Paradise-1 (Red Space Book 1)
David Wellington
Orbit Books
(April 4, 2023)
DESCRIPTION:
An electric blend of sci-if and horror, Paradise-1 begins a terrifying new trilogy of exploration and survival in deep space from Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author David Wellington.
“A superior space thriller that never flags….Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
SYNOPSIS:
An electrifying novel perfect for fans of science fiction and horror, Paradise-1 follows two agents from the United Earth Government as they investigate the complete disappearance of humanity’s first deep space colony.
When Special Agent Petrov and Dr. Lei Zhang are woken up from cryogenic sleep, dragged freezing and dripping wet out of their pods with the ships’s alarms blaring in the background, they know something is very wrong. Warned by the Captain that they’re under attack, they have no choice but to investigate.
It doesn’t take much time to learn that they’ve been met by another vessel—a vessel from Paradis-One, Earth’s first deep-space colony, and their final destination.
Worse still, the vessel is empty. And it carries with it the message that all communications from the 150,000 souls inhabiting the Paradis-One has completely ceased.
Petrov and Zhang must board the empty ship and delve further into deep space to discover the truth of the colony’s disappearance—but the further they go, the more dangers loom.
REVIEW:
Paradise-1 (book one of the Red Space trilogy) surprised me. I began the novel expecting a science fiction tale, a thriller yes, but mostly SF. Yet the story has some truly horrific situations and imagery. If, like me, you are a horror reader, this tale certainly delivers on that front. And if you’re a fan of the movies Alien and Gravity, this story will be of particular interest. At 700+ pages, this is a long novel, but unlike other lengthy tomes, it gets off to a quick start. After disobeying orders, Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova is sent to check on a distant colony on the planet Paradise-1. Picture an earthbound story of a big-city FBI agent who defies orders and is sent from a high profile posting in a big city post to a sleepy town somewhere in the midwest, a remote place where once promising careers go to die. Now transfer that situation to space, and you feel the pain of Petrova’s “demotion.””
At this point, I was anticipating a slow build to the next phase of Petrova’s journey, but she is awakened violently from cryosleep with her ship under attack and coming apart at the seams. Nothing is what she — or the reader — expected from that point forward. What follows is a series of bizarre encounters filled with nonstop waves of suspense and unadulterated dread as Petrova and her small band of odd shipmates (I want to avoid spoilers here) encounter a mysterious and unique entity known only as the “basilisk” with the power to destroy humanity with a literal thought. The effect of the basilisk takes many forms, different on each ship in the blockade around the colony planet, from mystifying to gruesome but all, ultimately, deadly. Nothing is what it seems and no one is safe.
I mentioned the book is long, especially for a thriller, but the plot never dragged, and certainly held my interest throughout. As I also mentioned, this is book one of a trilogy and, be warned, though the book has an interim resolution, it definitely leaves you hanging on the true nature of the basilisk as well as the underlying reason for its existence. The second book can’t come soon enough!
Note: I received a free eGalley of Paradise-1 from Net Galley in consideration of an unbiased review.
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