Raft

Raft by Stephen Baxter

Raft was one of those books, for me, that got the balance between fantastical world building and developing an intriguing hero correct. Rees story is what really got me into the book, but the more he explored the Raft, and its unique set of characters, the more the world––or nebula as it were––came to life.

Raft follows the story of a mine rat named Rees who works out that the nebula they’re all living in is dying, and is determined to do something about it despite having zero knowledge how. To even begin to get the education he needs to solve this unique problem he has to escape the mines located in the midst of the nebula on a floating tree––complete with pilot––and reach the Raft, which is partly made up of the original human ship which got stranded there a long time ago. And, he has to do all this with wildly fluctuating gravity, which becomes a big part of the story.

It sounds like the sort of set-up where you could get easily lost and not really have a clue what’s going on, but it’s actually a lot cleaner than that. The mines, Floating trees, Raft, Boney, Whale’s (yes you read that right) are structured pretty linearly, with each location having their own cast of characters. My favourites of which are, the tree pilot Pallis and the scientist Hollerbach. Jaen grew on me too.

Rees adventure is one of learning and surviving, and he has to do a lot of both as he continuously finds himself in impossible situations and annoying the wrong people. There’s a few time jumps in the book, which I must admit I wasn’t overly keen on when it first happened, but it made sense as the story developed.

The writing style is very technical in places. The description of gravity, structures, and the incredible world they live in, is done by someone clearly a lot smarter than me who really knows his stuff, but none of it ever drones on. You don’t get bulked down and drown in information way above your pay grade as there’s always a character around who probably has the same questions as you, and isn’t afraid to voice them.

Raft is a heroes journey in the most unlikely of places. It’s colourful and dream like setting is filled with society survival problems and arguments we all know. There’s some humour in there––although I wouldn’t describe the book as funny––and I like that the society has its own words and phrases. That’s the sort of world building I always admire. ‘By the bones’ being a personal favourite. And the idea of days being judged by working shifts feels all too real.

I enjoyed this one. It captured me early and didn’t let go. I ended up reading it a lot quicker than I planned. It felt different from other things I read, without going out of its way to be overly complicated. I see there are other books in this series but I would imagine they’d just be set in the same universe rather than the same characters, but I might have to check the next one out at some point. Either way, i’m sure i’ll read more of Stephen Baxter’s work going forward.