Fiction Reviews
A Rebel’s History of Mars
(2025) Nadia Afifi, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, 297pp, ISBN 978-1-787-58945-2
There’s a PhD thesis to be researched (if one hasn’t been written already) on the transference of author’s hobbies to their characters. Nadia Afifi’s biography states that she likes to spend time practicing on the lyra, a kind of aerial hoop used by acrobats. And sure enough, Kelly Sayer, aka ‘Kezza’, one of the two principal characters of Afifi’s latest novel, is just such a practitioner of the circus arts at ‘Calypso Corporate Campus’ on Mars, in the year 2195 A.D.
Employed as part of a corporate bread and circuses (literally) programme to keep the miners and other workers placid, if not exactly happy, Kezza is a woman with a plan. Which is to assassinate Barrett Juul, one of the leading advocates of Martian immigration, on the grounds that his ‘civilizationist’ exhortations led to her mum and dad dying from radiation exposure on the long voyage from Earth. Fortuitously, it turns out that Juul is about to arrive at Calypso Campus, giving Kezza the opportunity she craves, although he is coming with a radical alternative to Martian colonisation, one that is literally a ‘giant’ (as in galactic) leap for humanity. However, both their plans are disrupted by the discovery of something out in the Martian desert which kills anyone who comes into contact with it, except for Kezza, of course, who is resistant, if not immune (thanks to a genetic peculiarity that can be traced back to her Welsh birth, although Cardiffians may not be best pleased with the explanation Afifi gives for this!).
Interleaved with Kezza’s story is that of Azad, a medic living over 1200 years in the future, on the planet Nabatea. Whereas Calypso Campus and Mars in general is depicted very much à la Total Recall, Nabatean society is rigidly divided between the ‘orthodox’, or regular humans, and the ‘Vitruvians’. The former are implanted with a chip that guides their decision making by offering three options in every situation, in contrast to the latter who are not only able to think and decide for themselves but possess superior physical capabilities (the name comes from Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic image, inspired by the Roman architect Vitruvius, portraying the artist’s view of ideal human proportions). Despite also being an orthodox, Azad’s twin sister Leda has broken free from the constraints of Nabatean society and left her brother to go off to who knows where. A chance encounter with a dying Vitruvian who coincidentally knew his sister prompts Azad to also leave Nabatea and fall in with a motley crew of space-faring historians (yes, really!) who are seeking to discover why their ancestors left Mars in the first place.
Fortunately for them they can skip all the usual boring trawls through archives and the like as they have ‘Barry’, the first and only ‘quantum historical projector’ which can, in effect, recreate history. Aided by this McGuffin, which is powered by today’s hot science concept, namely dark energy, and travelling back to Mars through a worm hole using ‘quantum foam technology’, the team are able to trace the events leading to the founding of Nabatea. And it is these events that connect Azad’s story with Kezza’s.
Along the way there are surprises and reversals of fortune a-plenty and the narrative in general trundles along at a fair old clip. Afifi also draws on her Arabian heritage to flesh out the background, with one of the historians being an accomplished player of the oud, a stringed instrument akin to a lute, and knafeh, the dessert which is sometimes referred to as a ‘Palestinian institution’ (and which happens to be a personal favourite of mine) also making an appearance. Nevertheless, many of the side-characters are rather thinly drawn and motivations throughout are not perhaps as robust as they might be. There were several ‘let’s just take a breath’ moments where I felt more depth could have been added to the story. More generally it relies just a little too much on certain characters being implausibly extraordinary. Juul’s mother, Saadia Hamza, for example, not only discovers Nabatea, way over on the other side of the galaxy, but also invents the quantum foam drive, yet we don’t really get to know her that well at all.
Still, if it's intra-galactic action thrillers laden with fight scenes and featuring acrobats, astrophysicists and historians that you’re into, then this will be very much your cup of tea (with or without mint).
Steven French
You can also see Mark's take on A Rebel's History of Mars.
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