Review: The Rosewater Redemption (The Wormwood Trilogy #3)

Rating: ★★★★☆+

Synopsis

The Rosewater Redemption concludes the award-winning, cutting edge Wormwood trilogy, set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction’s most engaging new voices.

Life in the newly independent city-state of Rosewater isn’t everything its citizens were expecting.

The Mayor finds that debts incurred during the insurrection are coming back to haunt him. Nigeria isn’t willing to let Rosewater go without a fight. And the city’s alien inhabitants are threatening mass murder for their own sinister ends…

Operating across spacetime, the xenosphere, and international borders, it is up to a small group of hackers and criminals to prevent the extra-terrestrial advance. The fugitive known as Bicycle Girl, Kaaro, and his former handler Femi may be humanity’s last line of defense.

Tade Thompson’s innovative, genre-bending, Afrofuturist series, the Wormwood Trilogy, is perfect for fans of Jeff Vandermeer, N. K. Jemisin, William Gibson, and Ann Leckie.

Review

Thanks to the publisher and author for an advance reading copy of The Rosewater Redemption (The Wormwood Trilogy #3) in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this ARC did not influence my thoughts or opinions on the novel.

The Rosewater Redemption is a picturesque finale to the Wormwood Trilogy and cements Thompson as one of the major players in the science fiction genre for many years to come. His mix of highly imaginative world-building, exquisite prose, characterizations, and fresh take on the alien takeover trope leads to one of the best trilogies I have ever read.

How does one accurately describe their experience with a book that has so much going on with it and going for it, knowing that this is the end of the line? We have seen the rise and fall of Rosewater, the takeover by Wormwood and its advancement across the country, the growth of many multi-layered characters and their every-changing environments. Now we get time-travel and the crossing of international boarders and my head is left spinning. To believe that Tade had shown us all of the cards he had to play in Books 1 and 2 is to believe that the Earth is indeed flat.

Thinking back on my read-through of this novel, I can’t help but picture Rosewater and its vibrant culture in my mind. The city, its people, the language, the goings on within and without the city center. The xenosphere taking the story beyond reality and giving us yet another layer of sci-fi gloriousness. At the same time, how that same city has fallen under the control of the extra-terrestrial existence with no-one to turn and only a few who are willing to fight back.

I am in just utter awe some Tade’s writing at this point in time. The Wormwood Trilogy continues to dazzle my thoughts while his Molly Southbourne novellas haunt my dreams. I cannot wait to see what else he has in store and I’ll be the first in line for it.

If you enjoy weird science fiction with Lovecraftian nods, immersive world-building, and an array of layered yet enjoyable characters, The Wormwood Trilogy should fit nicely on your shelf.