Mawukana na-Vdnaze is an unusual man. Born in the Shine, an autocratic multi-planetary government noted for its brutal repression of dissent, he escapes in the most astonishing manner possible, via an FTL jump that goes...weird. Given refuge on another world, he is drawn back into interstellar affairs when a twin star goes supernova, generating an explosion that will render dozens of worlds uninhabitable, including some in the Shine.
Catherine Webb has consistently been one of spec fic's most interesting voices since they launched their career almost a quarter of a century ago. The Matthew Swift sequence (four novels plus two spin-off books), under the Kate Griffin pen-name, was notable as an urban fantasy series with terrific prose, but it's been their long streak of stand-alone novels under the Claire North pen-name which has attracted a much wider audience. The million-selling, John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was one of the most striking genre novels of the 2010s (and it remains a mystery why it hasn't been adapted for the screen), and the World Fantasy Award-winning A Sudden Appearance of Hope was also very accomplished.
In the 2020s they've shifted gears away from supernatural-tinged time travel and identity-bending fiction into a more heartfelt embrace of genre: the Songs of Penelope trilogy has been a full-bored fantasy-historical sequence, an interrogation of Homer, and now Slow Gods is a full-on, take-no prisoners space opera, the kind of shift in genre and approach that could give other authors whiplash.
Slow Gods starts slow, perhaps fittingly, and takes its time to spool up. Early chapters establish the Shine and the imminent threat of the twin supernova, a threat which is dismissed by some since its consequences will take decades or even centuries to become apparent, and all the people who'd have to make the hard and unpopular decisions to deal with it will be long dead by then, so why bother? Other, less psychotic civilisations swing into action much more dynamically, and how the different species and polities confront this massive existential threat is most interesting.
This is contrasted against Maw himself, whose travel through jump space has rendered him...other. Not quite human any more, capable of unusual acts, possibly dangerous, but also essential for certain tasks. FTL travel in this setting is dangerous, with most starship pilots going insane after just a few jumps, but Maw's condition has given them a very different reaction, potentially highly useful. In the wrong hands this could turn into another superhero story, with Maw's amazing skills spelled out in neon five-mile-tall letters, but Webb uses their formidable experience in crafting damaged, special characters to give Maw a lot more subtlety than that. Maw himself does not know what he's capable of and is not always that interested in finding out. At one point he ponders some experiments to determine the limits of his abilities and concludes he just can't be bothered to try. Maw's characterisation is of someone driven by instincts and goals but whom also finds the idea of fame abhorrent. Maw is simultaneously the most special and ordinary person in the galaxy, which is an interesting take.
The characters around Maw, from quans (quantum intelligences) to members of a telepathic hive-race to more or less baseline humans, are fascinatingly-drawn, and come and go through the story as Maw's travels through space separate them from friends and allies (but also enemies) for decades at a time. The novel is somewhat episodic, with several distinct storylines that sequentially follow before combining into a satisfying narrative whole, bringing the story back to where it began.
The novel is highly accomplished but the opening chapters feel a little hesitant, as if the author was not entirely committed, but this feeling vanishes pretty quickly and instead we get a wide-ranging, human story about identity, loss and hope, driven by Webb's firm grasp of prose and pacing. It's a quiet, sometimes melancholic novel, with occasional bursts of action and moments of vast, profound tragedy.
Slow Gods (****½) is a quietly powerful science fiction novel about the death of worlds that starts slow and acquires an unstoppable, powerful momentum as it goes. It's a highly successful shift in tone and genre for one of our most consistently talented, if perhaps underrated, authors. The book is available worldwide now.
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