Fiction Reviews
The Collapsing Wave
(2024) Doug Johnstone, Orenda Books, £9.99, pbk, 257pp, ISBN 978-1-916-78805-3
The Collapsing Wave is the second in a series, following The Space Between Us, by Scottish crime writer Doug Johnstone set entirely in near-future Scotland where aquatic aliens from Saturn’s moon Enceladus have arrives as refugees fleeing annihilation from hostile invaders.
Trouble is, despite their open friendliness, some of us trigger-happy humans see them as hostile invader (or at best uninvited guests) and more as a virus to be eradicated rather than friends to welcome.
Not all the humans think that way: There’s a teenage boy, Lennox, who in the first novel (The Space Between Us) managed to bond with the aliens, establishing a telepathic link, together with others of like mind.
But an army base, New Broom, led a single minded bigoted US General, is devoted to the extermination of the Enceladons, and is prepared to use lethal force on any humans who get in the way. The Enceladons, on the other hand, just want to be friends and don’t seem to understand why anyone would want to hurt them. And somewhere in the mix is an MI7 agent, Oscar Fellowes, trying to make sense of the unfolding mystery and finding life under American control somewhat uncomfortable.
Over the course of the novel, we gain a fuller understanding of the Enceladon’s plight and their limited range of options and as the protagonists gain insight their values and loyalties inevitably shift. It all builds up to a watery climax. But don’t expect happy ever after – there’s plenty of room for a sequel.
The novel definitely picks up as you get into it, though I found some of the character choices puzzling and I wanted the evil general Carson to be more nuanced and New Broom is, surely, more isolated than it would be (barely a nod to the wi-fi world) and would surely not be run by the Americans (which rather distances the politics and demonises the Americans). POV is spread thin at the expense of character depth too, but this is an interesting premise – the aliens are called ‘illegals’ by the troops and considered as animals, despite the considerable evidence that they are brighter than humans, bringing in more real-world relatable themes that make this novel more than just a fast-moving, SF-tinged, adventure story.
I want to know who attacked the Enceladons on their icy home-world, though. Funnily enough, the humans hunting down the aliens who genuinely come in peace don’t seem to have worked out that there’s a much greater threat out there. So much potential here…
Mark Bilsborough
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