A Rebel’s History of Mars

Far-future historiography is the subject of Afifi’s dizzying sci-fi adventure (after The Transcendent). Azad, a triage doctor on the dystopian planet Nabatea, is rocked by a dying patient’s last words: “You look just like her.” This cryptic message renews his hope that his twin sister, Ledo, who ran away more than a decade ago, might still be alive. Desperate to find her, Azad rockets to a settlement on Nabatea’s moon, deliciously described as a counterculture mecca. There he encounters two historians who are also on Ledo’s trail and begs to join their mission, which involves sorting fact from fable about the colonization of Nabatea and the origin of its ruling class, the Vitruvians, using a gadget that turns quantum ripples from a millennium ago into hazy video footage. Afifi flings this offbeat plot back and forth between present day Nabatea and the early days of its mother planet, Mars, as the researchers track an ancient aerialist, Kezza, who, a thousand years earlier, plotted revenge on the space colonizer Barrett Juul, whom she blames for enticing desperate people to emigrate from Earth to Mars, where they were kept as corporate “slaves.” Afifi brings the story full circle, wasting no words on filler, with bone-crunching fight scenes and delicious suspense along the way. This thrilling cosmic history will have readers racing to turn the pages. (June)