THORNS

In Kahn’s debut SF novel, Earth’s plan to colonize a distant planet collides with the Indigenous beings already living there.

Siddhartha “Siddie” Bodhi awakens at the tail end of a 14-year spaceship journey. He has aged five years, having “chilled” in a cryopod, and is now 13. He and his peers are the children of the ship’s adult crew who have left Earth for reasons they adamantly refuse to tell their kids. On their destination planet, Blue hatches from her pod. She’s one of the “kodrya,” plantlike creatures who proudly sport thorns and communicate with leaves and scents. Blue doesn’t yet have her thorns; she’ll definitely need them, as she’s in the running to be the kodrya’s next malca (leader). (What’s more, any kodrya still thornless after 13 days is ritualistically killed.) When Siddie and the other Earthlings land, they adjust to the new world and soon realize that the kodrya have made this planet home, leading to an entanglement that surprises both Siddie and Blue. Kahn’s short novel cleverly parallels dual protagonists, who each emerge from pods as effective newborns. They likewise oppose their people’s ways—Siddie doesn’t like how secretive his parents are while Blue won’t revel in the fights-to-the-death that many kodrya participate in or cheer on. Pithy descriptions energize the storytelling, leaving room for detailed characters including “crybaby” teen Gabrielle Espinoza, habitually stuttering Jahan Kavata, and hateful malca contender Green. The vivid settings are equally delightful; layered walls inside the spaceship resemble an ice cream sandwich, and the ship’s parachuting chambers hit the planet’s distant landscape “like dark gray jelly beans.” Kahn also adds welcome touches of genuine science, from centrifugal force providing the ship with artificial gravity to the planet’s red iron being good for the Earthlings’ hemoglobin.

A succinct outer-space romp that entertains as effectively as it educates.