The 22nd century never looked so bleak, and yet simultaneously so promising, as it has in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, “The Orphaned Earth”, Book 2 in the Geryon’s Code series, by the brilliant author Liudmila Brus.
In the first installment of the series, “No Life But Immortality“, core themes such as preservation and weaponization of the human consciousness are explored in depth, as the first human to be completely digitized morphs into an oppressive digital tyrant, determined to reshape civilization to his whims, manipulating technology and people to serve his ends.
Things take an even darker, and more foreboding turn (if it wasn’t bad enough to have a convicted serial killer gone rogue, and functioning as an AI known as “Shadow”, controlling the world from a seemingly impregnable, hidden moon-based stronghold) in the second novel, “The Orphaned Earth.”
As the reader learns in “No Life But Immortality,” Earth’s natural environments have been degraded, under the grips of a devastating global blackout. This has pushed civilization to the brink, and caused the Martian colonies to declare independence. Decades after these catastrophic events, with Earth’s infrastructure severely compromised, a team of scouts travels from the Martian Colonies to the mother planet, in order to unravel what was truly the cause behind the blackout. In the process, they encounter Shadow’s nefarious plots.
Now that humankind is alerted to the true threat, “The Orphaned Earth” focuses on the beginning of an interplanetary conflict between the human resistance versus the god-like Shadow and his cult-like followers.
In a post-blackout settlement in McMurdo, Antarctica, a deadly, prehistoric avian-type plague is decimating the human population. However, Randy de la Serna, a defiant blacksmith’s apprentice, won’t stand idly by and see his people perish.
While desperately seeking a cure for the epidemic, Randy encounters a crashed Martian spaceship. After finding an enigmatic survivor to the downed craft, the intrepid Randy is unwittingly drawn into the battle against Shadow’s sinister planetary network, as rival political operatives, religious extremists, and those simply trying to survive, will clash, as humanity’s very existence hangs in the balance.
“No Life But Immortality” was a surprise top 10 Indie SFF book for me in the past, and “The Orphaned Earth” in my opinion, exceeds the previous book in the series.
I was a huge fan of the prose in the first book, but this is definitely an obvious effort to step things up in book two. Brus’ prose has elevated a few notches into something more poetic, yet becoming crisper, sharper at the same time. The writing is absolutely beautiful.
The way the author unravels the plot is in some ways less straightforward than the first book, but while just as ambitious, considering the overall subject matter, even more engaging.
There are more POVs to contend with here, than in the previous book. Yet Brus juggles them with adeptness, conveying the scale of a world-encompassing underhanded maneuvering and intrigue, while at the same time honing things in to centre on the individual plights and ambitions of the characters, in an intimate fashion. Brus dives deep into her characters’ psyches, as evidenced by their dialogues, and their actions, especially circling topics of creation, and philosophizing over the nature, depth and breadth of human foibles, for good or ill.
Brus’ version of the future compels the reader to ask some fascinating and very timely fundamental questions. While not an all-inclusive list of the fabulous thematic work done by the author in this novel, I’ve narrowed it down to the 3 main themes that reading this book will likely provoke the reader to ponder.
First: is technology the cure, or the disease for the woes facing humankind? Second: can human beings as a species truly survive, in terms of the essence of what it means to be human, including our mortality, if that is stripped away? And finally: is it more important to safeguard knowledge, or to safeguard our history and culture, for posterity and the continuity of humankind?
The worldbuilding in the novel is intricated, lush, dense, dark, and captivating. The scouting, expeditionary aspects of Brus’ writing will bring to mind Andy Weir’s “The Martian”.
This novel is a heavy-hitter. With Brus pulling the reader into a fascinating (and frankly terrifying) tech-noir world of evolving humanity, virtual reality, skewed digital consciousness, destructive mechanical beings, and cyberpunk dystopia, with thrilling scenes of high-stakes survival, tense fights with religious militants and omnipotent cyber-gods, highlighting the struggles of rebellion and resistance, this is becoming must-read sci-fi for me.
If you’re looking to delve into something akin to heralded books such as the aforementioned “The Martian”, Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus”, or William Gibson’s “Neuromancer”, please give “The Orphaned Earth” and the Geryon Code series by Liudmila Brus a whirl. Fantastic stuff!
