Review: Foundra by Emmanuel M Arriaga

Timeless forces and fearless warriors collide in Foundra, a spectacular first installment of a new sci-fi series by Emmanuel M Arriaga.

When Neven Kenk, a genius-level engineer, is invited for a once-in-a-lifetime meeting with an ancient Founder at a legendary science institute, he has no idea the adventures that lie ahead of him. He is offered the chance the join the Founders’ Elite as a chief engineer, an incredible stepping-stone towards his aspirations of scientific glory. However, this job offer comes with some inherent risks to life and limb, not to mention having to be accepted by a crew of hardened veterans and adventurers still mourning the loss of a beloved comrade.

Mysterious anomalies have appeared in the enesmic – the “Force”-like power flowing through this fictional future – and it could spell disaster for the hundreds of billions of souls in the Huzien Empire. Neven and the Founders’ Elite aboard the Foundra Ascension have other things to worry about, however, namely, a sinister new enemy laying waste to fringe colonies of the empire. What no one understands is how dangerously these troubling events are linked, or what shadowy new threat lies in wait on another plane of existence.

Despite the vast gap between our world and this visionary dream more than 80,000 years in the future, the fickle foundations of human nature remain unchanged. Neven is driven by ambition, adrenaline, and libido, while also being philosophical and brilliant, yet he still struggles with self-confidence and unlocking his own potential. He also isn’t immune to embarrassing conversations with his mom about cute girls and her future grandchildren. These humanizing touchpoints of relativity exist for every character, making it surprisingly easy to empathize with the unique cast of this sprawling novel.

The incredible range of character types, species, histories, technologies, and abilities makes this book immediately feel like an epic saga, a storyline that could stretch to multiple books. The potential narratives that lie within such a fascinating dual galaxy empire are endless, but this first story that Arriaga tackles is an ambitious start. Aside from the rich sci-fi future that unfolds from the very first chapter, there are also deep thematic threads woven into the prose that other sci-fi narratives simply lack. The concept of immortality (without invincibility) is always mind-bending to explore, as is faster-than-light (“suplight”) travel, telepathy, and multi-generational aspiration of working for a greater cause than will be achieved in one’s lifetime.

On a purely technical level, the writing is smart and clean, with expositional elements slowly introduced throughout the prose, rather than the author subjecting readers to lengthy passages of procedural information. The dialogue fluctuates from active and engaging to stilted and forced, particularly when it comes to idiomatic language that feels torn from 21st-century parlance. These anachronistic moments can shatter the illusion of this carefully crafted future, especially when a seemingly all-powerful being, after millennia of existence, still uses informal speech patterns and slang. Some of the narration is also poorly conceived or formatted, with all-caps outbursts, an excess of exclamation points, or redundancy of internal monologuing.

Setting these superficial fixes and language tweaks aside, Arriaga is a bold new voice in the genre, and his magnificent and original sci-fi vision will leave readers eager for a second installment.