Deception. Disgrace. Evil as plain as the scar on his face. Deception (An outrage!). Disgrace (For shame!). He asked for trouble the moment he came. Let’s descend into Deception Well, by Linda Nagata.
Synopsis:
In a war of belief, faith is a virus, and it’s spreading fast. Remnants of an alien nanotechnology infest the surface of the planet, Deception Well, giving rise to deadly plagues that make the Well uninhabitable-or so most believe. Jupiter Apolinario saw it differently. He believed the planet was host to an ancient, alien mechanism of transformation meant to embrace all life forms in an ecstatic communion. Jupiter disappeared on the planet along with a handful of followers, though whether they were taken by death or transcendence, no one could say. Ten years later, Jupiter’s son, Lot, stands at the center of conflict. Like his father, Lot has a seductive presence, and a charismatic nature that seems more-than-human. People are helplessly drawn to him. Their faith in him is strong and their numbers are growing, but Lot is beset with doubts about his father’s teachings. So he sets out to learn the truth about Jupiter, about his own powerful calling as a prophet, and about the real nature of Deception Well, where a razor-thin line divides bliss from damnation. Enjoy all four books of the Nanotech Succession, a collection of stand-alone novels exploring the rise of nanotechnology and the strange and fascinating future that follows.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
The second book of The Nanotech Succession is a distant sequel, set long after the human diaspora into space and mostly unconnected to the plot of the previous book. The setting is an orbital city connected by space elevator to the mysterious and deadly planet of Deception Well, which kills any who attempt to brave the surface. Our protagonist is Lot, the son of a cult leader who preached that salvation could be found by joining in communion with the planet and attaining oneness with it, and got a lot of people killed in his last attempt to reach it (officially including himself, but the faithful still preach that he made it and they will one day be able to join him). With resources on the station running low, tension are running high amongst its inhabitants – not helped by the damaged alien superweapon hanging tantalizingly in orbit for anyone brave or foolish enough to attempt to try seizing control of it, or the mysterious approaching ship which may be coming to render aid or destruction to the people who it already betrayed once in the past.
The premise and setting are very interesting, but the protagonist is a bit of a weak link. I took an instant disliking to Lot, a whiny entitled teen who constantly wavers between goals: one minute he’s wanting to pick up where his father left off lead the cult to salvation, and the next he ‘s wanting to prove that he’s a different person than his father and a perfectly sensible person who doesn’t believe in any of that cult nonsense. He’s also genetically modified to be able to produce mid-control pheromones which make people fanatically loyal to him, which is a really creepy power to have, particularly when he feels attraction to a woman who was his father’s lover and tries to use his pheromones to manipulate her into letting him take his father’s place… blech!
Fortunately, later revelations did allow me warm up to Lot a little bit: namely, the reveal that he and his father were actually unwitting vectors for an alien contagion called the communion virus, unknowingly being manipulated by the hidden corruption lurking in their DNA to draw together brainwashed cultists as the first step towards eradicating humanity. Once I realized that Lot was a victim himself, someone who was being used by the alien virus within him to bring destruction to the human society around him, I was able to start sympathizing with him. That revelation came pretty late in the book, though, and didn’t really make up for all the time I spent reading about him thinking he was just unpleasant.
This book has its highs and its lows, its parts that work and parts that don’t; and overall, I think it averages out as decent. I liked more of it than I disliked, and feel comfortable recommending that interested readers give it a try.
Final Rating: 3/5
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