I had the highest hopes for a queer diverse Doctor Who like science fiction and The Principle of Moments smashed them out of the water. This was everything I wanted and more! If you love science fiction books, prophets and heroes, this is for you! Keep reading this book review of The Principle of Moments for my full thoughts.
Summary
6066: In Emperor Thracin’s brave new galaxy, humans are not citizens. Instead, they are indentured labourers, working to repay the debt they unwittingly incurred when they settled on Gahraan – a desert planet already owned by the emperor himself. Asha Akindele knows she’s just another voiceless cog working the assembly lines that fuel his vast imperial war machine. Her only rebellion: studying stolen aeronautics manuals in the dead of night. But then a cloaked stranger arrives to deliver an impossible message, and her life changes in an instant.
1812: Obi Amadi is done with time-travelling. Never mind the fact he doesn’t know how to cure himself of the temporal sickness he caught whilst anchoring his soul to Regency London, the one that unmakes him further with every jump. Or if the prince he loves will ever love him back. Or why his father disappeared. He is done. Until he hears about the ghost of a girl in the British Museum. A girl from another time.
When Obi’s path tangles with Asha’s and a prophecy awakens in the cold darkness of space, they must voyage through the stars, racing against time, tyranny, and the legacy of three heroes from an ancient religion who may be awakening, reincarnated in ways beyond comprehension.
Review
I just want to start off by saying I loved this. From the little snippets of the archives, to the cast of characters, all the way to the world, this was phenomenal. Not going to lie, archive snippets will always steal my heart. There’s something so mesmerizing about glimpses into the world, into stories, and legends, which feel like pieces of the world in front of us. The next thing I fell in love with was the world. The idea of paying a debt you never realized you were incurring. About being so used to your lack of existence, your lack of value, your servitude. It is heartbreaking and one of these fabulous examples of our world within these speculative ones.
The Characters
This concept of an inevitable empire and what that means. How empires are controlled with cruelty and terror which only continues their reign. There’s no peace without enforcement. The world captivated me in its thoroughness, vivid detail, and science fiction world kernels. Then I fell in love with the characters. I fell in love with Obi’s time traveling and the ways this power can shift our perspective. We begin to realize that faced with these possibilities, new adventures, it’s about who is by our side. The feeling of restlessness, of our feet moving.
How we can find out the world is constantly turning underneath our feet and never being able to forget it. To feel each turn. Obi’s character manages to steal our heart. He shows us of how someone’s presence can remind us of how alone we are. The wrinkles of the years and miles we’ve traveled. Or Asha who stole my heart from the beginning. Her intense love for her family, her cleverness, and her spirit. She’s so overwhelmed with the world, the possibilities, almost the polar opposite of Obi. A world which seems to orbit so cleanly around what we think of the universe. Until it doesn’t. For Asha, her world entirely shifts, explodes into light, and is thrown on collision course.
Themes
The Principle of Moments examines what it means to be a hero. What does it mean to have a destiny? A prophecy? What if we’ve been living our whole life thinking we are on one orbit, only to be on a different one? We all know that heroes don’t live peaceful lives. They don’t live lives without sacrifice. And, we also know, that often the ones who don’t want to be heroes are often the best ones. It’s one thing to know that no one, in this vast galaxy, are truly unimportant. And it’s another to know our life, our future, is vaster than we even have words for.
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All the discussions about heroes and prophecies calls into question our agency and choices. If we’ve always been on one path, has each choice, each moment, ever been our own? It makes us wonder if heroes are created. In The Principle of Moments this SF debut manages to be both whimsical space, new worlds, and also the extents of greed and capitalism, retribuion and oppression. The echoes of the past, the ghosts of the future, are reaching out to us. Find The Principle of Moments on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon(UK), & Blackwells.