‘For Hundreds of years the Argonos, home to generations of humans, has trawled the galaxy searching for other signs of life. Now, a steady unidentified transmission has lured the ship to a remote planet.On the surface the crew find evidence of a colony – but no inhabitants. Until they discover a trail deep into the planet’s steamy jungles, and their terrifying fate is revealed to them.But this is only the first message.’Blurb from the 2003 Orbit paperback editionThis is the novel that the movie ‘Event Horizon’ should have been, set in a surreal dystopian Universe which is huge, hostile and not a little scary.The Argonos has been cruising space for untold generations, ostensibly on a mission to reacquaint lost human colonies (and new alien civilisations) with Christianity (forcibly if necessary). The ship has a cathedral, complete with stained glass windows set into the hull, the details of which can only be seen when one goes outside the ship in a suit.Rigid class structures have evolved and society is divided between the privileged and the downsiders who exist and work in the bowels of the ship.Bartolomeo – the central figure – is adviser and childhood friend of the current Captain, Nikos. Bartolomeo was born with malformed limbs; in particular severely stunted arms and a club foot. He exists inside an exoskeletal suit and an important aspect of the novel, if not the most important aspect of the novel, is his relationships with a variety of other characters.The Argonos discovers a life-bearing planet which Bishop Soldano – political rival of Nikos and Bartolomeo) christens Antioch; a planet from which a signal is being broadcast.Bartolomeo and his landing team however, discover nothing but evidence of mass murder and torture. Despite this, Bartolomeo is encouraged by his dwarf friend Par, to become involved in a scheme to organise a mass exodus of the disaffected who wish to leave the ship and settle on Antioch.The conspiracy is discovered and prevented, after which Bartolomeo is incarcerated for monthsThe Captain is then forced to release him when a vast alien ship is discovered seemingly abandoned in the Antioch system. The ship appears to be empty, but is filled with elaborate traps for the unwary.A woman is discovered on board – seemingly borderline insane – and is brought back to the Argonos, following which Bartolomeo discovers her to be not human. By this time the Argonos has docked with the alien ship, intending to tow it to a civilised world and have it studied.The ship refuses to be unclamped and most of the occupants of the Argonos escape to Antioch while Captain Nikos drags the alien ship on a suicide jump into hyperspace.One of the interesting stylistic points of this novel is that many questions are left unanswered. The aliens are truly enigmatic and are made all the more frightening by the fact that we never get to meet them, only getting a glimpse of them from Sarah, the woman found aboard the alien ship.When ‘Sarah’ is discovered in a sealed compartment she has the initials S.C. tattooed on her arm and a photograph is found of a younger and older woman, both of whom resemble Sarah, but whether the original Sarah (if there ever was one) is the mother or daughter we never discover.Many of Bartolomeo’s questions are never answered either, since he seems to be a man on a quest for Truth, Love, Answers and Friendship, many of which are in short supply. The one woman he is in love with – Father Veronica – is a Catholic Priest, and she is killed because of his opposition to the plans of Bishop Soldano.His parents abandoned him as a child and so he has no family to form close relationships with. In a sense, BartolomeoHis relationships with Nikos and Par are also suspect in his own mind since they are inevitably entwined with the political machinations of both.Bartolomeo is also a man who makes mistakes, a refreshing change for a genre hero. His decision to help Par with the mutiny ends disastrously, and later, he has to admit that Bishop Soldano, the man responsible for Father Veronica’s death, was right about the ship; the Bishop having maintained that the ship was evil and should be left alone.Nevertheless, this makes for a fascinating characterisation, and one cannot help but like Bartolomeo and put oneself in his place in the decisions he has to make.One might argue that Bartolomeo is being tested, as the hapless explorers of the alien ship are being tested.Comparisons have to be made with Alastair Reynolds (in the industrial gothic elements) and Stanislaw Lem (particularly with regard to Solaris, since the vast ship is so Lem-like in its sheer unknowable alien-ness) and David Lynch (simply because of the sheer weirdness and the unanswered questions) but the style is a very individual one. Not many authors would be so brave as to throw in so many mysteries which are never solved: What was the Bishop doing at the start of the novel, supervising a gang of men who were linking two pieces of vast machinery? What is the significance of the wooden box found in the alien ship? Why is a Cathedral at the heart of the ship and why can one only see its stained glass designs from space? However, these sideline mysteries add a refreshing touch of verisimilitude to a novel which is a very worthy winner of the Philip K Dick Award.This is ‘Alien’ for the David Lynch Generation. Russo is forcing us to look for explanations where there are none, just like Bartolomeo and the explorers of the alien ship; perhaps like the Bishop and the Captain who has no answer as to why his wife chooses to abandon him to his fate.It is a book which will hide out in your mind for years to come.
