In 2012 an alien lands in London and releases fungal spores. These create "sensitives" people who are able to read the thoughts and feelings of others. In 2066 a dome appears in Nigeria. A city grows around it as the dome has the ability to heal people and even transform them. This is s different view of alien contact and it is the human response which is the focus here. An excellent story from a skilled storyteller.

One of the first things that might strike you about this novel is that the blurb doesn’t really tell you much. In terms of actual plot detail, it gives you about twenty words and just throws you in there. As I read on, it became clear why. To even attempt to succinctly discuss the ideas and storylines of Rosewater is an exercise in futility. There is just so much to go at, both from a world-building perspective and from a plot one. There is more imagination in one chapter of Rosewater than some novels manage across their entire length, yet somehow it never, ever feels overstuffed or cluttered. This doesn’t feel like someone throwing everything at the wall and seeing if it sticks; it feels like a whole world that has been meticulously constructed and well explained, with none of the exposition feeling dry or dull. There are small details that are almost throwaway that are really intriguing concepts, such as that which opens the novel – main character Kaaro is a sensitive, who uses the psychic abilities this grants him to maintain a kind of telepathy-powered firewall for a bank. He does this, with a number of other sensitives, by reading books in concert and flooding what’s known as the xenosphere with the information, deterring other sensitive hackers. And that’s just one tiny bit of the novel. It’s barely even important that he does it at all, in the grand scheme of things, yet it’s the sort of cool little detail that this novel is replete with. The xenosphere, as a concept, deserves a paragraph all of its own, because it is just such a clever twist on classic cyberspace, as well as being integral to the plot. Alien contact has been made, in the form of a giant alien that made planetfall in the centre of London, and was given the name Wormwood. Its race, it emerges, has seeded Earth’s atmosphere with some kind of microscopic fungal spore, which unlocks a number of abilities for certain individuals – Kaaro among them. When he accesses the xenosphere itself, often to communicate with other "sensitives" for various reasons, it’s not through jacking in or donning a headset – it’s just right there, ready for him to close his eyes and sink into. Within the xenosphere, sensitives represent themselves to one another through avatars, shoring up their own mental defences with complicated mental mazes and the like – whilst it might feel similar to other ideas of cyberspace, the creativity that has gone into its conception is staggering. Kaaro himself is a particularly gifted sensitive, but Thompson by and large eschews the “Chosen One” trope; Kaaro prefers to use his abilities for petty theft, before eventually being put to use as an unwilling asset of Section 45 – a covert arm of the Nigerian government. We see snapshots of Kaaro’s life as the chapters flit between the town of Rosewater in 2066 – the year in which current events are being played out – and other times in his complicated past. This partially non-linear approach to the narrative works extremely well, allowing us to see how the events of Kaaro’s past have shaped him into who he is – both for good and ill. It’s also a highly effective way of building tension, as there are several instances where Kaaro is in some kind of jeopardy at the end of one chapter, with the next then set in a different time period, meaning we have to wait until the chapter afterwards for the cliffhanger to be resolved. One more page becomes one more chapter regularly. My point about the difficulty in discussing all this succinctly is being borne out – I’m nearing the end of this review, and haven’t even mentioned the town of Rosewater itself yet. It’s built in a ring around some kind of alien dome in Nigeria, an impenetrable annex of our extra-terrestrial arrivals. How this dome came to be there is explored as things progress, as are its unusual effects on the town around it. Once a year, a small section of it opens, with those nearby cured of all sorts of illnesses, disabilities and deformities. Well, mostly. The dome is none too specific with exactly what it thinks needs to be healed or “enhanced,” leading to some interesting consequences for some individuals, as well as some pretty spooky ones for others. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t stop people flocking to the town in a colourful mass pilgrimage when the time for the dome to open approaches, offering themselves up to be healed by whatever unknown intelligence that resides within. Eight hundred words and I feel like I’ve barely even begun to cover Rosewater. It’s a trove of original ideas and thrilling scenes, with an intricate and immersive plot. Even the smallest detail is a feat of imagination, with the sum total of them adding up to a debut that’s truly unique.

I had been meaning to pick this up for a while: a very amusing interview with the author in The Guardian (in which he said that Frankenstein was great, but Victor Frankenstein was a big crybaby) persuaded me to finally get round to it. Set in the mid-twenty-first century and jumping forwards and backwards in time to tell both backstory and current narrative, Rosewater follows Kaaro, a "sensitive" who is able to perceive people's thoughts, and uses this skill (varyingly) personally, professionally, greedily, socially, charitably and for his very survival, in a world made strange through the appearance of a giant, alien habitat that occupies Nigeria. Is this a friendly parasite, or a slow invasion? The advance guard of an alien race, or a strange aberration of Earth's nature? There's so much to recommend this novel: it's an excellent sci-fi narrative with plenty of other influences thrown in, not least Afro-futurism but also fantasy, horror, and a good chunk of postcolonial critique. Thompson's humour is also deeply cool and unashamedly nerdy; there's something a lot like Junot Diaz going on here (who has always promised to write a big sci-fi novel, but has never gotten round to it as of yet). It rewards committed reading - the chapterly time jumps can be a bit confusing, keeping you on your toes - but stick with it; you'll be pleased you did. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy - this book would work as a standalone story, but the voice is too good to not go back to.

A little hard to understand the story at first but it was very well written and I couldn't stop reading!

Rosewater is a city which has grown around an alien biome in Nigeria. Once a year, a part of the dome opens and heals all those in the vicinity, regardless of their illness. The biome also appears to have triggered strange abilities in many people - one of whom is Kaaro. He has become a 'Finder' and via the xenosphere he is able to find things. If someone knows where an object or a person once was, he can find this object or person if they are later lost. The xenosphere is like the 'astral plane' (not that I've been!), and those who are like Kaaro also use this xenosphere to find out information. Kaaro works for S45 - not willingly though. In the past, he had used his abilities to steal from people, and he is almost blackmailed in to working for the government. He doesn't make it easy for them. He does what they want on his own terms, it seems. I really liked this. I liked the world building, the science behind it all, the characters (Femi is one of my favourites - she is a woman who takes no nonsense!). I think it's a good start to a trilogy - I'm very interested to see where this goes!