded. The novel's backstory explains that powers like Kaaro's have been emerging among the human race after a series of alien invasions, kicking off in the late twentieth century; most relevantly for the purposes of this novel, the emergence of a mysterious, impenetrable biosphere in Nigeria, around which the city of Rosewater has formed. Visitors are attracted by the fact that once a year, the sphere opens, and illnesses and ailments are cured. But the full impact of the spread of alien micro-organisms on the human body and mind has barely begun.

Rosewater is both consistently inventive and somewhat disparate; it reads very much like the first book of a trilogy, with interesting threads picked up and then left to be resolved later. Much of the larger political background to the book, such as the fact that the United States has cut off contact with the rest of the world, is only revealed in its final chapters. This bittiness is amplified by the fact that it jumps back and forward in time a lot: mostly between 2055 and 2066, but with occasional excursions into other bits of Kaaro's past. Given that the reader already has so much to hang onto, I found these switches consistently distracting. More annoyingly, the central story here is actually quite simplistic: the familiar thriller-esque narrative of a double agent. Kaaro is - as the novel recognises - a self-serving misogynist, and there doesn't seem to be much impulse to dig any deeper. Reflecting this, the novel, which is action-driven, tends to focus on a series of narrow escapes in both of its timelines, when I cared much less about Kaaro's physical safety than the world which he inhabits. The tantalising glimpses that Thompson includes weren't really enough for me, and I hope that the next two books of this trilogy move away from Kaaro to open up broader vistas.

I will upload this review to my blog nearer to publication date.

Tade Thompson is an author I’ve been meaning to try for a while, and I was very pleased to get an advanced reading copy of this from the publisher in advance of its new (and very attractive looking!) paperback release later this year. Having already won the Nommo Award for best novel from the African Science Fiction Society, I was confident I’d be in for a treat with this and I was not disappointed by the science fictional aspects, although my enjoyment was tempered a little by the rather unpleasant main character.

In Rosewater, human technological progress has continued alongside inequality and poverty well into the 21st century, with people using implanted communications devices and . Eleven years ago, humanity was also confronted with an apparently alien object, a giant biodome covering a place called Utopicity, located in what was formerly a swamp in Nigeria. The dome emits a great deal of electricity, is impenetrable to outsiders and once a year opens with a “healing” burst of energy that cures many afflictions but can also go terribly wrong: knees might heal backwards, tumours may grow even more enthusiastically and recently dead bodies in the vicinity reanimate as mindless zombies. Naturally, many people see only the positive side to this, and a large city (named “Rosewater” as a joke over early stench before the installation of sewage pipes) has sprung up within a decade in a ring surrounding Utopicity. It’s an obvious point, but it’s great to read a story where first contact is dealt with not in Washington D.C. or Europe (in fact, Thompson takes the US almost entirely out of the equation by indicating the nation “went dark” after the dome arose), but in a random location in Nigeria that suddenly becomes one of the most important places in the world.

Our main character, Kaare, has apparently been dealing with supernatural, alien abilities since well before the appearance of the dome, and at the time we first meet him in 2066 he’s a weary, middle-aged man who quickly downplays his apparent claim to fame as the only person who has ever been inside the Utopicity dome. Kaare clearly knows a lot more than he lets on about the origins and true nature of Utopicity, but his first person narration is not going to give up its secrets easily. Instead, we get a non-linear narrative which alternates between events in 2066, where Kaare is a reluctant agent for a government department known as Section 45 (a role which seems to mainly involve psychic torture and interrogation), and his past as a kid with telepathic powers who grows up to be a thief, misogynist and all-around dickhead who initially comes to the attention of the authorities when his mother, of all people, reports him to the police.

