So, we have a peculiar township set up in the middle of Nigeria that functions almost entirely to service the dome and the people who flock to it for its miraculous healing. The US has gone dark almost nobody comes out and nobody goes in. London and Hyde Park were destroyed by a similar (the same) alien landing there. This healing is so efficient it even brings back the dead, albeit as zombie-like “reanimates.” The dead of Rosewater are buried well out of the city limits.įor a wider context, planet Earth is much different to how we might recognize it. Little is understood about the alien(s) except that periodically the biodome opens, and the people of Rosewater are healed of whatever ails them. The novel is set in the fictional township of Rosewater, which has sprung up around an alien manifestation in Nigeria. It’s set mainly in 2066, but it cuts back to 2055 and times in between. Rosewater is the first book in the Wormwood trilogy. I think I was worried Rosewater might be the same that the idea of reading Rosewater might be better than the reality of reading Rosewater. It can be a little too “out there” for me.

I often have a fear with seminal, much talked about science fiction, that I won’t quite get it. I’ve had Rosewater by Tade Thompson sitting on my to-be-read pile for months, but such is the nature of to-be-read piles they tend to grow rather than diminish and so I never quite got to it. Sometimes you just need to get on and read whatever everybody is saying you should read.

Tade thompson rosewater trilogy