2020/016: Beneath the Rising -- Premee Mohamed

Like thirteen years of friendship with the glass wall of her secret between us, like the barrier separating animals and humans at the zoo. And yet here we were, nine thousand kilometers from home, together. A girl and her dog. [loc. 4507]

Johnny (short for Joanna) is a prodigy whose inventions have changed the world. She and Nick have been best friends since childhood, despite being different in almost every way: Johnny is white, wealthy, and a genius, while Nick is brown, works a mundane job to look after his family, and can't justify getting a degree. Perhaps the only thing they have in common is that, as children, they were the sole survivors of a hostage situation.

Their shared PTSD is just one of the factors in their friendship: they are both tremendous geeks (there are multiple references to the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, to D&D, to Superman and Pulp Fiction and Jurassic Park) and they trash-talk one another constantly. Nick is the first to know when Johnny makes a ground-breaking discovery that promises clean, free energy. But her latest invention draws unwanted attention -- and Nick realises that there are things Johnny's never told him, secrets that dwarf Nick's unrequited crush on her.

This is a world whose history is not quite our own. In September 2001, for example -- a year or so before the events of Beneath the Rising -- two planes were hijacked and almost hit the World Trade Centre. And it is a world transformed by Johnny's inventions: cures for HIV and Alzheimers, alternatives to plastic, housing for disaster zones, molecular recycling...

But Johnny has paid, and is paying, for her gifts, and the price is appalling. Cosmic horrors are gathering at the edges of the human world, seeking a way in. Only Johnny and Nick can avert disaster -- or so Johnny claims. Nick, stumbling after his friend on a hectic quest that takes them from Canada to Morocco to Iraq and onward into the ancient places of the earth, can't figure out how he can possibly be part of the solution.

Premee Mohamed's The Apple Tree Throne was a highlight of last year's reading for me, hence my requesting Beneath the Rising for review. The two are very different books: both are emotionally subtle and written with precision, but here the story is on a far broader canvas, and the underlying secrets more epic. That said, I found the relationship between Johnny and Nick seized my attention in a way that the cosmic battle for the future of humanity did not. It's refreshing to see a friendship treated this seriously: it's horrific to see the foundations of that friendship.

Thanks to NetGalley for my advance review copy, in exchange for this honest review.