What if someone hears you in space? – book review “Selkis”

Almost hard, but also military science fiction for a mature reader with an important romantic plot. Sounds weird? It is a bit like that, but sometimes the confusion and the mixture of genres are best things for a fantasy lover.

 

Future won’t be clear…

Put your sunglasses away, David Lynch fans. In Selkis , you will find yourself in the middle of some massive conflict that has been crushed by the System, a galactic state organism ruled by humans. It is not known who actually did it, it is known that it is so effective that the human race itself suddenly becomes a minority. Yet she had managed to conquer, subjugate, and humanize so many lower humanoids!

This is Grzegorzewska’s first interesting trick – people will not be positive heroes, they will not even be the main characters in the drama that we will follow. The person or, as the author writes, the number one being here will be a stranger, the nature of which will be difficult for us to understand. It is not easy even for herself, the title Selkis.

Marriage as a basic commodity unit

The deal requires representatives of inhuman races to adapt to the appearance of the average person – no fangs, claws, strange ears, fur, scales, strange skin, strange … Well, nothing. And the tail is not at all, and you’d better not say the word. Uncivilized, maladjusted units are sent to forced labor camps. For example, a mine somewhere devoid of everything asteroids. There, if they do not simply die of malnutrition and exhaustion, they can still get under the barrels of infantry troops pacifying the rebellions that the inhabitants of mining colonies sometimes dare. And since the System can afford such shows, only the irradiated ashes remain after the rebellion.

Fortunately, there is a counterbalance in the form of KaHa, the Trade Company. Its citizen can buy such a convict and marry him, thanks to which he will return him the status of a legal person. And by the way, he will train him to do the work needed on his ship – repairs, collecting cosmic scrap … And since we are talking about marriage, it cannot be unconsumed and unproductive! Freedom is never free, and it certainly isn’t anyone’s right.

What do you think? Star Trek – The worst nightmare ? Or is it like being in the world of Campbell ‘s Lost Fleet , but on the side of the evil Syndics? Then add the good old slavery and you’re already more or less at home. But of course it won’t stop there!

Maritime law – the survivors must be helped

I hurried up a bit, because you will learn the history of Selkis and its liberators gradually, throughout the book it will deepen and surprise you – because you already thought you understood, and suddenly that’s not all. For starters, there will just be three survivors, a human woman, a Terminator type, and a nonhuman alien, a Reptilian. And it is for the noble, knowing the rules of the Navy too much, after all “they” have the right to look and act only like a second mate on their ship – humanized, stiff, bald and devoid of a tail.

The tail thread introduces a bit of lightness into the really dark and unpleasant world of Grzegorzewska’s novel. The sailors often behave like bastards here, punishing each mistake is disproportionate to the consequences, there is no room for freedom. It is claustrophobic, racist, and to make matters worse, it is ruled by dulszczyzna. And none of the survivors is impressed that perhaps they are the only piece of the System that survived, and that they survived thanks to the help of the shipwrecked.

Romance with a stranger

Somewhere in the middle of the book an affair begins (it was, as it turned out much later, around one in the morning). Yes, there are cutscenes. Yes, it’s about Selkis, who has experienced sexual abuse before. The relationship unfolds very naturally, as readers you will quickly start to keep your fingers crossed for the lovers and their new affection, then you will find… that this story has also been shown from the inside and is not at all obvious. Grzegorzewska plays elegantly with the reader, at some point you may have the impression that you are just reading a romance disguised as a space opera, something like one of those famous novels by D. Oswald Heist from the Saga Vaughan and Staples. And somehow this trail is really dear to me, because also here the author is not just about eroticism, but saying something about emancipation, freedom and almost every being to experience, to choose joy and good. We have our Heist, my dear.

Selkis is a dark, but also touching, and sometimes even funny novel. Everything that should be found in science fiction is here, especially an unexplored, menacing cosmos full of surprises. There are beings that are bad, good, broken, and slowly healing wounds. And idiotic decisions motivated by numerous complexes that may result in the next volume.