An Unkindness of Ghosts

De: Rivers Solomon

Narrado por: Cherise Boothe

Odd-mannered, obsessive, withdrawn, Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, as they accuse, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remained of her world, save for stories told around the cookfire.

Aster lives in the low-deck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations the Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster, whom they consider to be less than human.

When the autopsy of Matilda's sovereign reveals a surprising link between his death and her mother's suicide some quarter century before, Aster retraces her mother's footsteps. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, Aster learns there may be a way off the ship if she's willing to fight for it.

©2017 Rivers Solomon (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Kindly Listen to this Book

I truly enjoyed this selection. The reader was excellent. Some may bicker with the race, class & gender issues raised as being too trendy. In my opinion, these issues have always been visible to those with clear sight. The lens of a good story enables others to see the reality of these problems as well.

I loved this book

It's just incredibly smart science fiction and the chemistry between Theo and Aster is amazing.

Best book this year

This is the best book I've read this year and one of the best I've read in my life. The story is amazing. The narration is amazing. Read it. You'll enjoy it.

Very good prose, okay story

The author's skill with the written word is very impressive. I felt the story itself vacillated between 3-5. Was worth the read (listen).

engaging

good story telling made better by an excellent performance.

really enjoyed the way the main character was written.

good story if you can tolerate the reader

The reader does not perform with comprehension nor is she a good actress. The story is good, but reading the book rather than listening would be better.

A beautiful work

Many amazing layers...couldn't stop and over far to soon! good for the heart and mind!

loved every minute

The representation is so good, the story gripping and real, especially in space. Loved every minute of listening to this and was sad to see it end, as much as I was rooting for them, because I want so much more of Aster.

“A Masterwork of Grief, Genius, and Liberation”

Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts is one of the most powerful works of speculative fiction I’ve ever experienced. It isn’t just a science-fiction novel—it’s an anatomy of humanity itself: brutal, tender, and unflinchingly honest about what happens when a society builds its future on the bones of its past.

Set aboard the generation ship Matilda, a floating replica of the antebellum South, Solomon transforms a classic sci-fi premise into a searing social study. The decks are divided by race and class; Black bodies are enslaved under religious dogma, while the privileged few live above, worshiping a false idea of purity. Into that nightmare walks Aster Gray—a neurodivergent, intersex healer whose brilliance and grief refuse to be contained. Aster’s search for her mother’s truth becomes an act of rebellion, revelation, and eventually flight. By the time the novel’s last images arrive—soil, sky, and mourning—the story has cracked open something larger than survival: the idea of becoming free while still carrying your ghosts with you.

Solomon’s prose is exquisite. It cuts like glass yet flows like a hymn, moving between medical precision, folklore, and raw confession. Every character feels dimensional and alive, from Theo—the gender-nonconforming surgeon who bears his own scars—to Giselle, Aster’s mercurial friend and mirror, whose unraveling is as tragic as it is real. There are passages that hurt to hear, moments that made me stop everything just to breathe. But beneath the pain is an insistent pulse of love and defiance.

Cherise Boothe’s narration is extraordinary—an automatic five stars. She gives this world its full sonic gravity. Boothe’s voice carries the calm intelligence of Aster, the manic fury of Giselle, the slow burn of Theo’s tenderness, and the righteous venom of the Sovereign’s cruelty. Her pacing and tone draw out the story’s rhythm so that every silence feels earned, every scream necessary. This is one of those performances that doesn’t merely read a book—it incarnates it.

Listening to An Unkindness of Ghosts felt like standing at the crossroads of past and future, where pain becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes liberation. It’s Afrofuturism at its most fearless, a text that invites you to confront systems of power, gender, and sanity—and still dares to imagine healing beyond them.

Rivers Solomon doesn’t offer comfort; they offer clarity, and that clarity is its own kind of grace. This audiobook left me haunted, inspired, and changed. Five stars for the writing, five for the narration, and five for the courage it takes to tell a story this unflinching and this full of truth.

Ambitious and Original

With an audio book in particular, I want to listen to something with a complex plot and characters. But this was a little too complex for me, and I often found myself confused. When reading on the page, if you drift off and realize you’ve missed something important, you can easily go back and reread. It’s far more difficult on audio. So probably some of my confusion came from not listening with 100 percent of my attention, which this book definitely requires.

Lots of lot of brutality--well, the premise is the "brown people" live on the lower decks of this ship that's been in space 400 years and they're pretty much slaves. When reading an actual book, you can skim if you have difficulty with graphic violence, sexual or otherwise. Again, hard to skip on audio. All you can do is fast forward and possibly miss something pertinent within the scene you don’t want to listen too. At this point in my life, I can’t stomach much violence and can stomach zero sexual violence. This had a lot of both.

I imagine many will find this a 4 or 5 star listen/read. It’s certainly ambitious and original. And if you're looking for something with diversity of all kinds, this will fit the bill.