The narration in both of these sections is present tense, by Kaare, and can occasionally be difficult to untangle (particularly if, like me, you are in the habit of putting your book down mid-chapter). While Kaare is a somewhat older and wiser person by 2066 – notably in his ability to maintain somewhat decent relationships with the people around him, including a woman called Aminat who he is introduced to early in the “present” chapters – his narration is similarly self-absorbed in both time periods, and the same characters and parallel events occasionally pop up in both the past and the present. The biggest difference is in the development of Kaare’s powers, and particularly his use of the “xenosphere”, an alternate space controlled by alien microorganisms that live on everyone but is only accessible to sensitives, who can manipulate their appearance, talk to each other and read the minds of non-sensitive individuals by using their connection. We see early on that this is not a power entirely in Kaare’s control, as the emotions and memories of others regularly spill into his daily life. The combination of temporal disjointedness and Kaare’s own decoupling from reality – both in his use of the xenosphere and his inhabiting of other people’s lives and emotions – gives the story in Rosewater a very detached and ominous feel, increasing the sense that humans are coming up against powers well beyond their control or understanding in what Utopicity represents.

There’s nothing wrong with Kaare’s characterisation from a technical perspective, but his narration and, by extension, the lack of likeable characters (because Kaare is an asshole and everyone else is being filtered through his self-absorbed asshole lens) was the part of this book I liked least. Fortunately, the alien mystery is well worth sticking it out for, and comes together through both the past and present strands of narrative in a well-paced and satisfying way. Rereading early sections of the book, I was struck by how clear Kaare makes it that he knows a lot more than anyone around him, and that his disinterest in current events is highly motivated by his experiences when the dome came up eleven years ago; I suspect this is a book that would benefit greatly from a full second read, although that’s sadly not something I can commit to in the middle of Hugo reading season. Rosewater’s alien menace, and its impact on humanity, is subtle but terrifying, and the parallels drawn about colonisation and the futility of resisting its effects are very well done.

I understand that there are two more books coming out in this series, and I’ll be interested to see where they take the story next – there is a strong sense by the end that Kaare’s story has been told, and I’d be cautious about picking up further volumes from his point of view, but there’s definitely more to this world and I’d love to see a new point of view take us through the next steps in its future.

I think this was around from a small press a year or so ago, and has now been picked up by a bigger publisher (in the UK, at least). With good reason, as it's a very strong SF novel that deserves a lot of recognition. The set up is superficially similar to Ian MacDonald's Chaga, but spins out in a very different direction (not least being set in a different country!). It wins points for having a pleasingly unpleasant yet sympathetic protagonist, a new take on the alien invasion genre, and a believable romance subplot. There's plenty of exciting action on the surface but there's also a political subtext there as well if you want it. I look forward to Mr Thompson's next book.

Honest review in return for an ARC from NetGalley and Orbit. Thank you.

I was blown away by Rosewater. I've never been a fan of speculative fiction but fantasy is one of my favourite genres and I was intrigued by the blurb, the beautiful cover (which I would have quite happily had as a poster somewhere in the house) and the author.

I'm not going to try to explain the plot fully - the novel is set in Nigeria in a fictional town called Rosewater that has grown up around a massive dome called Utopiacity. Once a year this opens and randomly heals people who stand before it. Sometimes, these healings go horribly wrong and zombie-like creatures rise up and become a (sometimes bloody) nuisance.

Rosewater is also part-love story, part-lust story and a homage to Nigeria by the author. Sometimes, I felt I knew exactly where I was in the story and at others, completely lost but I was still compelled to keep reading.

I found I had to trust the author implicitly to lead me where he wanted me to go. A bit like being blind-folded and led towards something tremendously important and ultimately satisfying.

Tade Thompson is an amazing talent and I'm about to go and source his back catalogue and read EVERYTHING. Can't recommend enough.

