“The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred” eBook was published in 2016 and was written by Greg Egan (http://www.gregegan.net). Mr. Egan has published more than a dozen novels.

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Mature Language. The story is set in the future with asteroids having been colonized.

The asteroids Vesta and Ceres are not close, but have a commerce program worked out where one sends large chunks of ice while the other sends large chunks of stone through space. These chunks of ‘cargo’ take about three years to traverse the space between the asteroids.

Some on Vesta ‘catch a ride’ on the cargo, traveling in a suspended state. They are desperate to leave the deteriorating conditions on Vesta. A traditional ferry vessel has left Vesta for Ceres. The Vesta government claims that there are “war criminals” on board. The new port director on Ceres, Anna, is faced with the decision of how to respond to Vesta demands that the ferry carrying nearly 800 passengers be turned away. Vesta has threatened the nearly 4000 escaping Vesta riding the cargo in route.

Thankfully this was a short read of just under 2 hours for the 70 page Science Fiction novella. While I liked the overall plot, I felt that I was dumped into the middle of a story. It also felt a little chaotic to me. In my opinion, this would have been a much better read if it had been expanded into a full novel. The cover art is OK, I guess it is supposed to represent the ferry. I think an image of a block of stone with a survival cocoon attached would have been better. I give this novella a 2.5 (rounded up to a 3) out of 5.

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I found this very confusing and totally impossible to follow.
Not for me.

The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan is a science fiction novella set on two large asteroids out in the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. It is a quick and compelling read more about morality than technology, although of course there is technology in it.

Camille is desperate to escape her home on colonized asteroid Vesta, journeying through space in a small cocoon pod covertly and precariously attached to a cargo ship. Anna is a newly appointed port director on asteroid Ceres, intrigued by the causes that have led so-called riders like Camille to show up at her post in search of asylum.

Conditions on Vesta are quickly deteriorating—for one group of people in particular. The original founders agreed to split profits equally, but the Sivadier syndicate contributed intellectual property rather than more valued tangible goods. Now the rest of the populace wants payback. As Camille travels closer to Ceres, it seems ever more likely that Vesta will demand the other asteroid stop harboring its fugitives.

I enjoyed this book and found it interesting, but I wouldn’t call it a happy read. The story follows a few characters on Vesta where something akin to racial tensions are coming to a head. Of the founding families, one has been singled out as having not pulled their weight (because they contributed intellectual property rather than physical technology to the settlement) and their descendants are being are now targeted. The main characters on Vesta are some of these descendants and their friends/sympathisers mounting a resistance against the bigotry targeting them.

The Ceres sections of the novella are set a few years later than the Vestan parts and mainly follow the Director of the Ceres colony as she interacts with Vestan refugees. In both settings there is discussion of morality, from different perspectives, and a few different moral questions are faced by the characters. The story doesn’t really resolve these questions — mostly because there are no right answers, I suspect — and leaves us only with a chapter in the characters’ lives closing. We do not know all the details of what happens next.

I enjoyed The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred and found it a compelling read, especially after I got past the first chapter and got a better idea of what the story was about. I recommend it to fans of science fiction and political stories. As I mentioned, aside from being set on asteroids and taking the relevant environmental factors into account in the background, there isn’t very much science (or, well, technobabble) in this story. If that’s something that often puts you off SF, then I still recommend giving The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred a shot.

4 / 5 stars

First published: November 2016, Subterranean Press
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Australian novelist Greg Egan has delivered some mind blowing sci fi novels. The Four Thousand The Eight Hundred does not, on the surface, have the scope of some of these works. As a novella, Egan doesn't have the room to develop his universe too deeply. But by relying on some well worn science fiction settings and ideas as a base, Egan still manages to deliver a fair punch in a small space.

People are fleeing Vesta. Strapping themselves to giant stone blocks and putting themselves in stasis to drift through space over a three year trip to Ceres, hitching a ride illegally on a trade that swaps the stone for ice. These refugees are fleeing a regime in which they are treated as second class citizens. They are welcomed by Ceres, a move that creates some tension with Vesta where they are considered to be criminals.

While it feels like there is a novel behind this waiting to get out, Egan takes shortcuts to create a complete and believable but contained corner of the solar system in a short space. The characters, too are quickly but effectively drawn so that the stakes feel real when they are put to the test.

There are no big or new scifi ideas in this novella. Dwarf planet mining concerns have been done. But Egan uses these science fiction tropes to explore elements of the human condition. The Four Thousand The Eight Hundred is a thinly veiled allegory of current global events and in particular, state-sponsored racism and the resultant movement of people across borders. Egan uses his scenario to ramp the action up to an impossible moral dilemma, using the safety of a science-fiction scenario to force the reader to reflect on similar situations playing out around the world right now.