The Lesson

I really like this book. It was an interesting mash-up of slice-of-life fiction and SF, with characters living their lives and then suddenly aliens arrive on Earth, completely disrupting the trajectory of their character arcs. The aliens decide to "dock" at the Virgin Islands, with much of the action taking place on St. Thomas. They ask to stay for a little while to do some sort of vague research, and in exchange they will give humanity cures for diseases, technology, and other knowledge that is beneficial to humanity. They take up the appearance of the local humans, walk amongst them, eat and drink with them, have sex with them, but if you disrupt them or challenge them in any way, they will use their superior strength to rip you show more apart. Their excuse is that is how they've learned to defend themselves throughout the universe and it is part of their culture now. How can the much weaker humans fight back? As in other time periods when colonists arrived on their shores, some of the local population want to fight the invaders, some want to welcome them and be them, and some freeze up and just hope they'll go away. At its core, this book is very obviously about colonialism and how it completely changes or destroys the people and culture of the native population. The ending is devastating, but also somehow has a hopeful tone at the very ending. This was a good, quick read. show less

Near the end of the novel, there's a character who has a hard time talking about everything they experienced over the course of the story. Various other characters engage with that reluctance in distinctly different ways. The entire novel is told this way. The overlapping narratives each have a distinct structure. We learn general and personal history. We watch relationships bloom and change and end. The climax is foreshadowed in stages. Everything is layers and echos: how people interact with the animals around them, how some slaves were kings, how the US treats the Virgin Islands, how the aliens treat humanity, how the aliens were treated to become how they are.

I lost someone close on September 9th, 2001. Turnbull captured well the show more particular grief that is amplified by everyone grieving for something else. show less

At first this book seems like a simple alien invasion with a little interspecies love gone wrong subplot, set in the author’s native US Virgin Islands. Not an unusual story, but set in an unusual(for sci-fi) place. An alien race called the Ynaa descend on Water Island in a conch-shell shaped ship. They’re not hostile, exactly, but they are touchy in a way that can be dangerous, and they quickly impose a reign of tense, martial superiority over the residents of Charlotte Amalie. The islanders have a variety of reactions, of course. Some love the Ynaa, some hate them, and some maintain a wary, distant tolerance. However, everyone’s life is deeply affected by the aggressive, possessive stance the Ynaa take over their corner of Earth, show more mitigated only by the presence of a centuries old ambassador who’s been living undercover among the humans as a Black woman and has learned to care for the locals. (One human is affected by this much more…personally, than the rest.) The ambassador’s presence doesn’t stave off violence successfully and the book leads to a devastating, scary conclusion that took me completely by surprise given the slow setup. There’s nothing exactly new about this book–a lot of sci-fi deals with social integration and relationships with alien beings and all the ways first contact could possibly go wrong. My first impressions of this book were that the only thing that made it truly special was the setting.


I’m happy to say my first impressions were wrong. By the time we get to the first big death, a lot of layers have been unrolled and continue to be, making this a remarkably culturally literate bit of speculative fiction. It’s more special than it appears at first glance. Inside this alien invasion are themes of generational and historical trauma, colonialism, gendered violence in African diasporic communities, and some very interesting commentary on what it takes for victims to become conquerors–or if that’s even a thing that can really happen.


Despite all of that the novel never feels too heavy and is as entertaining as it is deep. It’s distinctly Caribbean as well, in a very natural way. I liked it and will definitely keep an eye out for whatever Turnbull writes next.


Okay, all of that and still only 4 stars? I have to be honest and say that the writing never quite did it for me. It’s very much what I like to call “MFA style”–large, self-conscious blocks of very deliberate, laborious action spattered with short paragraphs of weirdly purple descriptive prose. It’s competent and the story is well-crafted enough to make it tolerable, but man, loosen up a little next time, will you? I am here for global science fiction entirely and I want more books from Turnbull, but I also want him to unstarch his collar a little bit next time, let the prose flow and the culture shine through so the themes bubble a little longer in the reader’s spirit.

Overall though, I liked this quite a bit, and I’m excited about the wave of diasporic takes on science fiction it’s riding the crest of. It’d be interesting to see a thematic trilogy of books set in the Virgin Islands from this author, kind of like Tade Thomson’s Rosewater series.

If you liked this review, find more like it on my blog, Equal Opportunity Reader. Also follow me onFacebook and Instagram. Peace! show less

A gem of a story. I love how the author does the opposite of what many do with stories of aliens. Their arrival isn't seen through the lens of disaster and terror. The presence of the Ynaa emerges quietly, as everyone is going about their business. In fact, at least one of them has been there for centuries already. The setting is also divine, St Thomas, an island, that both gives the story an immediate humanity then also contributes to the rising tension around the Ynaa's intentions. One of my best reads of the year.

In this novel Turnbull turns the alien invasion/first contact trope around. The US Virgin Islands have been colonized. The Ynaa don't invade, they arrive and settle in, but their power and the danger they bring is all-encompasing. They are looking for something--exactly what, I never figured out. And though the St Thomas residents can, essentially, go about their business as before, they are on tiptoes. Angry Ynaa kill--people, dogs, whatever. And there is no recourse for survivors. The Ynaa do as they please. And though they have brought wonderful gifts to the people of Earth--especially advances in medicine and energy--it is the black population of St Thomas who have had to deal with the Ynaa on a daily basis.

Some St Thomians hate show more the Ynna. Some have been saved by their medical abilities. Others are afraid and leave for the mainland when they get a chance. Others are fascinated by them and the place they came from. For the most part the Ynaa and the St Thomians do not mix--with a few exceptions.

Though I felt this book had a few holes (what are they looking for? what is the blue sphere? what, exactly, is "the lesson"?), it was interesting to look at colonization by an alien species. Because the strangeness of it all has to be how other civilizations have felt about colonization by Europeans, the Mongols, and other civilizations. Suddenly, they are there--bearing gifts and making new rules, changing cultures and traditions just by being there. show less

This is one of those books that feels as if it is written on little slips of paper that are then put together on a whiteboard in an order that progresses through the story. The book is episodic, not character or plot driven, and it did not grab my interest. It is not enough for a writer to say what his character is feeling. We have to feel what the character is feeling.

Low key character driven scifi about an alien invasion that centers on the Virgin Islands. Turnbull focuses on the effects of two big incidents on the islanders, sidestepping a lot of plot-driven drama for the slow sleeping of consequences.