I’ve mentioned more than a few times in the past that one of the attractions of SF for me is its ability to look at current issues and extrapolate them to make some sort of point.
Indeed, it is often said that as well as being a way of looking at a possible future (or futures!) such distancing allows the reader to examine difficult issues more objectively.
SF is as much about the time it was written as it is about ‘the future’.
In a review of one of Stephen’s most recent novels, The Thousand Earths (reviewed HERE) I wrote about it being his take on the issues of refugees, an issue again in current discussion. With this in mind, Stephen Baxter’s latest novel, Hearthspace, again lets us look at some more difficult and complex contemporary moral issues whilst in the guise of an SF novel.
From the publisher: “Thousands of years ago, a massive colony ship arrived at the Hearth – the celestial birthplace of millions of planets, ranging from habitable earth-like worlds to unimaginable hellscapes of pressure and heat. Using lightsails to navigate, humanity has spread itself across dozens of these worlds. But they have also forgotten their beginnings, where they came from… and a terrible secret is about to be unveiled.
For Commander Ulla Breen, on her first tour of duty aboard a patrol sail-ship, the universe is about to change around her. Attacked by an unknown and unthought-of enemy, she and her fellow crewmembers will face slavery, punishment and death – and so will their home planets. Because someone else has seen the richness of the inner Hearth, and plans to take it for themselves. A new enemy, but one who seems disturbingly familiar. And perhaps knows more about the history of the Hearth than even Ulla and her crew.
Faced with a complete upheaval of all she thought she knew, Ulla must survive long enough to come up with a plan – one which will unite all the disparate elements of the Hearth, and perhaps discover the reason why humanity came to Hearthspace in the first place . . .”
Ulla’s capture and incarceration by space pirates leads her to be in a difficult position. Ulla finds herself the go-between between the slavers and the slaves thanks to Ciren Pulet, senior protector of the Hierarchy. He sees his main purpose to explore for science and also exploit resources for the good of the Hierarchy. He is mercurial, eccentric and possibly insane – one minute jovial, the next violent, with a strange tolerance for Ulla. Pulet’s unpredictable actions are to his own mind entirely suitable and appropriate – even essential for the smooth running of the space ship and the greater benefit to the Hierarchy.
Ulla is given an easier ride as a result, but also has to watch punishment being given out to those deemed to deserve it, because as one character puts it, people must be seen to be punished*. Ulla finds the task demoralising and onerous, forever guilty that she has been chosen for such a role whilst at the same time others have not. There is also a worry that the victim has become part of the process, allowing such a situation to continue.
The conditions that the slaves live in are truly awful – claustrophobic, unpleasant, unendingly grim. There are children forced to work in deadly conditions, mutilations, beatings, rape and even murder as the slaves struggle to exist. The slaves are effectively dehumanised, becoming mere cogs in the machine that keeps Pulet’s spaceship running, a crude yet workable design. I was rather reminded by the descriptions of the space ship of those suggestions back in the 1970’s of things produced by the Soviet state – functional, yet at the same time crude and basic.
Much of the main part of the book deals with these issues. Baxter’s muted writing style allows the reader to observe really horrible things and yet at the same time see the understanding behind it. We may be repulsed by what we read, but we are shown the misguided logic behind their actions. It’s at times not easy reading, but it does have a purpose. How to cope with, and act against, a clearly insane person in power, may have a message for us all.
Of course, all of this is set in a universe filled with Baxter’s usual ‘big ideas’. It was nice to see Arthur C Clarke’s idea of solar-sailed spaceships reappear, but as well as that we have dark matter stars generating energy, and thousands of families of planets existing in Mars-like, Earth-like and Jupiter-like zones around these stars, which Pulet and his crew are hoping to explore and mine. Oddly it is Pulet’s love of such things that connects him to Ulla, as he enthusiastically shows such sights off to her whilst keeping also her close-to-heel.
After such a long build-up, the ending, surrounded by an enveloping substory, seems to come around rather quickly. Most issues are resolved, and sensibly, although it did feel rather fast by comparison of what has gone before.
In summary, then, Hearthspace is a compelling read that raises difficult questions and actions entwined within a science fictional setting. This is a dark novel dealing with problematic issues – slavery, freedom (or lack of it), torture, rape, murder, mutilation… and yet in the end there is a degree of positivity and hope.
Above all, Hearthspace tells us that, despite our differences and everything bad life throws at us, more unites us than divides us.
*It reminded me of those situations where people are punished after being told, “It’s for your own good.”
© 2025 Mark Yon
Hardback | Gollancz
HEARTHSPACE by Stephen Baxter
September 2025 | 374 pages
ISBN: 978 139 961 466 5
