Angel Stations by Gary Gibson

Gary Gibson’s debut novel takes us several centuries into the future, when humankind has begun to explore the universe, thanks to the artificial wormholes of the title, left behind by an ancient super-civilization dubbed the Angels. One other intelligent species has been discovered, on the planet Kasper; but humanity has left the inhabitants alone, limiting activity on the world to a remote polar region, where the Angels have left a mysterious artefact known as the Citadel, in which the rules of physics become strangely distorted.

Against this background, we follow the intertwining stories of several protagonists. Elias Murray, a former soldier whose genetic alterations give him brief glimpses of the future and the ability to revive the dead, travels to the Kaspian Angel Station in search of his former mentor. Kim Amoto, a prospector of Angel technology, spends most of the time lost (literally) in the memories of her dead lover. And on the surface of Kasper, Ursu is ordered to steal the statue of his city’s god – by the voice of the god himself. Add in the manipulations of a religious cult leader; a plague of insects that’s tearing apart the very fabric of the Angel Station; and an approaching gamma-ray burst that threatens to destroy all life of Kasper; and you have, it would seem, all the ingredients for a rip-roaring space adventure. And yet...

And yet, I found Angel Stations to be lacking in something, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what that something is. It certainly isn’t Gibson’s prose style, nor is it his characters. The plot does seem a little disjointed, with some changes feeling too abrupt: for example, the section in which the Kaspian Angel Station is under siege from the aforementioned insects is not resolved satisfactorily before Elias and Kim make the journey to the surface of Kasper; we don’t discover what happens to other characters we have been following on the Angel Station until a brief scene in the final chapter. And there are other problems with the plot, but nothing terribly wrong.

No, the worst thing that could be said about Angel Stations is that it’s just a little too ordinary. It is entertaining enough whilst you’re reading it, but it’s not a book to treasure. Still, this is only Gary Gibson’s first novel, and it will be interesting to see how his career develops.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Gary Gibson
Tor UK