CW/TW: This book is incredibly gross and gory and features murder and self-harm by way of a deadly space disease.
Salvation Day was exactly the book I was searching for. It’s the fucked-up space horror I’d been trying and failing to find for weeks. Though not without its faults, it reminds me very much of the Alien franchise. That’s a good thing because I love those movies (and the video game) very much.
Two people whose pasts are intertwined are left stranded aboard a ship where hundreds of people were massacred by a mysterious illness ten years ago. The House of Wisdom was a large research vessel investigating a message leftover from a previous Earth civilization. They assumed those people found another sustainable planet following the Collapse and were alerting others to their discovery.
Within a day, everyone on board began dying, turning violent toward one another or themselves. However, the world doesn’t know this. The governing Councils put out a statement that a disease was released onboard by a disgruntled scientist, Dr. Lago. The only survivor of the House of Wisdom was a young boy named Jaswinder Bhattacharya, whose parents perished on the ship.
Now an adult, Jas and his fellow postgrad research fellows are waiting to board a shuttle to the Moon where they will conduct further research. But things go awry when their shuttle is hijacked. The hijackers needs access to the House of Wisdom and they believe Jas’s credentials are still valid for the ship that has become nothing more than an orbiting tomb.
Those who have hijacked the shuttle are part of a cult run by a shitty man named Adam Light. They believe they’ve been harassed by the Councils for wanting to live outside the government’s purview in the wastelands. Pretty standard cult stuff. They hope to gain control over the House of Wisdom and make their home there, free from the Councils control where they can just go about their business.
The woman in charge of this mission is Zahra Light, daughter of Dr. Lago. She and her family were forced into exile after her father’s crimes were made public. She has a vendetta against the Councils, but also hopes that access to the House of Wisdom might reveal something to clear her name
Of course, things don’t go as planned. The shuttle explodes, stranding several of the postgrad fellows and the cult members aboard the House of Wisdom, where everyone pretty much discovers that what they were publicly told about the ship was definitely not true.
To sum up, we have:
Cults? Check!
Government secrets? Check!
A foreign space sickness? Check!
A creepy abandoned spaceship with hundreds of dead bodies onboard? Check!
Salvation Day switches between Jas and Zahra’s POVs with little bits of epistolary elements in between, like ship transmissions and recordings. I liked them both, which is rare for me. Both are seeking answers but are on opposite sides. Jas wants to know what happened to his mother; her death is still a mystery. Zahra wants to clear her father’s name. They’re also dealing with varying levels of trauma, which are of course exacerbated by being on this murder ship.
Family dynamics play a huge part for the main characters and this book is more than just gratuitous violence and viscera. I wasn’t expecting that initially and, admittedly it took me a while to get into the book. There’s a bit of setup that includes backstory detailing how Jas and Zahra got to where they are now, and that got a little boring.
There is a definite arc to the plot because the end of the book gave me the same feeling. Things are calming down, a resolution is being reached, yada yada yada. It’s not a bad thing, but I was more engaged by the story when people’s heads were exploding and Zahra and Jas were examining dead bodies.
Is that odd? Maybe. I’ll be sure to add that to this week’s therapy discussion.
The futuristic world is explained at a bare minimum. We don’t receive all of the nitty gritty details; just enough to get it. Same with the cult. I would have liked a lot more information and history of these groups. However, this is a more character driven narrative. Readers who are looking for answers to world-building questions will most likely be disappointed.
If you have a strong stomach and enjoy complex personal dynamics with a pretty gnarly backdrop, I definitely recommend Salvation Day. Just have a bit of patience waiting for things to kick off. And since we’re all HEA fans, I would say that I’m satisfied with the ending and it didn’t leave me terribly bummed out.
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Thank you Amanda, your review makes me think I might really enjoy salvation, whereas the blurb had put me right off. I don’t know what it is about blurb writing and the way I interpret them but I more often than not find them off-putting rather than enticing me to read the book.
@Jazzlet: I definitely understand! The blurb doesn’t communicate really that there are two main characters and how their histories are unknowingly intertwined.