Book review: Aestus, by S. Z. Attwell

Aestus

I read these books earlier in the year and have been thinking a lot about them - both while reading, and since. Wrote shorter, spoiler-free reviews of both on my Bookwyrm (Book 1 review and Book 2 review), but as Aestus Book 1 is a finalist in the SPSFC competition this weekend I felt like putting down some more detailed thoughts about these books.

I doubt anyone will actually read this - I’m not well-known enough for it to spread widely, or for anyone to be really that interested in what I have to say - but it felt important to me to write this and get across why I feel so strongly about Aestus.

This is not an unbiased review: it is purely, unapologetically subjective. Attwell evoked a deep, personal response in me while reading these books, and this is my attempt to describe it. I enjoyed these books a lot: if anybody does read this and is looking for something objective, turn away now.

Beware there will be a lot of spoilers ahead. This piece is more about my thoughts and feelings and my life, and why I think these books affected me so much. It is going to be full of spoilers; if anybody gets this far but wants some spoiler-free thoughts, see my reviews linked above.

Setting

A lot of my deepest personal thoughts are around the setting.

The books start out with quite a mysterious setting. You don’t know where exactly in the world the events are taking place - the story is set after global heating got out of control and changed the world, so there’s nothing immediately obvious to point to any part of the world.

The story begins in an underground city (the titular City). Many of the early chapters describe the world - a technological civilisation living in a large underground city, excavated for the purpose when the climate changed. The civilisation faces off against adversaries called the Onlar (more on them later); turns out the Onlar have been using some older tunnels (the Old Sector) to navigate and raid the City.

So far so good: an intriguing, unusual setting, a good sense of mystery, interesting people.

After some escapades with the Onlar in the beginning, Jossey (the main character) joins Patrol to help protect the City. And this is where the story really began to hit me hard.

I’ve visited a couple of underground cities in my life, and I grew up near some extensive cave systems that are open to tourists. So I have some idea what it’s like to visit underground places - how it feels, what they might look like. The claustrophobia. The way, deeper down, the air feels different; in one place, I remember distinctly how the air felt thin, a mild shortness of breath, and especially how tight all the walls and ceiling felt.

It was to this latter place that my mind instinctively went when Jossey went out into the Old Sector. Attwell describes larger cavernous rooms with pillars, and narrow tunnels, and the imaginary picture formed in my head just felt closest to that place I knew.

As the Patrol explore the old tunnels, they descend some stairs. The underground place my mind had gone to had some stairs in. I was following them in my head. Then Attwell describes a big stone wheel, acting as a door, at the bottom of the stairs. And my brain almost exploded: that is exactly where the big stone wheel was. The place I was exploring in my imagination, and the place Attwell was describing in her book were the same? They had to be! How else could the wheel be in the same place?

I don’t even know what emotion that evoked in me. I don’t have a word for it. The shift from imagination to vivid memory was so profound and powerful that it stunned me; sent shivers down my spine and goosebumps up my arms; I had tears in my eyes. I still don’t know the word for that emotion: a combination of surprise and awe; of feeling seen by an author writing not about my life or experience and yet, somehow, all my memories of that place felt seen by another.

The place was not named, yet, in the story, but I knew: Derinkuyu. Cappadocia. Türkiye. One of the most incredible experiences of my life, being described in print as the setting for this story.

There were perhaps some earlier signs pointing the way - maybe? - to this being set in Derinkuyu: I don’t speak the language, but the name Onlar sounded vaguely like it could have been Turkish - though it could just as easily have been a made up name, or inspired from elsewhere. One of the core characters is called Savaş - that sounds like a Turkish name. But the power with which the realisation hit me when Attwell described the stone wheel - wow.

