Meru by S. B. Divya

One woman and her pilot are about to change the future of the species in an epic space opera about aspiration, compassion, and redemption by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist S.B. Divya. For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations. For Jayanthi, the adopted human child of alloy parents, it's an opportunity to rectify the ancient reputation of her species as avaricious and destructive, and to give humanity a new place in the universe. For Vaha, Jayanthi's alloy pilot, it's a daunting yet irresistible adventure to find success as an individual. As the journey challenges their resolve in unexpected ways, the two form a bond that only deepens with their time alone on Meru. But how can Jayanthi succeed at freeing humanity from its past when she and Vaha have been set up to fail? Against all odds, hope is human, too.

Pros: interesting characters, compelling drama

Cons: takes several chapters to learn necessary vocabulary

Centuries ago humanity nearly destroyed earth and made a hash of terraforming Mars. Since then, they’ve been confined to earth while their distant offspring, alloys, exploring the universe. When a human habitable planet is discovered, a vote to decide whether humans should be allowed to expand into the universe again is proposed. Jayanthi wants to be more than a human raised by alloys, confined to earth. When she discovers that her sickle cell disease makes her suitable to live in the higher oxygenated air of Meru, she petitions to be allowed to live there for a year as an experiment. Only a newly graduated alloy pilot agrees to bring her there. But some alloys remember what humans did the last time they were allowed to expand past Earth. And they’ve got plans to make sure this experiment fails and the vote goes their way.

There’s quite a learning curve as the book throws a lot of new vocabulary and concepts at you with no info dumps. It takes a few chapters to get a real grip on this future world and how humans and alloys co-exist. It can feel overwhelming, but once you understand the background and have been introduced to the characters, the plot kicks in and the story moves on to the titular planet. The world-building is astonishing.

The plot centres around the personalities of Jayanthi and Vaha and their developing relationship. It’s a forbidden romance that faces a lot of complications. Though young and full of self-doubt, they’re both delightful and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them try to solve various problems.

According to the acknowledgements, the story is based on the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. I’ve never read it and so cannot comment on how the author handled the source material, but I did appreciate all of the Indian inspired names, scents and foods used throughout the book. Each chapter is named after a Sanskrit word.

There are variously gendered entities, which can take some getting used to and adds to the alienness of the alloys.

After the first few chapters, I found this a quick, compelling read.