Fomalhaut was first colonised by the posthuman Quick, who established an archipelago of thistledown cities and edenic worldlets within the star’s vast dust belt. Their peaceful, decadent civilisation was swiftly conquered by a band of ruthless, aggressive, unreconstructed humans who call themselves the True, then, a century before, the True beat back an advance party of Ghosts, a posthuman cult which colonised the nearby system of Beta Hydri after being driven from the Solar System a thousand years ago. Now the Ghosts have returned to Fomalhaut, to begin their end game: the conquest of its single gas giant planet, a captured interstellar wanderer far older than the rest of Fomalhaut’s system. At its core is a sphere of hot metallic hydrogen with strange and powerful properties based on exotic quantum physics. The Quick believe it is inhabited by an ancient alien Mind; the True believe it can be developed into a weapon, and the Ghosts believe it can be transformed into a computational system so powerful it can reach into their past, collapse timelines, and fulfil the ancient prophecies of their founder.

There’s no doubt that In The Mouth of The Whale is more engaging and entertaining read then it’s two predecessors, but it’s also a lot less satisfying.  Given my problems with both The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun – at times they read more like technical manuals then novels – I could be accused of hypocrisy.

But while The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun drove me crazy with their endless descriptions of space plants and space engineering, the imagination on display was, at times, breathtaking.  McAuley’s idea of how humanity might shape itself to deal with environmental and social change both at home and in the outer reaches of the solar system not only had a ring of truth about it but also evoked a genuine sense of wonder, even if my eyes did glaze over at times.

Set more than a thousand years after the events of the previous two novels I was genuinely excited by what McAuley might imagine as the future for post-humanity.  And while the first chapter is intriguing, with lines like: So the Child, our dear mother, twice dead, twice reborn, dreams herself towards her destiny, when we move to Fomalhaut (a star 25 light years from Earth) it all becomes a bit humdrum.  There’s nothing abjectly wrong with the separate tales of Ori and the Librarian, they just lack the spark of imagination that made reading The Quiet War and The Gardens of the Sun a worthwhile experience.

For example, while Ori’s people, The Quick, have been enslaved by The True she has dreams and ambitions that go well beyond her station.  When her desires become clear to her fellow compatriots they feel the need to put Ori in her place leading to the sort of earnest and unsubtle pontification you’d expect to hear from Mr Carson on Downton Abbey:

We were made to serve the Trues, and that’s what we do,” Inas said.  “And we do it gladly.  And because the Trues made us, Ori, they don’t think of us as people.  We are their tools, with no more rights to independence than any of their machines.  They can send any one of us on the crew anywhere, without explanation or warning. And we obey them because that’s what we must do.  Not because the only alternative is the long drop, but because it is our duty, and nothing else matters.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the depressing point McAuley is making – that conquering and enslavement of those weaker than us is in our nature, that no matter how advanced we become we will fall back on the well worn grooves of our past actions.  This is further reinforced by the feudal society that the Trues have developed, almost medieval in nature, with certain families holding sway and power.  But it’s not a very interesting argument.  Not because it’s pessimistic, but because in terms of world building and imagining a future society, it seems like the obvious choice, to argue that humans will be humans.  I expected something crunchier from the guy who wrote The Quiet War.

The second story involving The Librarian, Isak, has an epic fantasy / cyberpunk vibe that wouldn’t feel out of place in the 1980s.  There’s a quest for something vague and mysterious and a battle against demons in numerous virtual realities.  It’s, at times, genuinely exciting and engaging but only because it all feels so familiar.

If there’s any originality to be found in In The Mouth of The Whale it’s with the third narrative, a story of a child living in Brazil at a time three or so decades before the events of The Quiet War.  This section gives us an insight into the upbringing of Sri Hong Owen – a major player in the first two novels.  We soon discover that these historical interludes are not entirely accurate, that they’re being cobbled together by a mysterious third party with an agenda of its own.  Here McAuley critiques the way we all revise history, how we manipulate and change it for our needs, to justify our actions of the present and future.

 

In the end, though, I couldn’t help but feel disappointing by In The Mouth of The Whale.  There were times that I found myself wanting just a bit more space engineering if it meant evoking a sense of wonder.