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Black Star Rising
A cyber-noir novel which follows a spaceship on a top secret mission.
- GenresScience Fiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
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August 26, 2021
This is a sci-fi novel about the four-person crew of a space freighter, zsf-e5, from Urth. Zsf-e5’s primary delivery point is the planet Thuli, where it is to leave water supplies. On its way there, one of the crew hears that the planet Kayiga, where his parents live, is shortly to be destroyed by a comet, and he by-passes the captain to try to rescue them. They, however, broadcast to their son and tell him to turn round as he cannot help them. Ironically, this deviation from the freighter’s prescribed route results in the captain's being congratulated by Command for pioneering a flight technique previously found to be impossible. After delivering Thuli’s water and a night out on the town there, the ship passes through a dead zone called NilSol where it encounters what it thinks is a prison ship from Galaxy Logos, Urth’s longstanding, bitter enemy. From this point the story becomes more complicated, as this mystery ship presents zsf-e5 with more than meets the eye, and when it reveals itself as having originated from Urth, the crew realises they are victims of events well beyond their control.
At least, that’s what I understood from this unusual and intriguing novel.
The obviously unusual feature of Kalu’s novel is that the crew of Zimbabwe Space Force engineering fleet spacecraft 5 (zsf-e5) is all black: Captain Mandella and Lieutenant Sky are both women, and Officers Kaya and Triple, rocketsman/pilot and surfer (communications)/gunner respectively, are both men. Even the ship’s computer system, ForceCode, is spoken of as black. Moreover, Zimbabwe, with its Space Force, is clearly perceived as being an Urthly power of the future as it was once an African kingdom of extensive power and influence in the past.
Kalu has, fairly obviously, therefore, an agenda. Normally, I will switch off when I feel myself being got at, but I found one of the merits of this novel was that I didn’t feel harangued. This is largely because Kalu focuses on developing his characters and their relations with each other: for much of the time their blackness is neither here nor there, and Kalu explores their capacity for exceptional behaviour in exceptional circumstances in the same way as a writer would explore any all-white sci-fi crew. In fact, he engineers his story to ensure than the human race finds itself in a crisis which it has unwittingly created as a consequence of its own racist programme and from which it can be delivered only by a black person. The crew of zsf-e5 is asked to help, and obliges, in spite of what are the suspect and shadowy and incompletely understood behaviour and attitudes and of Command and other Urthly powers. At least, I think I have that right.
This is a crew that Kalu simply goes about presenting as ordinary human beings trained as part of a space force that is required to operate a key role in maintaining human outposts in the Galaxy for small reward. Their ship, though old, is decently appointed and they keep it in good nick, Captain Mandella running regular – even excessive, disciplinary – drills and protocol checks. The human side of the crew is explored by creating each of them with strong personal characteristics and weaknesses that, in a series of turns of event, bring them into conflict and present them with challenges which, if not risen to, will result in not only their deaths but those of the communities they are carrying supplies to. The way these tensions and challenges are resolved and overcome provides a series of narrative hooks that worked well for me, and led to a climax which combines tragedy and glorious, redemptive small-scale epic heroism.
And, since this is a sci-fi novel, there’s plenty of sci-fi hokum to do with space travel and rocket propulsion and on-board recreation and encounters with colonists and other intelligent life forms etc etc. (Or it may not be hokum: at least, I was prepared to believe in it, whatever it was.)
And Kalu’s title evinces the point he wishes to make. And he does so both provocatively and with quiet deliberation, and consequently doesn’t have to make a big fuss about it. He lets his story speak for itself.
At least, that’s what I understood from this unusual and intriguing novel.
The obviously unusual feature of Kalu’s novel is that the crew of Zimbabwe Space Force engineering fleet spacecraft 5 (zsf-e5) is all black: Captain Mandella and Lieutenant Sky are both women, and Officers Kaya and Triple, rocketsman/pilot and surfer (communications)/gunner respectively, are both men. Even the ship’s computer system, ForceCode, is spoken of as black. Moreover, Zimbabwe, with its Space Force, is clearly perceived as being an Urthly power of the future as it was once an African kingdom of extensive power and influence in the past.
Kalu has, fairly obviously, therefore, an agenda. Normally, I will switch off when I feel myself being got at, but I found one of the merits of this novel was that I didn’t feel harangued. This is largely because Kalu focuses on developing his characters and their relations with each other: for much of the time their blackness is neither here nor there, and Kalu explores their capacity for exceptional behaviour in exceptional circumstances in the same way as a writer would explore any all-white sci-fi crew. In fact, he engineers his story to ensure than the human race finds itself in a crisis which it has unwittingly created as a consequence of its own racist programme and from which it can be delivered only by a black person. The crew of zsf-e5 is asked to help, and obliges, in spite of what are the suspect and shadowy and incompletely understood behaviour and attitudes and of Command and other Urthly powers. At least, I think I have that right.
This is a crew that Kalu simply goes about presenting as ordinary human beings trained as part of a space force that is required to operate a key role in maintaining human outposts in the Galaxy for small reward. Their ship, though old, is decently appointed and they keep it in good nick, Captain Mandella running regular – even excessive, disciplinary – drills and protocol checks. The human side of the crew is explored by creating each of them with strong personal characteristics and weaknesses that, in a series of turns of event, bring them into conflict and present them with challenges which, if not risen to, will result in not only their deaths but those of the communities they are carrying supplies to. The way these tensions and challenges are resolved and overcome provides a series of narrative hooks that worked well for me, and led to a climax which combines tragedy and glorious, redemptive small-scale epic heroism.
And, since this is a sci-fi novel, there’s plenty of sci-fi hokum to do with space travel and rocket propulsion and on-board recreation and encounters with colonists and other intelligent life forms etc etc. (Or it may not be hokum: at least, I was prepared to believe in it, whatever it was.)
And Kalu’s title evinces the point he wishes to make. And he does so both provocatively and with quiet deliberation, and consequently doesn’t have to make a big fuss about it. He lets his story speak for itself.
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