Wayfaring Stranger by Simon Petrie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Simon Petrie is one of my favourite science fiction authors working in Australia today. A self-described ‘reformed academic’, he has a special interest in planetary and interstellar chemistry, which means his written work often includes scientifically grounded information either to inform the background and setting of his stories – and infuse them with a solid feeling of verisimilitude – or to act as a springboard for more speculative science fiction worlds. He’s written many stories set on and around Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, which has a particularly interesting atmosphere with hydrocarbon clouds and liquid methane lakes. But his favourite setting – although not visited as much in his work to date – is the planet Rousseau, which is the setting for Wayfaring Stranger.
Rousseau is a thought experiment. It doesn’t exist, but it’s the product of Petrie musing on what a planet would be like that shared some of the chemical composition of Titan, but that was situated closer to its sun, and thus – possibly – being more likely to support life. And it seems the surface and the air of Rousseau is positively teeming with creatures that share a very different biology to life on Earth.
Solveig is a xenolinguist, and part of the scientific mission to Rousseau. She’s had some success in establishing communication with the indigenous Taniwha, seal-like creatures that ply the waters of the surface and now she’s been stationed on the Wayfaring Stranger a floating hide, situated in the upper atmosphere and disguised to look like a ‘zep’, indigenous floating whale-like creature that are also believed to be sentient but which – at least so far – have demonstrated a complete lack of interest in talking to humans. Solveig has been charged with changing that, though as a junior member of the Wayfaring Stranger’s scientific complement, she has her work cut out to navigate the office politics of academia and funding as much as finding a common understanding for communication with an entirely alien species. Petrie successfully communicates Solveig’s academic isolation as well as her ability to make connections about Rousseau’s indigenous life where her other, more qualified colleagues fail to.
Author Adam Browne describes Wayfaring Stranger as, “Classic SF in the best sense”, and it’s easy to see why. The story shares DNA with many stories I read in magazines like Analog and Asimov’s which contained a sort of virtuous trinity of scientists cut off from the rest of humanity and deposited in an alien, and often deadly environment, feeling their way towards some kind of breakthrough or epiphany. Solveig is an engaging character and we’re right beside her as she struggles to achieve academic respect among her colleagues and make progress in a seemingly impossible task. Put this alongside the amazing and detailed descriptions of the Rousseauvian environment and the many and strange creatures that inhabit it: zeps, bubbleheads, bloons, featherweed and so on and you’re right in the middle of a fascinating story that delivers on ‘big’ SF ideas and rewarding action.
Wayfaring Stranger ends a little inconclusively, although certainly with a bang, but it brings the promise of more tales to be set on this amazing planet. I, for one, can’t wait.
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