Pallas was Lisa Kuznak’s debut science fiction mystery, originally published in 2023. Praised by critics as hearkening back to the pulpy styles of 60s and 70s science fiction, this story lands us on a reclusive colony where nothing is as it seems.
For Kylan Bence, hauling freight through the Belt is lonely work, and when his ship malfunctions that loneliness might kill him. Stranded on the asteroid Pallas, in view of a concrete dome long thought abandoned, he chances a distress signal—and gets a response.
As he enters the settlement, a secret paradise greets him. Lush and vibrant plants, real food, clean water—and a population desperate to keep him inside . . . with everything else they’ve kept hidden in the soil, the air, and under the skin.
Kylan Bence is a space trucker. He is no one of importance, and his cargo or chocolate and cheese is equally unimportant. Yet he is the perfect hero for this tale. To someone he’s never met, he’s going to be everything.
‘A ghost settlement, nothing heard from them in fifty years.’
The opening of Pallas is incredibly eerie: ‘A vessel had landed outside the settlement, the drones hadn’t shot at it.’ This gives us the impression that they usually do.
What is Pallas, the setting of this modern sci fi novel?
Pallas is a long-forgotten mining colony, so you can imagine Bence’s surprise when he sends out a distress signal and someone from Pallas answers. Not only is this colony not abandoned but it’s a garden of Eden, hidden from the rest of humankind, and they liked it that way for one hundred and fifty years. So what’s changed? You’ll have to find out. There are some things I can let you in on at this stage though:
The girl who lets him in, Sarra, is truly unique. Sarra’s introduction immediately sets out the stakes: ‘She read the report again, trying to organize her thoughts, to calm her nerves, she would be punished no matter her choice–her only uncertainty in that regard was how much.’ Sarra is what stands between Kylan Bence and the colony. Though they are complete strangers, she opens the door. He enters. They both take a risk that will change the course of their lives forever.
Kylan is quite a straightforward guy. He’s never seen anyone like her. He asks about her a lot, not getting the chance to meet her at first. She’s pale, with hair so blonde it’s almost white. The hues in her skin as well as those of her fellow colonists are greys and blues, a stark contrast from the pink-cheeked, melanin-rich, warm lips of regular humans… but Kylan can’t stop thinking about her.
This is a boy meets girl story in the same way The Fifth Element is, with overtones of Fallout and Oedipal-levels of drama and twists buried neatly in Kuznak’s narrative—its own mycelium-like web, bearing fruit for us to follow until we get to the big reveal.
The people who live on Pallas are stranger: much smaller than Kylan, the men remarked as having ‘softer’ features, everyone sporting some shade grey skin and lips, but they’re alive and well… or so it seems. Bence is just happy to be welcomed, drinking raspberry wine instead of suffocating on his malfunctioned ship in deep space.
Pallas appears to Kylan Bence as an environmentalist’s dream:
- No waste.
- They make everything themselves.
- The structures are built from mycelium (bricks).
- They can make anything they need.
- There are no animals and therefore no methane production.
- The dead are composted.
Bence can’t believe his luck. We get the impression from Kuznak that Earth, Mars and other colonies are dirty, heavily industrialised and barely green. He hasn’t tasted food so fresh, and he’s never felt so interesting before. The girls can’t get enough of him. But beneath this beautiful landscape and the amiable faces Bence is surrounded with, there’s something lurking there, and it’s as insidious as the cough he’s picked up since landing on Pallas. Whatever is there is shifting, ever-present and ready to sprout.
But why are they all so interested in him? Especially the really hot one who we learn is Thalie. She’s voluptuous, dressed in red and for someone so aloof, alluring. Kylan describes himself as an ‘idiot’, and can’t understand why they’re all so crazy about him. He’s a dirty earthling.
The insidiousness of Pallas.
