After the Fall, by Edward Ashton
The Book
Synopsis:
Humans must be silent. Humans must be obedient. Humans must be good.
All his life, John has tried to live by those rules. Most days, it’s not too difficult. A hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick the last dregs of humanity out of the wreckage of a ruined world, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the "good" grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but he’s always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend. It’s a better deal than most humans get.
But when Martok puts John’s bond up as collateral against an abandoned house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martok’s friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss who thinks Martok is something that he very much is not, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him.Also, not for nothing, something in the woods has been killing people.
John has sixty days before Martok’s loan comes due to unravel the mystery of how humans wound up holding the wrong end of the domestication stick and find a way to turn Martok’s half-baked plans into profit enough to buy back his life, all while avoiding getting butchered by feral humans or having his head crushed by an angry gray. Easy peasy, right?
My Review
After the Fall is a dystopian Sci-Fi novel written by Edward Ashton, published by Solaris. A highly entertaining and satirical proposal that it's deeper than it seems, exploring themes such as the bonds created among those from different classes and their limits, gifting the readers with an excellent cast of characters and certainly, a deeper story than I would have expected.
Humans (or Bondsmen, as called by the Grays) have become servants/pets to the Grays, aliens that landed on Earth after the Fall. John feels he's in quite a decent situation: his Gray, Martok, is better than most, even almost treating him as a friend more than as a servant; it is true that they might be nearly homeless and broke, but he's not being hunt as a sport, so in hindsight, it's not so bad.
Martok is always looking for a new scheme to become rich; however, the latest one, a resort for grays, implies putting John's bond as collateral for a Grey that hunts humans for sport; to add more complications, to avoid getting robbed of Martok's luggage, John kinda has to embellish the truth, letting other Grays understand that there's more under Martok's appearance, attracting the attention of a criminal lord of the zone that might be interested on Martok's other services. And finally, on their way to the house, Martok adopted a new Bondsman, Six, who will also be a pain in the ass for John, who is in a really tight situation, balancing all to see if they can manage to afford the payment and avoid getting his bond transferred.
Ashton manages to pack much nuance into this cast of characters, which is slowly revealed as the situation gets entangled. While we have a John who is more pessimistic and too servile towards the Grays (because of the conditioning exerted on human raising), there's also space for him to develop as a character, becoming more autonomous, especially after Six prods him. It is true that his friendship with Martok is a weird one, because at the end, a Gray is in a different total strata than a human, but even if they have some rough moments, we can actually see how Martok is trying to think on the wellbeing of his Bondsmen, even if he takes some questionable decisions; it is difficult to not grow fond of both of those characters. The rest of the cast is a bit overshadowed by the power of this duo (except maybe for Six).
The pacing is a bit slow during the first third, acting as an introduction to the world and our characters, picking up as the situation becomes progressively more desperate for John, but never losing that fun and wit that characterizes this novel.
After the Fall is a fun dystopian Sci-Fi romp, a novel perfect if you are looking for a more light-hearted story that takes a dive into the nature of friendship while wanting to laugh a fair share; another great novel by Edward Ashton!
The Author/s
Edward Ashton
Edward Ashton is the author of the novels Mickey7, Three Days in April and The End of Ordinary. His short fiction has appeared in venues ranging from the newsletter of an Italian sausage company to Escape Pod, Analog, and Fireside Fiction. He lives in upstate New York in a cabin in the woods (not that Cabin in the Woods) with his wife, a variable number of daughters, and an adorably mopey dog named Max, where he writes—mostly fiction, occasionally fact—under the watchful eyes of a giant woodpecker and a rotating cast of barred owls. In his free time, he enjoys cancer research, teaching quantum physics to sullen graduate students, and whittling. You can find him online at edwardashton.com or on Twitter @edashtonwriting.