Brightness Falls from the Air

The planet Damiem, home only to a small human outpost there to protect its native people, is about to experience a rare and beautiful phenomenon as the remnants of a nearby stellar explosion pass through its atmosphere. A few visitors have been permitted to come and watch... but some of them may not be who they say they are at all.

It's an interesting and hard-to-pin-down novel. On one level, it's a fairly straightforward SF thriller. There are nefarious plans, culminating in a hostage situation and gunfire and action and such. But it definitely feels like there's a lot more going on underneath the surface.

For one thing, although it's not always reflected in the tone of the writing, this is dark. Like, really, really dark. The history of show more what was done to the alien people on this planet is comprehensively, intimately, viscerally horrific. The story of what happened to the exploding star is incredibly sad when we first hear it, and then later takes on some additional tragic and sinister twists. And there's some stuff about child pornography that is treated so casually that it's easy to somehow forget to be appalled by it, which is its own kind of disturbing. None of this is graphic or gory or explicit, but I think that actually jut makes it worse. Tiptree is utterly masterful at knowing just exactly how much to show or tell us and how much to leave to our imaginations for maximum effect.

The combination of all of this doesn't feel like it should work all that well, really. Especially as the plot has a lot of implausibilities and contrivances, not to mention characters who are so cavalier about obvious signs of looming danger that you really want to smack some sense of caution into them. And I'm not remotely sure how I feel about any aspect of the ending.

And yet, somehow it all ends up being effective. I felt a real sense of building dread through the first half of the novel, the action-y stuff definitely held my interest, and some of the more disturbing moments had me finishing a scene, taking a deep breath, and deciding I needed to go and do something else for a little bit to let my brain settle before coming back to it, which is not something a story manages to do to me very often.

Rating: It's very hard to know how to rate this. I'm going to give it a 4/5, but some unsettled part of my brain that is still chewing over the way it deals with all those painful themes of exploitation and such is convinced that's selling it short. show less

I am a big fan of both James Tiptree, Jr.’s short fiction and her novel Up the Walls of the World, so I brought high expectations to this one. Brightness Falls from the Air is a book that starts somewhat slowly, but builds plenty of suspense through a second half that keeps you turning pages right to the bitter end. Overall, I'd say that while there were indeed things to admire about it, it’s not really up there with her best.

Tiptree is an author who never shies away from probing the bleak depths of humanity at its very worst, and we certainly get a strong dose of that here. There is something seriously screwed up in a universe where sadism and profits go hand-in-hand, or where a career in child pornography is the best thing that show more could happen to you if you have the misfortune to be a youngster born on (or stranded on) one of the particularly ugly planets. More than in some of Tiptree’s other works, however, in this book we find this darkness largely mitigated by the resolution, sense of responsibility, and willingness to take risks to help those in need demonstrated at various times by the good guys.

The characterization is not a strong as it could have been. I think in part this is due a cast of characters that is too large and overly eccentric. It is exacerbated by jarring changes in point of view that we get at key junctures in the story (often just when you were starting to build rapport with the narrator of the prior section). I thought the Dameii themselves really failed to reach their potential, serving as little more than a prop in the story. The aliens in Up the Walls of the World were much more interesting and compelling.

There are some clever turns in the plot, but ultimately I felt that it was driven by too many coincidences, some of which seem profoundly improbable. The more you thought about some of the key plot points the less plausible they seemed. In the end it was hard to believe that the bad guys fell apart so quickly, and that the good guys came out so well (and for those couple who didn’t make it there was something right about that anyway). In an odd way, it felt like Tiptree was struggling to sew together four different stories that might have worked better on their own: a novelette about Zannez and company, and their meeting with Prince Pao; a short story about Baram and Linnix; a novelette about the Dameii and Star Tears; and a novella about Cor and the murdered star might have made a very effective collection.

Having said all of that, I would still say that Tiptree at less than her best is still worth your time—give it a try. show less

This gets described as a locked-in murder mystery in spaaaace,or at least another planet, but it's more like one of the Alistair MacLean thrillers where a pack of untrustworthy characters gather for something or other and everyone has secrets and hidden agendas and people start getting offed. I remember this as being slightly more mind-blowing when I first read it way back in the nineties, ad the central idea of the effect from the exploding star is still quite original, but I really should try some of her stories.

Ultimately a pretty good book. I found the first third or so to be a bit of a slog but, once the world-building and character introductions are out of the way, it became more compelling. The genius on display in Sheldon's short fiction, (especially the incredible 'Her Smoke Rose Up Forever' collection, is mostly missing from this book. Her other full-length novel, 'Up the Walls of the World', exhibited flashes of that brilliance and also included more interesting characters and settings. While there are a couple of decent ideas here, there are also plenty of problems. Nevertheless, for Tiptree fans/completists, this is a worthy book to read.

An intelligently, intricately plotted thriller that starts off innocently enough with a party to view the final passage of a nova. Aliens, spacers, pushers, and porn stars interact to form a clever commentary on love and autonomy. Starts off slow but worth sticking it out.

Interesting but not as good as her short stories. I initially thought this was an early work as this is her first novel, but apparently this was written after most of her short stories. Perhaps she is just more suited to short stories.

This felt a bit clumsy initially but came together, and once it does it has the feel of a mystery story. A lot of disparate elements that don't integrate completely. Some interesting "transgressive" bits but not sure why they are there.

I've read several books that won the Tiptree Award:
(Candas Jane Dorsey - Black Wine,
Elizabeth Hand - Waking The Moon,
Nicola Griffith - Ammonite
Maureen F. McHugh - China Mountain Zhang
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness -
all books I'd highly recommend!)

but somehow, I'd never read a book by Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), only a short story or two.
So I picked up this book, which the cover says is her 'greatest novel.'

I guess the hype got to me, because I was a little disappointed - it wasn't a bad book, but I'd say ALL of the previously-mentioned books were better. 'Brightness Falls From the Air' doesn't even particularly discuss gender issues! (not that a good book needs to, but considering that that's what the author's known for, I show more was expecting it.)

On a planet known as Damiem, a small hostel/research outpost staffed only by 3 team members is in charge both of providing hospitality to tourists and guarding the native aliens, the beautiful and delicate Dameii, who were previously the victims of human mercenaries who tortured them for their bodily secretions - a rare pleasure-inducing drug, to humans.
A dozen or so tourists arrive to watch a unique phenomenon - the light of a star that has been induced to nova in a terrible interstellar war is passing Damiem, showering the planet with bizarre radiation and causing strange effects such as time-flurries.

But perhaps not all the tourists are on the up-and-up - are some of them in cahoots, in a plan to again, torture and exploit the Dameii?
The action plays out pretty much like a typical ensemble mystery, but one where it's less of a mystery than usual who the bad guys might be.
The characters are a diverse bunch... a rich woman and her paralyzed sister, a young prince, an Aquaman, a movie director and his team of four porn stars, an elderly doctor.... etc.

There are a couple of annoying failures of logic in the plot. For instance, why would someone in a coma not physically age? (They would!) And how, on the other hand, could someone who was induced to age preternaturally quickly hide it through an act of will? (They couldn't!)

Overall, an entertaining sci-fi adventure, but not really a classic for the ages... show less