Let's talk about the reasons why I didn't give this book 5 stars. First, let me say: I was certain I was going to give the book a 5-star review right up until the very last page. Therein was the book's downfall.Backtracking: for those not in the know, the book starts with the starship Argonos, which floats aimlessly throughout the universe. No one is exactly sure how long the ship has functioned, though the general consensus amongst people is for hundreds of years. It is a lonely place to be, and tensions between the captain and the strangely powerful bishop are high. The book begins with this push-pull power dynamic between the two of them. The story is told in first-person (a perspective I tend to be pretty polarized on) from the view of Bartolomeo Aguilera, a close friend of the captain and basically the most perfect character in existence (I'll continue in detail later). Fast forward: the ship picks up a static transmission from an abandoned, habitable planet that the bishop dubs Antioch. After exploring the planet and making some very perplexing discoveries, the ship then encounters a dead alien spacecraft, gargantuan in size, and from there the story continues, bringing the reader deep into a strange and foreboding, dreadful place full of questions with few answers.Let's start by getting the great things out of the way. I will begin by saying that I may have the teensiest, weensiest, ittiest, bittiest crush on the main character. That's a lie, actually. I'm in love. Bartolomeo is reminiscent of the Six Million Dollar Man. Born with vestigial arms, a malformed spine, and a club foot, the man was dealt a bum hand in the card game of life. However, he took his deformities and made them awesome. He wears steelglass and carbon fiber prosthetic arms, wears a damn exoskeleton, and says, "Love my club foot, bitches." He is a complete badass. It doesn't help that at some point in the beginning of the book, he describes himself as not bad looking, meaning that the whole time I envisioned an Indiana Jones figure, only Latino. Hubba hubba. But then you get to his personality: no bullshit, basic, clever, and extremely courageous. And, though you don't see it at first, empathetic. Bartolomeo is not without his downfalls: he can be stand-offish, for instance, and for the first parts of the book he comes off as rather cool and uncaring, but he is a veritable onion of a character, layers upon layers of traits and facets. Bartolomeo is perfect. If you disagree, I will fight you in your home. Come at me.Fangirling aside, Russo's writing style is consistent and his build-up is impeccable. The descriptions of the dark, foreboding alien space ship are sufficiently creepy. Not scary, not necessarily horrifying, but quietly dangerous. This feeling of dread, of "get-the-hell-out-of-dodge'ry" (makin' up words like a pro, y'all), only continues to rise and rise. It feels like just over the horizon, just on the next turn of the page, something dramatic will happen. Nothing ever really does, and that only heightens your insecurity. Cavernous dark rooms that fluctuate from zero g to double g; corkscrew walls lined with almost imperceptible razor-sharp blades that slice through pressure suits like knives through warm butter; glass panels that serve seemingly no purpose; an old woman in a cabinet. It's all complex, intriguing, and just straight up unsettling. Who built this ship? Why so many huge rooms? What happened on Antioch? How is this ship connected?Here's the problem, though: I'm usually fine with mystery and unanswered questions, but there needs to be an exchange. If nothing is going to be explained, something mind-blowing better happen to make up for it. I don't want to invest this much energy in a book, in characters as well-rounded as Russo's, to be left with an anti-climactic ending. All that build-up, all that mystery and shrouds of death and fear, and then suddenly the book is over and you realize, "Wait a second, nothing actually happened here." I guess maybe my expectations were high. Someone once compared this book to Event Horizon, which is one of my absolute FAVORITE horror movies of all time - and I watch a lot of horror movies. I guess I expected more madness, more gore, more inexplicable terror. A sentient ship, maybe. And I got nothing. It was disappointing. Disappointing enough for me to knock my final star off the total. I was totally prepared to love this book, but I think my expectations were too high. As always, I got my hopes up. I should stop having expectations.I would recommend it for people who like atmospheric and subtle horror. I also would say if you're interested in the philosophy of human beliefs and humanity in the face of vast isolation, as well as an exploration of the downfalls of humanity's inherent curiosity in everything, this would be an interesting read. Bartolomeo's faith is non-existent, yet he falls in love with a priest whose faith, though different from the church, rarely wavers, and their discussions are beautiful. As a study of schools of thought in the high-tech age, Ship of Fools really excels. And this is coming from someone who has no belief system and gets bored of navel-gazing.Overall, Ship of Fools was not a waste of time, but it does sort of fizzle out with little conclusion and little action. It was still an enthralling read, all things considered, and in the end, that's what's important.
