Radiate

April 3, 2017
Higgins’s third near-future novel (after Supernova) drifts along with its main characters mostly bereft of agency. The main story follows Mattie Gale and Leontios “Ivan” Ivanov from the moment they escape the Ananke with Ivan gravely wounded. Much of the rest of the book follows the pair of revolutionaries as they seek to reunite with Constance Harper, who’s Mattie’s foster sister and Ivan’s lover. The three of them, led by Constance, planned and carried out the destruction of the Earth-based System, which controlled all of the solar system’s colonies; now, rebel factions fight among themselves. Mattie and Ivan are held prisoner more than once and often don’t even know where to look for Constance in the vastness of the solar system. Intermittent chapters look back, sometimes at revolutionary actions but just as often at more personal moments among Mattie, Ivan, and Constance. Lurking in the background is Ananke, the sentient ship inadvertently created by Mattie, who longs to recapture him. Despite the war setting, this isn’t an action story but one of characters, and it suffers from their lack of control over their fates. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates.

March 15, 2017
A tense drama about a thief and a con man caught up in the end of a world; a conclusion to the trilogy that began with Lightless (2015) and Supernova (2016).Mattie and Ivan are the two people in the universe closest to the terrorist Constance Harper. But in the aftermath of the devastating attack they launched on the powerful System that ruled the solar system, Constance refuses to go back to try to rescue Ivan, so it's up to Mattie to save his partner in crime. Meanwhile, the solar system is in chaos, with rebels still fighting remnants of System forces--and each other. Any ship, any person, could be a threat. Loyalties are shifting and hard to define. Betrayal lurks around every corner. And somewhere out in the black, the powerful ship known as the Ananke is searching for another computer she can wake into consciousness, sowing destruction wherever she goes. This novel takes Mattie and Ivan forward from the cataclysmic attack on the System and extends their story backward to see how they ended up making the choices they made. The extensive flashbacks slow the pace at first--they don't seem to be adding much new information--but eventually their purpose becomes clear. The tension builds as Mattie and Ivan struggle to find safety, and all the while the horror that is the Ananke comes closer and closer. This conclusion lacks the propulsive power of Lightless, but it opens up into a compelling emotional tale about two people trying to save each other from a disaster of their own making.

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