Later, the story takes the reader out of the the underground - around Göreme (Gurime in the book) and Uçhisar. Göreme is where I stayed and explored around when I visited the area. Very fond, powerful memories of Göreme and the surroundings - all the valleys, the strange and wonderful rock formations and outcroppings (‘fairy chimneys’, as they’re called); all the caves and churches and ancient homes carved directly into the rock formations and cliff faces.

And Uçhisar - what a wonderful place to visit. The views from the top of the castle are stunning, never experienced anything like this place in my life - and the novel was taking me right back there again.

We visited in 2018 - before my world changed. My mum, my brother, his girlfriend and me - easily the most memorable holiday experience I’ve ever had. We said we’d go back; we planned to go in 2019 but never got round to finalising, and said we’d go in 2020 instead. But covid happened, my health got wrecked - and now? I don’t know if I’ll ever be healthy enough go back again. So being able to explore these places again in Attwell’s vision was just such a beautiful experience for me - poignant, powerful, profound. I’m unlikely to ever meet the author in person, so she’ll never see my face light up when I am talking about this, but if she ever reads this I hope my words do some justice to how I feel. This book was a truly special experience for me in a deeply personal way that is difficult for me to properly describe.

There were a load of minor details that just made me smile and feel happy while reading, too: a brief mention of strong tea being drunk by the Onlar - memories of super-strong Turkish tea came flooding back (it really is quite unlike English-style tea, and very strong indeed). The hints of earlier Greek settlement in the region (a long time ago, Greeks lived there - mostly leaving in the early 20th century; many of the older cave churches are from many centuries ago when the Greeks were around - Christianity came through here on its way to Rome) - the Greek writing on some of the old tunnel walls, and the Greek-sounding name of one of the other central characters perhaps? Another scene where Kaya is in his garrison - maybe I’m wrong here, but there’s a distinctive place overlooking Göreme that I remember well; no idea if it even has a name, but it felt like Attwell was describing that place. I have very fond memories of walking up the tracks to the top of the hill, gazing out over the beautiful view of the town and countryside with my loved ones, trying to identify the cave hotel in which we were staying… Brought me a lot of joy to reminisce over this; even if it wasn’t the place in the novel, it felt like it and that felt good.

Subject

I really enjoy science fiction. It’s my most-read genre - I love it. But I feel so much of it is lacking - lots of stories about lasers and high technology, offering little real insight into our world or our nature; something more like an adventure rather than an examination of the world around us. Aestus really excels at this.

There’s a lot of subtlety in the theme here: the way Attwell’s world is crafted really draws one’s attention to the differing domains of technology and society. We live in a time now where the idea of society seems to almost be delegated to technology. We’ve got large corporations using large language models to appropriate the work of writers en masse - likewise with image models and so on; we’re witnessing a wholesale transfer of creative wealth from people to corporations, without consent, and with the idea that these corporations will be able to automate creative tasks away from humans for the enrichment of their shareholders in a way that is unprecedented in human history. We’re at risk of losing so much at the altar of human greed. We’ve come to assume that the more technology a society has, the better it is for everybody; we often look down on cultures that have less technology than we do, ignore their rights and their ways of life if they have something we want. And we’re almost pathologically attempting to devise technological fixes to cultural problems.

But Attwell describes a world in which technology has not inherently given rise to a more prosperous and sound society. And that is a fascinating take.

In Aestus, the Onlar are not monsters - though they are imagined to be so by the citizens of the City. Rather, they are indigenous, low-technology survivors of the climate catastrophe. But a key thing I enjoyed here: their society is stronger, more unified, more viable; though it may be hard to describe either the City or the Onlar as coming out of the story as victors, as such - I do feel the Onlar way of life is the one that is shown to be more robust, more adaptable to change; the technologically advanced City does have the means to make certain aspects of life easier - just as we do in our own societies - but it is such a brittle culture that it struggles to deal with the shocks that come later in the novels. It is the Onlar way that can more easily come to terms with change, and I think this says a lot about the importance of building a strong, unified society where people look out for each other - rather than one where the fundamentals of a society are kind of ‘out-sourced’ to technology when it is assumed that technology can save us from anything.

