Exiles

This slim novel punches well above its word count. It has heft in terms of provoking thought and stopping you in your tracks to ponder upon the ideas, themes and emotions it evokes.

There is a tragic finality in the climax - one that grips the mind.

Presented as a Science Fiction Thriller, it is actually a philosophical exploration of what it means to ‘exist’. As worthy as that may sound, it stretches the edges of this futuristic scenario into a cerebral examination of loneliness and why ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’ behave in the ways they do when mentally and physically isolated.

Set in the future, three astronauts are sent on a one-way journey to the Planet Mars. The narrative is told by the female crew-member ‘Gold’ working alongside her male colleagues ‘Kang’ and ‘Blake’ – the latter being the superior officer.  

Three robots have been sent ahead of the humans, tasked to build a base on the red planet’s surface. The robots [referred to initially as Bot 1, 2 and 3], appear to have developed personalities and genders and have named themselves.

When the three human astronauts arrive at the Martian base [named ‘The Citadel’]; Robot 2 [who refers to himself as ‘Wes’ and designated itself into a Male gender] has initially locked the trio of human astronauts out, and concealed Robot 1 [who refers to herself as ‘Shay’ and gendered Female] within the base.  The reason why Robot 2 [‘Wes’] changed the Citadel’s lock codes is due to a malfunction in Robot 3 [who refers to himself as ‘Alex’ and of a Male gender].

Upon questioning; Robot 2 [‘Wes’] states that ‘Alex’ [Robot 3] has gone rogue, hence why he’s now locked out of the space station and roaming malevolently outside - trying to gain entry by force. Robot 1 [‘Shay’] contradicts her robotic colleague stating instead that an Alien being is outside and is the threat, not Robot 3 [‘Alex’].

‘Shay’ [Robot 1] believes that the Alien creature has waited for the humans to arrive on Mars and is motivated by ‘Hate’. The self-gendering and understanding of human emotion by the artificial intelligence within Robots ‘Shay’ and ‘Wes’ perplexes the humans, especially ‘Gold’ who like ‘Shay’ share the female gender.  It’s interesting that the Humans are referred by their surnames while the Robots by their first names.

Then the novel weaves between pulp action crime-thriller, science fiction space adventure, a philosophical examination of artificial intelligence, to a literary narrative examining the cosmic horror of being stranded alone far from home in an infinite, uncaring and hostile universe.

The author examines the motivations behind the three humans as to why they volunteered for this one-way trip, and also what went awry to tilt the robots away from their programming [or ‘protocols’] into becoming sentient [and self-aware] beings.

There is a bleakness, an all-enveloping sadness to the proceedings as human and robot work to uncover exactly what occurred on the planet’s surface, and the significance to their mission, but most crucially their own existence and their fears.

The climax caused me to put the book down and sit in silence, lost in my thoughts as I gazed at the stars glittering in the infinity of the night sky.

I felt alone and insignificant.

But what about Coile’s novel?

In a word, magnificent.

Editor’s Note: Mason Coile is a pen-name of the award-winning Canadian Author Andrew Pyper. The novel’s melancholic theme is matched by the sadness in the knowledge that Exile is his final novel. It was published posthumously as Andrew Pyper tragically passed away earlier this year aged 56.