There seems to be something these days about sci-fi books where echoes of strange alien consciousness appears to invade people’s minds: In Lake of Darkness, a group of future gen-z fan boys and girls encounters the one and only Satan speaking to them from the depth of a black hole. In the Red Space trilogy, there is no black hole, but an alien intelligence causes mass hallucinations to bring people to do its bidding. And in Exordia (by far the worst of the lot) - well, I am still not really sure what happens in Exordia, but somehow aliens can get into your head.
Taking place in the near future, Nether Station takes us to the edge of the solar system, where scientists have recently discovered a wormhole. After the initial discovery and a lot of early excitement, an unmanned probe was sent out to the wormhole only to promptly disappear, resulting in all public research into the wormhole being ramped down. Things get interesting four years later, however, when signals from that same probe reach earth all the way from Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbor in space and exactly four light years away from us.
After the revelation that the wormhole could indeed be used to transport matter and possibly humans to other places in the universe, Nether Station takes us on a trip to the outer reaches of the solar system. Sponsored by a billionaire (who comes along for the trip), our research crew completes the long journey mostly in cryo-sleep only to discover that an apparent equipment failure meant that half of them would never wake up again. After this initial set-back, we then follow the crew (narrated through different viewpoints) in their exploration of the wormhole and its surroundings.
Up to this point, the book feels like a run of the mill hard sci-fi novel (think Stephen Baxter’s Creation Node). Halfway through the book, however, the tone of the book changes. As the crew discovers remnants of one (or more) earlier civilizations the plot escalates and takes a much darker tone: Their lab rats (quite literally) go crazy, our billionaire begins to feel deep desperation when looking at some of the alien ruins, and further exploration doesn’t go according to plan.
At times, Nether Station reads like a mash-up of existing works. It has it all: Wormholes, relicts of civilizations long lone, mind-warping alien thoughts, space travel with quite a bit of space horror, and a possibly existential crisis for earth and the entire universe. And yet, Anderson skillfully weaves together all of these elements into a good read - fast paced and with just enough plot twists to make sure you remain glued to the pages and never really know what happens next. Where the book falls short is in the characters. As much as Anderson tries to bring together an interesting cast (the reclusive and insecure scientific genius, the adventurous billionaire, the former fighter pilot), the characters quickly become annoyingly predictable in their behavior, showing very little development over (admittedly short) time spent together in space.
This is not a particularly deep story, but one that is fun to read - and set up for a sequel.