What do You think about Ship Of Fools (2001)?
I picked this book up on a whim back in college at a local used book-store called the book bin. To my surprise, I loved the book, and re-readings haven't changed that yet. A wonderful meditation on the nature of evil and the meaning or meaninglessness of faith in an uncaring universe. It has great callbacks to other sci fi horror media such as Alien as well. Not the greatest novel ever written by any means, but worth a read if you're looking for sci fi more focused on the human than the mechanical.
—Scott Belisle
The story is told through the eyes of Bartolomeo, a prickly fellow born deformed and raised by adults who he assumes knew his parents. He lives on a starship that has been wandering throughout the galaxy for centuries. All those on board had been born there. The purpose of their voyage remains elusive, and the archives that would give the passengers a sense of their past have been destroyed. It has been 14 years since the ship, called the Argonos, has visited a human habitation.As the story begins a signal is detected from a nearby planet. Bartolomeo leads a team to explore an area of the planet that looks to have once held a human colony. Now, though, it appears deserted. In a deep cavern beneath an odd star shaped building the team discovers the remains of the colonists and are sickened by the hideous manner of their deaths. Hours later the Argonos intercepts another signal, this one coming from deep space. The source is a barren, alien spaceship at once fascinating and frightening.I read this book about 3 years ago and the story stayed with me. I recently read it again, and the last hundred pages held me enthralled even though I knew what was going to happen.
—Patricia
This is the book that the movie Prometheus should have been: tense, scary, intelligent, with a building sense of dread that starts working its way up your spine the first time things start going awry, and gets worse and worse after each time the characters reach another level of We Are So F***ed.The Argonos is a generation ship, run by an Executive Council with nominal authority over the Captain. The first part of the book is largely political machinations: we learn that the Argonos has lost its original mission, or any connection with human civilization elsewhere in the galaxy. They occasionally find human-inhabited colonies, but infrequently and there is no substantial trade or diplomacy. Instead, they've become an insular, closed community, several thousand people divided into "downsiders," who are virtually serfs, and the ship's officers and crew, who spend most of their time playing petty political games.The main character and first-person narrator is Bartolomeo, an orphan born with stunted limbs and a misshapen spine, which he compensates for with an exoskeleton and prosthetic limbs. Nikos, a childhood friend of Bartolomeo, is now the Captain of the Argonos. Bartolomeo's gratitude toward the man who befriended him when no one else would and whose friendship now gives him a great deal of privilege he otherwise wouldn't have, is sorely tested when a group of downsiders try to enlist his help in a covert insurrection.The Captain's chief rival is Bishop Soldano, the leader of the ship's Church (never explicitly named, but clearly a futuristic Catholic sect). Although Soldano is an antagonist, the Church is not the villain here: one of the secondary characters who becomes Bartolomeo's close friend (and the object of his unrequited love) is Father Veronica, who brings a somewhat philosophical spin to the book, though really her conversations with Bartolomeo are pretty rote discussions of free will, the Problem of Evil, and so on.All this background serves to set up the interpersonal and societal conflicts after the Argonos reaches a world called Antioch, and finds the remains of a human colony. The colonists were slaughtered, in a horrific, nightmarish way. But when the Argonos leaves the planet, they pick up a signal from the erstwhile colony beamed to another point in deep space.Well, how can they not investigate? Of course it turns out that they really, really shouldn't have.They find an alien ship — the first encounter with aliens ever recorded — seemingly empty and abandoned. The scenes where Bartolomeo and his boarding crew explore the ship are all the scarier because there aren't any monsters.Yet.The ship is creepy and scary and even the most innocuous discoveries are just wrong in all kinds of ways, and you know the whole time (as Bartolomeo does too on some level) that this is Not Going To End Well.This is a book to which I find comparisons to movies come more readily than comparisons to other books, and that's not a bad thing. Think Alien, Event Horizon, or Lifeforce. (Okay, maybe not Lifeforce — that film was kind of crap.) But you will also find this kind of grimdark pessimistic sci-fi in another little-read favorite of mine, A Grey Moon Over China.Ship of Fools is space opera + cinematic horror, crossing Big Dumb Object SF with a haunted house. If any of these concepts sound intriguing to you, then you should read it.
—David