In addition, I really loved how Attwell gave such a strong voice to these people - the Onlar; she focused a lot on painting a picture of their culture as highly-developed, nuanced, warm. These were real people.

A great deal of science fiction is essentially told from the ‘colonial’ perspective. We (the great, pan-human We) go out into the void to settle where we find and take all the resources we want; the natural state is almost that of humans having a right to every place. Certainly, there are parts of science fiction where humans coexist with alien species, or those where the aliens come and we are fighting a military resistance. But it’s rare in my experience for a colonised people to be given a voice like Attwell does in Aestus. She takes a great deal of care to emphasise the inherent value of Onlar culture - not in comparison to City culture, but as having fundamental value in its own right. And I love that aspect of the story.

Much of the story deals with how Jossey makes her way through the City society - how she manages to subvert various aspects of the society in order to undermine the power dynamic. Her society is very dystopian, but in a way that is not immediately obvious: the people are corralled into various walks of life - they have no real freedom to escape the life they live, or to choose what they want to do. They simply serve the purpose designed by the leaders, in a way that feels reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Jossey is kind of privileged in that she is related to one of the leaders (the one with the most power), who can move her through the society to undertake a different role - the ordinary people do not have that luxury, but it is this very privilege that allows Jossey to undermine the power structure to strive for towards a better society. It feels like there is an interesting moral to the story here: many of us in our societies do have a similar sort of privilege in our lives compared to others; how many of us have asked ourselves what we can do with this privilege to help improve the world in which we live?

Society

Calling this section society, as it’s about how Attwell captures the way human societies operate, the way people behave.

Overall, I was really impressed with the way Attwell writes the characters - the things they do, and why they do them.

One scene stood out for me as emblematic of Attwell’s understanding of how people behave with each other: later in the story, as the rebellion is getting going, they realise they made a mistake - they crashed the electrical grid and dropped the perimeter barrier. But what I found interesting here was how Jossey came to lead the crisis response. She didn’t take it, as such - she didn’t stand up and say I’m in charge, nor force anybody to listen to her. Neither did the others discuss and decide Jossey was most qualified or the right woman for the job. Instead something more subtle, and more interesting: Jossey just kind of assumed authority.

I’ve been involved in various high priority / crisis style situations (both work-related, and when organising multi-thousand people community events). And when people know each other well, know their skills, trust their abilities - this is what always seems to happen. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s somebody else, but people instinctively turn to the one they trust to resolve the situation, the one who everyone knows - without saying - is the right person to delegate leadership to. The way Attwell wrote it felt exactly like this, and without needing to write lots of exposition explaining why they all trust Jossey or why they feel she has the required knowledge or skills, it is all simply implied - I just knew how much the others respected and trusted Jossey and believed in her skills from the way Attwell wrote the scene.

But there were lots of other details, too. When planning a military operation, logistics are more important than almost any other factor - more important than morale, training, equipment; without being able to get people where they need to be, with the supplies to do what needs doing, any undertaking is bound to fail. Attwell demonstrated a deep understanding of this - the majority of the planning stage of the farm raid was dedicated to understanding how they would get there with sufficient water and means to return with the rescued people; similarly with the expedition to find Jossey, or the way the raiders come with a huge convoy to see to their needs. Likewise, on a smaller scale, how even the regular patrols were structured around logistics - the need to carry one’s own water supplies (water is heavy!) dictating the patrol. The attention to detail in this aspect is top quality and so often overlooked - struggling to think of even one example where people in a story had to consider the simple fact that they’re humans who need to drink water, and how this shapes every action we undertake.

