Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson, is an entertaining, pleasantly eerie, and occasionally scary adventure novel told from four perspectives about what is initially treated as first contact science fiction but is also connected with cosmic horror, and reawakening mythology. It may encourage readers to think a little more about different perspectives, and connecting with others, and even the nature of reality, but mostly it’s a fun page-turner (288 pages, slated for release Oct. 7).
This thriller (although more of a slow burn at first) is being promoted as a Native American first contact story, and one of the protagonists, Jim Hardgray, is a down-on-his luck Cherokee working as a fracker, but there are three other narrators (first person, past tense): The Man Downstairs, a shadowy government threat forecaster who stays in his basement bunker throughout, interpreting data; Dr. Gavin Clark, of the Emerging Weapons Technology Group, who’s in the field for most of this book (identified as white); and Dr. Mikayla Johnson, a dark-skinned NASA astrophysicist who wears reality-augmented smart glasses to interpret coworkers’ expressions.
The Man Downstairs becomes aware of something ominous and sends up a warning that activates Clark, and Johnson becomes aware that a very large object has made close passes past both Voyager spacecraft, and eventually the object, Clark and Johnson converge on Oklahoma, and some Native American burial mounds. There, Hardgray has been trying to reconnect with his daughter, Tawny, whom he had previously mostly abandoned to grief when his son (her brother) drowned; meanwhile, the Hardgrays have been seeing strange phenomena and visions of people from their dim ancestral past.
Weird stuff happens as the object arrives; monsters and other phenomena appear, and people die. The Man Downstairs and Gavin are convinced that this first contact will be very bad news for Earth, and work to stop the worst of the impact; Jim is coming to believe that this isn’t actually first contact, but is still very bad news; however, Mikayla is excited by the changes she’s undergoing and is looking forward to a very interesting conversation!
I love how the different characters’ points of view and agendas end up in sometimes quite surprising interactions and results. I’m also really interested in how the interplay of different technologies (quantum computers, astrophysics, and *really* smart glasses, etc.) and different mythologies (Cherokee origin stories and other legends vs. Western/European-style worldviews) ends up working together for a very satisfying result.
Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and a former Air Force threat forecaster; his characters feel grounded and authentic, although I don’t have any authority to judge; and although they often speculate about what’s happening, or think about their lives, that doesn’t stop the plot from moving along at a rapid pace. I enjoyed Hole in the Sky; I may go back and read Robopocalypse and The Clockwise Dynasty, and I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for future works of his.
Content warnings: Cosmic horror, deaths by monsters, body horror, looming apocalypse, past offscreen drowning death of a child.
Disclaimers: I received a free eARC of this book for review from the publisher via NetGalley.