In a near-future Nigeria the settlement on Rosewater has grown up around the “ground zero” of an alien appearance. A mysterious presence has established itself beneath a biodome known as Utopicity with huge consequences for Nigeria and the world at large. An alien fungal spore has penetrated Earth’s atmosphere creating links to every living thing and, in the process, gifting a small percentage of humans with psychic-like gifts, allowing these “sensitives” to access the minds and emotions of others via this odd bio-network, the xenosphere. Our narrator Kaaro is one of these sensitives. Ostensibly employed as part of a psychic-human firewall in a bank he is also a criminal press-ganged into work for a shadowy government agency known as Section 45. In the course of his story he encounters people miraculously cured by the presence of Utopicity and corpses reanimated whenever the dome briefly opens. He negotiates his way through a psychic-criminal underworld, suspicious government agencies, dissident groups and vanished populations, not to mention the constant brooding presence known as Wormwood within Utopicity itself. So far, so mind-boggling and refreshingly original but this barely scratches the surface of his hugely ambitious and complex novel.

Kaaro’s tells his story from several different points in the timeline, jumping between his early years and later events so that the plot emerges slowly and partially as the reader pieces together the different episodes to build a picture of Kaaro and his world. The tension builds as the reader slowly gathers understanding of the situation and the narrator. Viewing a character this way, at several points of his own story and through his own eyes is a difficult task superbly realised as Kaaro assesses his own actions both as actor and as observer. While not exactly likeable he is certainly relatable. He is full of weaknesses and contradictions; selfish, misogynistic, shallow and often cowardly. As a younger and more unpleasant man he seems rather proud of these failings but his older narrator-self recognises them for what they are and finds the roots of his current situation in these earlier days. His narration is matter-of-fact, self-deprecating, wry and rarely emotional and harks back to the narrative voice of the noir detective with his sarcastic asides and winks to the reader as he invites us to join him in rolling his eyes at his younger self.

Negotiating so many levels of plot is a hugely ambitious task, the multiple “realities” of the world and the xenosphere’s dream-like states and the interlinking timelines it would be so easy for the writer to become hopelessly tangled. Thompson maintains an impressively firm grip, providing that essential thread that the reader can follow through the complex narrative. He doesn’t make it too easy though and by withholding the answers and leaving some aspects of his world and plot obscured he quite ruthlessly immerses his reader in his story. You can’t coast through this one, it demands your attention and your effort and it certainly pays dividends.

The supporting cast revolves around the women in Kaaro’s life, colleagues, partners, co-conspiritors and in almost every case it is these women who, for good or ill, hold the power in these relationships. They’re strong, flawed, fully-formed women with identities and motivations that Kaaro can only guess at. Indeed, the strength of these characters is deliberately thrown into stark relief by Kaaro himself who, especially in his earlier years, presents some unpleasant attitudes towards women. Thompson manages to address some of the misogyny and female stereotypes lingering in his future Nigeria as well as a still-surviving homophobia. This world is rich in detail, combining the history and culture of present-day Nigeria with the bio-technical consequences of a future intimately affected by an extra-terrestrial presence. It’s a world that is both recognisable and – in this alien, unsettling future – new and unfamiliar. Of course, the appearance of an alien race on the African continent is nothing new, this time it just happens to be extra-terrestrial and apparently benign. Thus, Thompson’s wonderfully fresh take on the idea of first contact also offers a new novel window onto the painful story of colonialism. Through Kaaro and his associates we see the varied reactions of the colonised, eagerness to take the advantages offered, wariness and fear of unclear motivations, outright rejection and ultimately the paralytic power of familiarity, breeding apathy rather than contempt. The reaction of Western nations is also pointed, the destructive reaction of the UK where Wormwood first landed and the secretiveness and insularity of a US that has elected to “go dark”, effectively cutting itself off from the rest of the world rather than share intelligence. It’s not a flattering picture and it is hugely refreshing to see someone overturn or recondition so much of what is familiar in predominantly white sci-fi in order to comment on the lamentable racist and colonial tropes that continue to dog the genre.

Rosewater is a hugely complex and hugely rewarding reading experience just bursting with ideas and originality and breathing fresh life into more genres than I can even name, from cyber-punk to neo-noir apocalypse thriller. Keep your wits about you and dive in, you won’t be disappointed.