Yes, I know, an actual review of an actual book I read. I started reading it on January 19, so it took almost a year to complete (according to my Kobo it was 6.8 hours of reading).
Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars (it’s 4 stars on Goodreads because they don’t do half stars)
It took me a long time to get through this relatively short novel, but that was entirely on me. My attention span has been depleted this year–and I don’t even go to TikTok!
That said, this is a weird story that combines alien hive minds with an alternate history version of 20th century and early 21st century Earth, in which a hypercolony of aliens in orbit have been intercepting and subtly modifying communications to prevent wide-scale conflict, so there is no World War II, relative peace has lasted a hundred years and people’s lives are relatively safe and secure, even if some technologies, like satellites and the internet have never been developed.
But with humanity’s worst impulses suppressed, a secret group called the Correspondence Society has been investigating and identifying what is really going on. From there, the story launches into following an extended family as they get involved in a gambit to break humanity free of the hivemind, regardless of the possible fallout. Wilson intermingles science fiction and horror here, with a strong “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” vibe (a good thing). The characters are complex and not always what they seem–a recurring motif.
That said, there is something so weird about the plot that it was ultimately hard for me to embrace–and I don’t necessarily see that as a negative. Wilson paints an alternate history that is peaceful, but filled with subtle repression, and seems to ask if that’s good enough for most people.
If you like Wilson’s work, you’ll likely enjoy Burning Paradise. Readers new to him may want to be prepared for a story that is at turns bloody, philosophical, and just generally a downer.
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