Book one in S.A. Tholin’s Primaterre series, Iron Truth is a bold, expansive science fiction adventure packed full of strong characters, breathless action and looming cosmic horror, all within a beautifully crafted and believable setting. Botanist Joy Somerset leaves Mars on a colony ship bound for a new life on a quiet, unpolluted planet, only to wake from cryo-sleep to find herself in a bleak future, trapped on dust-shrouded Cato. Meanwhile Commander Cassimer of the Primaterre banneretcy leads his squad to Cato in search of a missing ship, their mission quickly complicated by the planet’s inimical weather. In Joy’s eyes, the Primaterre soldiers offer hope of a way off-planet, but she has a lot to learn about the new world she finds herself in. To distant, closed-off Cassimer, Joy is just a means to an end, until over time she becomes more than that – a source of strength, and something to hold onto when his world is turned upside down.
This is a long book, at nearly 600 pages on Kindle, but right from the off it’s immersive and characterful, with rounded and believable characters living and surviving in a world that’s clearly had a lot of thought put into it, so the length is entirely a good thing. It means that as well as being a pacy, action-packed adventure, full of danger, desperate improvisation, all manner of cool high-tech arms and armour, and the ever-present threat of demonic possession, this is also a thoughtful examination of propaganda and indoctrination, as well as a very human story of fear, trauma and, ultimately, hope. For all that it’s a dark and often sinister sci-fi adventure story, in a far-future setting with all the usual trappings of fiercely independent factions, faster-than-light travel, futuristic biotech and insidious enemies, it’s a character-driven story first and foremost, full of well-observed human touches.
The narrative is split between Joy and Cassimer’s perspectives, and with their wildly differing viewpoints on proceedings they make for great protagonists, allowing the reader to see the setting from multiple angles between them. The supporting cast – particularly Cassimer’s squadmates – are given depth of their own with hopes, fears and foibles revealed and developed over the course of the story, but the core of the book is the opposites-attract relationship between Joy and Cassimer. They’re each strong in different ways, but both of them are broken and damaged too, and while the interplay between them helps drive the narrative forward it also provides an emotional core to the book, of the sort that isn’t always present in other SF action stories. What’s more, there’s never a sense that their collective arc is necessarily going to conclude in the obvious fashion – both characters are sufficiently vulnerable in their own way that their survival doesn’t feel guaranteed.
As the plot unravels and the characters develop, between them they gradually reveal more of the grim, bleak setting that Tholin has created – a world of traumatised soldiers hiding their fears behind veneers of spiritual purity to ward off terrors unleashed from the deep, of embittered insurgents and ruthless corporations and whispers in the dark. Fans of Warhammer 40,000 will feel right at home with the darkness in this setting, but for all its 40k-esque elements this is its own thing entirely, with a broader remit and much more freedom to take things in unexpected directions. It’s clear as well that this is only the beginning for the setting, with much more hinted at beyond the boundaries of what these particular characters have been able to explore so far – and that’s a genuinely exciting feeling!
There’s no question that this is a lengthy book, and a bit of a commitment as a result, but it’s absolutely worth the investment in time and emotional energy. In particular, if you enjoy your science fiction with deep veins of dark, cosmic horror balanced out by an overall sense of hope and possibility then this is well worth checking out – it’s a story that very much deserves to be more widely known.
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