Though the scenery is beautiful, lush and vibrant, and the colonists live in some kind of hippy-cult like eternal children (it had a lot in common with The Time Machine in that respect) the pyramids that overlook their settlement are deeply secretive–only the council have access to them. The council wear black robes and are almost always hooded. We get the impression it’s some kind of religious organisation or secret order. It sets the tone of what’s to come: a bit of folk horror.
This novel contains plenty of elements of horror that work really well. While it is also science fiction, it lends itself to traits of folk horror and sci fi horror beautifully. Not only is this story as mysterious and unsettling as its robed councillors, it’s visceral, gory and disgusting at times, too. Everything is too perfect, and that’s all the more frightening. You may also find yourself sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, no, please no,’ before turning the next page.
Kuznak’s style is confident, and very different to anything I’ve read before.
Kuznak’s writing style is not really one I’ve come across before, and though I noticed other reviewers mention it’s quite ‘choppy’ or ‘trying too hard’, I settled into it after the first couple of chapters. You get to know the characters and can recognise when they’re thinking inbetween their dialogue–a great lesson in interiority. Kuznak blends first with third person POV to show us what the characters are seeing and thinking rather than the standard third for everything. This was an interesting way of doing it but I wasn’t thrown out of the book at all. It was nice to get into the characters’ heads and learn how truly guarded some of them are.
For me, the writing made me reflect on how often I read standardised UK or American novels compared to Canadian novels. Kuznak stays faithful to Canadian sentence structure and slang, giving the non-initiated reader some fun things to look up.
Sarra, Kylan and Thalie.
These three were the most interesting characters, and for good reason. Immediately we have Kylan by himself, in space, not sure if he’s going to even be able to land on this ghost colony. There’s a lot going on in his mind.
‘time to start his Company scheduled shit-shower-shave in a truck headed nowhere, cargo of dust, the timers will still run long after he was a mummified husk. His mother would get a nice payout, and that lamp would still fucking turn on.’
We get the impression immediately that this is a world similar to Alien, with space truckers near enough working in indentured servitude. He knows he is ‘valued less than the cargo’, so naturally, opening that door that leads to Pallas is a good chance to take. What has he got to lose? This book has a solid working-class hero, and I was invested.
Sarra develops as a character throughout the story. At the start, she’s timid, panicking, her finger hovering over the buttons, doubting herself and worrying that she’ll be punished for whatever she does. As the story continues, she finds herself (literally) as well as her voice. She even starts telling people to F off!
The contrast of Sarra with Thalie is compelling Thalie is beautiful, cold and lacking humanity in some respects. She’s special, and the council reserve space for her in the pyramid. She doesn’t know why, but she enjoys the power it gives her over the other colonists. Though she says that she ‘believe[s] creating things, making something from seemingly nothing, that’s our calling as human’s, isn’t it?’ she seems hollow, hateful and lost at times. Kylan can’t warm to her, she hates Sarra, and she tows the party line as often as possible. She’s a complex character and definitely held my sympathy.
I am still shuddering from Thalie’s journey and I am retching on her behalf. Every character on Pallas is hiding something. It lurks just beneath the surface. Thalie is no different. I sensed that in one scene, she genuinely wanted the connection, and as the book went on, I felt more and more sorry for her.
I Wish I Could Tell You More About Pallas.
A whole lot of this book is very much mystery and that adds to the horror wonderfully, so I can’t tell you any more about Pallas. It’s a fantastic work of science fiction and I was in awe of Kuznak’s confident style and ability to weave this high-stakes narrative in such a tight, tidy parcel of under 300 pages. I gave this a solid five stars on goodreads, even though I’m still floating in a space when it comes to one little outcome. Never dissatisfied though. Some stories just leave you wanting all the sequels.
It certainly is ‘a star in a void full of stones’. Read it.
Read more:
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder: Review.
What Anne Rice Taught Me About Horror.
What Angela Carter Taught Me About Horror.
Pallas is a sci fi novel ideal for fans of futuristic thrillers, mysteries and sci fi horror.
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