Synopsis
Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.
A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect’s will.
Dr. Selene Gisil, a former protégé, is the sole person permitted to come into Rose House once a year. Now, there is a dead person in Rose House. It is not Basit Deniau, and it is not Dr. Gisil. It is someone else. But Rose House won’t communicate any further.
No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. Dr. Gisil was not in North America when Rose House called in the death. But someone did. And someone died there.
And someone may be there still.
Review
Rose/House renovates the haunted house genre with a sci-fi spin. It’s familiar yet fresh, and modernises old-school horror with speculative ideas to dizzying effect. It’s a total blast of first-class creepy sci-fi thrills from beginning to end.
Arkady Martine has released some of the most acclaimed space operas of recent times, but Rose/House is a departure from her previous novels. For a start, it’s novella length, meaning there are fewer pages to peruse. And secondly, it’s a sci-fi horror mystery. So how does it hold up compared to her political space operas? Does it reach the same heights? Short answer: yes. And here’s why.
Instead of crossing worlds and inventing entire histories of civilisations, Rose/House is centred on a single location — the smart-house of an eccentric architect whose AI has seemingly gone rogue. The claustrophobic nature of a single location narrows everything, meaning there’s less room to spread galaxies across a page. This instantly puts you on edge as a reader. There’s a sense of dread that a single location brings which perfectly suits the genre. However, within the house, there are plenty of opportunities for exploration, and the world-building is so focussed that you feel just as absorbed and immersed as you would on another world. There are enough moments of exposition to stretch the boundaries of the house (extending into the past beyond it) that allow you to trace the history of this creepy mansion, rooting you with enough context to make the house feel alive. Which is good, because it is! (Or is it…?)
The character of the AI that powers the house belongs right up there with the classics like HAL, Skynet, and that autopilot wheel from Wall-E. Rose House itself has such a distinct personality that their presence can feel, appropriately, oppressive. There’s an alien, inhuman quality to the house, reflecting the unusual sensibilities of its creator.
And in terms of genius creators, the architect behind this elaborate house is every bit as iconic as you’d hope for. The protagonist (Dr. Selene Gisil) is a former pupil of theirs, and the admiration for the kind of artistry that goes into designing beautiful buildings, and the statements communicated by the placement of a few walls, are written so beautifully that it reads like a tribute to the power of art itself. Which is exactly where the tension comes in, because it’s another layer to the mystery you’re trying to solve. What mystery, I hear you ask?
Well, the AI has reported that a dead body lies inside the house. The problem is that the house will only admit one person — Dr. Selene Gisil. So how did another person get in there, let alone be killed? This conundrum means you’re reading a locked room mystery where the strongest suspect is the house itself.
The only solution is for the protagonist to enter the house and find out what’s happened. She’s not a detective or a natural sleuth. She’s a designer of buildings, equipped to see the beauty of the house, not the horrors hidden within it. And once she’s trapped inside, the creepiness just keeps ramping up, cycling through the gears to breathtaking effect. If you like your thrills with a good dose of chills, the atmosphere is going to make you feel right at home.
I don’t want to spoil any of the secrets of the book, but here’s one you need to know — Arkady Martine has entered a genre she’s passionate about, and her love for art and architecture is imbued into the fabric of this book, so that although it’s essentially a horror story, it’s also a love letter. You’re guaranteed to get goosebumps, either from the chilling nature of the prose or the passion it’s been written with.
Overall, this is a novella that — like the house itself — works on multiple levels. You’ve got mystery, suspense, speculation, and a fresh look at the place of art in our ever-changing world. I loved the sci-fi aspects, the locked room elements, and especially the way the AI was written. Arkady Martine has done it again, and proven she’s not just a master of space opera, but a master of every space she cares to enter. Open the door to this house and hold your breath for what lies inside. It’s very much worth a visit.
Rose/House was initially released in 2023, but was given a new lease of life in the UK recently. To find out more about the book, why not check out the discussion I had with Arkady about it below.
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