MeltDown

We recently reviewed a book called The Crowfield Curse about Monks based in the 14th Century AD, well this novel, from the same publisher is also about Monks, however these are Monks in Space! The Monks in question are the Copernicus Order who worship the Sun. The live in an abbey that flies through the Solar System, and they make beautiful pottery that is fired in a kiln. The pottery is even more exquisite because it is thrown in zero gravity which allows it to be even finer. These pieces fund the abbey’s flight through space because each piece will sell for millions!

We experience this through the lead character Bartholomew, who is a novice of the order. This means he is a believer in His Divine Light, however he is still the lowest person on the ship. His main friend in the order is the non-monk Captain. Bart has been taught to co-pilot the ship as well. All is fine until the ship nearly hits another vessel travelling with no lights which didn’t show up on the radar. It is thought that the vessel might be deserted until they spot a small light shining a morse code message of SOS. However not everything is as it appears and only Bart realises that these may actually be thieves!

It did take me a while to get into the story and get my head around the idea of these Monks living in a spaceship and worshipping the Sun. It’s a pretty odd idea. Really we aren’t given much idea of how far in the future this story is actually meant to be set. We only know a little about the main character Bart’s past from what he tells some other characters later on. He is definitely mid-teens and has been with the Monks for five years. It’s hard to identify with this character on many levels, but there is enough about this story to keep you reading.

There are some interesting ideas here, although I don’t doubt that the author was heavily influenced by films like Sunshine and there may have even been a certain amount of Doctor Who thinking here. Certainly it’s the sort of situation that The Doctor may find himself in the middle of!

To be honest it is the over-arching story that is the grab with this book, as none of the characters are as accessible as I would like, they don’t really seem to go much deeper than the cowls that they wear. There are some stereotypes with the blind monk (although not the blind mad monk!) and the grumpy Prior. Bart himself is given a few layers, but still not really enough to get your teeth into. Where this author excels is building up the tension of the story itself. To me though the solution was fairly obvious a long time before it came to the character, I was hoping there would be another twist and a different solution could have been found. However the writing for this was very good, if not overly clever, but it certainly held my attention. I have watched and read many sci-fi related stories so possibly what is obvious to me may come as a surprise to others.

Whatever it’s still a good fun story for young sci-fi fans who are looking for something a little bit different!