He came to understand that humans needed, on some deep-seated level, the sight of the Sun in the sky. But why? Why try to light the Martian sky with dangerous mirrors? Why build a vulnerable structure on the Mercurian surface below its searing heat, and not move sensibly underground? The Sun, he decided, was a tyrant. [loc. 1665]
Lucian Merriweather is a solar engineer, part of a team of terraformers who've come to Pluto (no longer a planet, in this near-future solar system, but very definitely a world) to bring sunlight and warmth to this furthesy outpost of humanity. There, Lucian and his colleagues find a thriving community, with indie and folk bands, gardens, a swimming pool, cake, cider and -- possibly, terrifyingly -- a saboteur.
The colony's charismatic founder, Clavius Harbour, is in a coma after an expedition with his son Edmund and daughter Nou to investigate Nou's tale of life on Pluto. No life, apparently, was found, and a freak accident damaged Clavius' air supply. In his effective absence, Edmund is running the colony, and Nou has not spoken for a year. But she wants to help with the terraforming project, and Lucius takes her under his wing, teaching her sign language and involving her in the preparations for the 'sun-bringing'.
There's a lot of science here, but nothing that I found too technical. There are fabulous descriptions of the Plutonic landscape, and some of the most urgent and thrilling writing about a scientist tackling an emergency that I have ever read. The focus for me, though, was the characters. Lucian -- who brought his cat, Captain Whiskers, all the way from Earth, and clearly loves his 'dear savage' a lot (thus instantly winning my affection) -- is an absolute delight, extroverted, inventive, great sense of humour, splendid hair. His older colleague Halley, the grande dame of terraforming, is an acidic counterbalance to Lucian's exuberance. Stan, Lucian's PhD student, provides a lot of the technical detail whilst trying to prove his credentials. And Nou, who is one of the viewpoint characters, is a fascinating enigma: her friendship with Lucian and her increasing confidence are powerfully written.
There are so many neat and pleasing details here: the vegetarian, self-sufficient diet of the colony (see also Dinner on Mars); the naming of captured asteroids (which'll graze Pluto's negligable atmosphere to increase atmospheric pressure) after powerful beings in a cult fantasy series; Captain Whiskers and his plot-relevance; the Tombaugh Day festival, commemorating Clyde Tombaugh who first observed Pluto in 1930; the backstories of successful and failed terraforming schemes; the discovery of primitive life on Europa and Enceladus, and the desire to move people off Earth and save the only known planet with multi-cellular life... Kissick, who's a planetary physicist, achieves a compelling balancing act here, with science, setting and characters all integral parts of the plot. I liked this much more than I'd expected, and it would be a worthy winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award, for which it's shortlisted.
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