Jack Jacques, the charismatic but monomaniacal mayor, declares the city’s independence just as the first alien personality transfer takes over the body of a middle-class woman, Alyssa Sutcliffe, who eventually becomes Wormwood’s avatar.Īt the end of that novel, the Rosewater leadership and the aliens reach a detente, but as The Rosewater Redemption opens, those relations are already breaking down.

In The Rosewater Insurrection, published earlier this year, the purpose of Wormwood’s actions is revealed to be the conversion of humans into suitable receptacles for the stored memories of Wormwood’s alien masters, whose own planet was lost to ecological catastrophe.Īminat and Kaaro’s former boss at S45, Femi Alaagomeji, is determined to prevent this takeover, to which end she exploits the political tensions between Rosewater and the Nigerian government. The later volumes have shifted tone towards the adventurous Kaaro becomes a secondary character while the more dynamic, heroic Aminat takes centre stage. Rosewater was a meditative novel, dominated by Kaaro’s cynical worldview and ambivalent about the prospect of alien transformation. At the end of that book, Kaaro and his lover Aminat, who are both agents of the secret government department S45, discover that Wormwood, by performing healings and seeding the xenosphere, is transforming human cells into alien ones, slowly remaking the human race.

Some humans, like Rosewater’s protagonist Kaaro, are able to sense the xenosphere and manipulate it, giving them psychic powers. The alien bacteria released into the atmosphere by Wormwood form the “xenosphere”, which connects all living beings on the planet.

The rosewater redemption