The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone review: 'a sci-fi story to get swept up in'
This third novel in Doug Johnstone’s sci-fi trilogy is a moving exploration of what it means to be human, writes Louise Fairbairn
The Space Between Us, Doug Johnstone’s first novel featuring an alien creature known as Sandy, rolled a sci-fi first contact novel, a crime novel and a chase thriller into one, adding a powerful message about finding one’s place in the world. Follow-up The Collapsing Wave saw the Enceladons – telepathic, octopus-like creatures who exist as parts of a larger hive mind – face the worst of humanity.
This third novel in the trilogy, which opens 18 months on, begins at a slow burn as our cast of characters are brought together again. Teens Lennox and Vonnie are near Oban, studying marine sciences. Ava and her two-year-old daughter Chloe have settled on the remote shore of Loch Duich, not far from Skye, and Heather is living off the coast of Greenland among the Enceladons. We also meet Niviaq, an Inuit woman in Greenland, who has been having strange dreams of octopus-like creatures.
They are brought together by Ava’s desperate need for a cure for Chloe, who has become seriously ill, and the equally desperate desire of a Norwegian billionaire, Karl Jensen, to meet the Enceladons, aiming to use Lennox and Vonnie to facilitate an introduction.
The meeting is a joyous reunion with Sandy for the teenagers, and overwhelming for Jensen. “This changes everything,” he says after, vowing to put all his money and company might into environmental projects. It does change everything, but not how he anticipated…
There’s plenty of action, so if you’re looking for thrills you’ll find them. Both humans and Enceladons have changed since their first interaction on an East Lothian beach, and as each learns about the other and evolves themselves, there are also strong emotions – shock, fear, grief, but also so much love.
Yes, you do have to suspend disbelief to read a novel that features a telepathic octopus from outer space. But forget what you think you know about science fiction, and remember you want to read novels that explore what it means to be a refugee, an outsider, to move between two communities but never truly belong to either, and to discover how far you would go to protect those you love. Most of all, pick up this book if you want to explore what it means to be human, with all the hopes and fears, loves and losses that brings – something Johnstone has done in so many of his novels, but rarely as beautifully as he does in this trilogy.
After cruelty that took my breath away and brought a lump to the throat, we are soothed by the fact there is the promise of a new beginning, and there is still hope. That tiny little fluttering creature from the depths of Pandora’s Box comes into the world to give us something to cling onto, and boy am I clinging on tight after the events of this novel.
Good science fiction, like good crime fiction, tells us something about the world we live in via a story we can get swept up in. Surf The Transcendent Tide and let an octopus – plus whales, seals and a platoon of polar bears – show you what it is to be human.
The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone, Orenda Books, £9.99. Doug Johnstone is appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 14 August at 8.15pm
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