The Fortress at the End of Time is the fascinating new science fiction novel written by Joe M. McDermott and published by Tor.com. When a naive young officer finds himself cloned into the worst posting in the universe he slowly rebels against his fate. He rebels by striving, by doing his best and by always trying to do the right thing. It’s just too bad that he has the worst luck.

“Captain Ronaldo Aldo has committed an unforgivable crime. He will ask for forgiveness all the same: from you, from God, even from himself. Connected by ansible, humanity has spread across galaxies and fought a war against an enemy that remains a mystery. At the edge of human space sits the Citadel—a relic of the war and a listening station for the enemy’s return. For a young Ensign Aldo, fresh from the academy and newly cloned across the ansible line, it’s a prison from which he may never escape. Deplorable work conditions and deafening silence from the blackness of space have left morale on the station low and tensions high. Aldo’s only hope of transcending his station, and cloning a piece of his soul somewhere new is both his triumph and his terrible crime.”

The Fortress at the End of Time paints an absolutely brilliant picture of isolation amongst people. The men and women stationed at the Citadel, an almost derelict warship orbiting an almost dead rock, do not get along. Familiarity and hopelessness means that they barely even tolerate one another. They guard a colony of humans on a planet that makes Arrakis from Dune look like a watery paradise. While doing so they await the return of an alien enemy that no one has ever seen. They nudge along the terraforming that not even their grandchildren will live to see completed.

It is into this fine mess that Ensign Ronaldo Aldo clones. Leaving behind an Earthbound copy of himself the young officer desires to distinguish himself in his posting. Aldo hopes to clone out to a better posting in time, a process known as transcendence. Unfortunately for him, almost no one has ever transcended off the Citadel.

The story of The Fortress at the End of Time is framed through the lens of Aldo retelling his past sins to an unseen confessor. He guides the reader through the tense first weeks of his posting at the Citadel and brings to grim life the growing dreariness of the station and his job. The character-development in this novel is front and centre and the novel is truly a character study first and foremost. Everyone in this novel knows that they are trapped in one way or another. How they individually react to the situation is where the novel shines.

Wong, the security officer, is nihilistic and almost gleefully corrupt and seems to press on simply to spite the universe. Amiral Diego on the other hand is hedonistic, spiteful and ultimately fatalistic. The reader is never sure which one is the worst influence on the crew. While the hopelessness of their situation is evident to the other characters in this novel it never fully hits Aldo until the end. Until he makes his most fateful decision and commits his most egregious sin.

Another excellent part of The Fortress at the End of Time is the world-building. McDermott weaves together a patchwork of sci-fi concepts and focuses on their effects on one small, almost insignificant part of the universe. From the ansible network that connects all the colonies to each other, to the cloning of people through that network to the terraforming and to the war, each has an outsized effect on the people living aboard the Citadel. These all come together seamlessly in the depressing yet highly engaging tragedy of Ronaldo Aldo.

The Fortress at the End of Time is a brilliant novel. The writing is superb and the storytelling is well-crafted and highly engaging. But where the book truly shines is in its characters. Ronaldo Aldo is a intriguing and well-drawn protagonist backed up by a host of great supporting characters.

The Fortress at the End of Time will be published on 17 January 2017.

Some previously reviewed Tor.com books: