Second part of the great Venusian saga signed Derek Künsken. The “runners”, discoverers of the stargate, want a fairer society.
There’s nothing like a science fiction novel to escape from a mundane everyday life. Over nearly 600 pages, you will abandon the increasingly less exciting terrestrial horizon to explore The depths of Venus. Derek Künsken, Canadian writer, signs The House of Saintscontinuation of his saga taking place in the hostile atmosphere of Venus.
In two centuries, some unconscious people decided to colonize the “goddess planet”. Impossible to live on the surface. It is in the atmosphere, charged with acid and violent storms, that a few “runners” live in precarious habitats made up of large domesticated mushrooms which float and produce a little oxygen. The “runners” recover a little metal from the ashes that have been floating for millennia.
Just enough to do a little barter with the more modern fleets, where the State tries to manage the planet while being under the control of a powerful land bank.
An unjust society, which pushes Aquillon’s family, “runners”, descendants of Quebec immigrants, to try to change society, to make it fairer.
Pascale, one of the patriarch’s daughters, found a way to touch the surface. And discovered a wormhole in a cave allowing communication with infinite space. With her lover Gabriel-Antoine, they lead to “ a dead solar system. “The human mind has difficulty imagining an entire planet. Let’s not even talk about truly understanding the size of a star. And a star exploded here, which reduced the smallest planet, the smallest moon to dust and small stones. » A real treasure for “runners”, recovery experts, brilliant space scrappers.
The plot unfolds on several levels. On the surface with wormhole exploration. In the clouds with the patriarch who tries to protect his children, at the top, with the shenanigans of the bank, ready to do anything to preserve its power. Even to kill.
Deaths which will unleash the anger of Aquillon’s family. A realistic, credible, almost scientific space opera, with the eternal struggle of the small against the big, of the oppressed against the dictatorship. After reading this novel, you will never look at the stars the same way again.
“The House of Saints” by Derek Künsken, Albin Michel, 592 pages, €25.90
