If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, you may know that I do like a good techno-thriller. I tend to think that such an interest is to do with my love of Arthur C Clarke novels, where big scientific ideas were often expounded in an entertaining way. These books then led to me reading many scientists doing similar things – Carl Sagan, even Isaac Asimov, and more recently authors such as Stephen Baxter, as well as thriller writers like Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson and Frank Schatzing.
With that in mind, this one has gained my interest. It’s written by Jim Al-Khalili, OBE, one of the popular modernisers of science here in the UK, as indeed was Sir Arthur in his time. Think also of Brian Cox or, for those of you in the US, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The book spends the first part setting the main plot up: in the near future (2041) there is an increased threat from the Sun’s Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). These are, in reality, not uncommon, but at the same time there is a weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field. As a result, more of the lethal radiation is potentially reaching the Earth’s surface, with dramatic and often fatal results. Storms become stronger and more sudden, and as the book continues less predictable.
To this we have an international range of cast members – Sarah Maitlin is the (obviously attractive) British scientist working on solar research in Rio who is thrust into the spotlight when an aeroplane crashes, killing everyone on board. Investigations suggest that the crash is due to the fluctuating magnetosphere which affected the plane’s automatic pilot system. Suddenly a media star, Sarah becomes appointed to a UN task force but then discovers through the work of Iranian Shireen Darvish, young wunderkind and cyberhacker that there may be a conspiracy amongst significant powers that is downplaying the aftermath of the potential event, which threatens to knock out world communications and kill world populations with overdoses of radiation. Various disasters ensue. American Marc Bruckner and Chinese Qiang Lee are the two scientists who may have a means of stopping the next impending strike. The international nature of the cast is interesting and gives us a wider perspective on this future world. I thought that it clearly made the point that Science is international, and it’s nice to read a book that gives us a more global perspective. This is not typical of the Amero-centric setting of most of these type of novels.
Of course, each of the main characters have their own personal crosses to bear, which adds a human aspect to the big events going on. There’s a lot of politicking going on of course, which suggests that the author’s been sat through a few of these meetings himself! But to add to this there’s personal angst, much guilt, terrorism and even kidnapping.
This is clearly a fictional story written by a scientist and therefore it should not be a great surprise that there’s a focus on science and how scientists can minimise the issues and save humanity – a view not too popular in some places these days, but for me a welcome point of view. At the end there is even hope, which is what you perhaps need in an entertainment book in these troubled times. (It is also a very Clarke-ean thing, that human intelligence and ingenuity can make life better.)
There’s some nice futuristic touches but not too many – AI driven lorries, virtual online quantum computers – for example. One of the more interesting developments is how much the world depends upon virtual intelligence, which has consequences for events in the book. It is eminently believable.
Beyond the science, the rest of it is typical race-against-time stuff, speedily paced and rapidly executed. As is often common in many of these stories the emphasis is on plot and less on character development. There’s also a fair bit of technical jargon development and information dumping, but then there’s not too much to alienate the mainstream reader. (As a non-scientist I managed to follow it and it all sounded wonderfully plausible and logical.) Jim manages to balance both – not easily done and not usual in a debut fiction novel. There’s also an Afterword at the end that explains to us layman how similar and different the book is to reality. (It actually doesn’t seem that out of this world.)
The proverbial elephant in the room is the ending, which, after all of the careful setup and prior development, all seems to happen too quickly and rather too conveniently. In particular, the success of the science boils down to a ginormous plot MacGuffin which is admittedly exciting but seems both contrived and too convenient. This contrivance is compounded by an unconvincing romance towards the end, which in its rather uncooked state rather fails to persuade of its realism.
Up to that point, however, the book was great fun.
Sunfall is, in short, one for the beach-read pile – a great one to take on holiday that will, on the whole, keep the reader highly entertained, but at the same time shares a belief in science and has a degree of sensible intelligence to it. It’s certainly one of better such reads I’ve read recently. Perhaps most telling of all is that, despite my issues, at the end I came away with a feeling that Sir Arthur would’ve loved it.
Sunfall by Jim Al-Khalili
Published by Bantam Press, April 2019
384 pages
ISBN: 978-0593077429
Review by Mark Yon
Glad to hear this one didn’t disappoint. Prof Jim Al-K has made some pretty decent documentaries so it’s good to hear that he’s not above some good fiction too.
Hi, P. I think if you like Steven Baxter’s stories or Sir Arthur’s style you’ll like this one – but not everyone does, of course!