Another fairly small detail - not especially consequential to the story, as such, but just a nice touch that made me happy - was the way Attwell wrote about ‘unknown’ characters; that is, the people who are met but who have not yet given their names. When Jossey is captured by the Onlar, they treat her as a prisoner - they do not give her their names (why would they?). Later, we learn who they are, but when Jossey meets them, in her head she simply calls them by their distinguishing features - for example, there’s Scarface. This is a really powerful technique - I’ve read many books by former soldiers, and that is invariably how they talk in similar situations. Maybe a minor detail, but it enhanced the feeling for me.

Story

Obviously, this is a novel - without a good story, the above factors about which I’ve written would be less engaging. Exploring these places in a dull story would be inherently dull. So it is to Attwell’s credit that not only has she crafted a beautiful work, but she’s imagined a compelling story there too.

The characters are all interesting people - and they really do feel like people to me; in my Bookwyrm review I wrote about how I felt they must be real people the author knew, and that’s still the feeling I get. The way they behave with each other is very life-like - I can imagine my friends or colleagues in some similar situations and it would feel just as it does in the book.

The story does a great job of conveying what the future might be like when humanity is struggling for necessities again, eking out a living in a more hostile environment than we know now.

The pacing is superb - I found it very difficult to put down every day, and regularly stayed up past my bedtime because I failed to do so.

And the ending. I find the majority of stories end in a somewhat disappointing way; the story is great up to the end, but very often the author seems to struggle to tie it off. But pleasingly, that’s not the case here - the ending is really good, tying up many threads while leaving others open for the future (and I really do hope we get to see more of this world in the future).

Some thoughts on Attwell’s thoughts

Attwell has written a lot in her blog about her writing process - what she was trying to achieve, the things that concerned her about what she was writing or how it would come across (seriously it’s a great blog, worth reading). And I feel like a few of the things she said are worth addressing from my perspective as a reader (and fan, I guess, if I’ve written this much?).

Firstly, the action scenes. Attwell writes that she felt intimidated writing them; I find that interesting, as the thing that struck me about the action scenes were how they felt like she had experience of fighting herself - God forbid not real fighting, perhaps martial arts or something like that? - and she was using this experience to shape her writing. Again referring back to the stories I’ve read by former soldiers - I felt there was a lot of similarity in the style here.

On the subject of her main character, Attwell wrote how she wanted to make a strong female character who didn’t rely on her relationship with men to make her interesting. This is overwhelmingly achieved. There are some love entanglements, but Jossey is an incredibly interesting woman with a key role in the society around her. She has many skills and abilities that improve the lives of people she knows, but she also has flaws and weaknesses like anybody else. The way Jossey is written, she feels like a real person - not a plot device; I think this is a big part of why she is so interesting.

Finally, on plot signposts: reading the book it felt less to me like the ending was planned out and there was a linear route from start to finish, a direct path between two points. Rather, it felt more like life: we start from a certain point, and we act; we have ideas and motivations and things we try to achieve; we move forward and end up in a certain place, but we could not have foreseen this destination from the outset. That’s not to say it reads like she didn’t plan out the story - no doubt something this impressive took a great deal of planning - but it feels like an organic situation evolving out of the decisions made by the people involved. In this, again, I feel Attwell excelled: she did not telegraph where the story would end (though there were definitely things that were hinted at only to be revealed much later), but instead took us into the story to guide us through the lives of the people in it.

Summary

I suppose if this were a proper review I’d now summarise everything I’ve written above.

The plot and characters were all engaging, there was a great deal of subtlety in so many of the minor details, and evidently a great deal of thought has gone into making the world feel believable.

Reading this book was a deeply personal experience for me. More so than any other novel I can think of. It was one of the most powerful, moving experiences of my life to revisit a place I loved and expected to never visit again. Attwell’s way of describing that place both complimented my own memories and surprised me with the new details of seeing it through another person’s eyes.

I’ll close by quoting something Attwell wrote in her blog:

Everything I did within Aestus was an attempt to analyze real power dynamics and build a realistic picture of humans in an unusual environment.

I feel wholeheartedly that this was very much achieved.