I’ve read a handful of Sofia Samatar’s short fictions, and while they seem to be highly praised in the genre community, none to this point had really stuck with me. So it was with some apprehension that I approached my first of her novellas, the Hugo finalist The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain. But in the end, I was rewarded with the best book I’d read all year. 

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain takes place on a spaceship with extremely strict class boundaries. The upper class enjoys wealth, freedom, and technology and has seemingly unlimited power over the others. Those in the middle class tend to work ordinary jobs but are forced to wear anklets through which they can be punished by anyone privileged enough to have a phone. And those in the Hold spend their entire lives shackled to each other, without a hint of privacy as they work in the mines that are the lifeblood of the ship. One of the two lead characters, an academic known only as the woman, is spearheading a program in which a talented youth from the Hold may have their Chain removed and be brought into the academy and the middle class. That talented youth is the other lead, the boy, whose artistic skills have caught the attention of the guards but whose visions will not allow him to leave the Hold entirely behind. 

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is concerned with its themes more than its plot, with archetypical characters, a poetic style absolutely dripping with symbolism, and more than a hint of magical realism. It’s exactly the sort of book that I usually bounce off, so it’s easy to understand my trepidation in picking this one up. And yet all these elements I ordinarily dislike worked wonderfully here. 

How? It starts with the prose and the characterization. I’m happy reading theme-driven books if they’re able to immerse me in the story, but poetic language and archetypical characters usually keeps me at an emotional arm’s length. Not so here! In fact, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain reminds me somewhat of one of my favorite books, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, in that it’s unapologetically philosophical and is willing to descend into what almost feels like a fever dream in the final 10% but generates enough investment in the characters in the more comprehensible opening segments that I had the reading momentum to carry me through the more difficult sections. Samatar’s style is a bit less straightforward than the famously approachable Lewis, but it’s still much more readable than I expected, and it supplements the archetypes with enough detail that the unnamed leads nevertheless feel like real people. 

Those humanizing flourishes start early, with the boy struggling even to walk without the familiar weight of the Chain anchoring him to his brethren. The culture shocks continue in dining, in reading social cues, and in differences in taboos across class boundaries, and those small elements all help make the boy feel less like a thinly-sketched folk tale lead and more like a real person. But the woman is even more relatable. Perhaps I’m biased because of my academic background—one shared by Samatar herself, who clearly writes from deep personal experience—but the woman comes vividly to life in almost all of her struggles. Her entire livelihood depends on getting others to see the value in niche research interests that she finds fascinating and illustrative and that so many others find superfluous and impractical. But we see relatively little of these research interests, because much of the time that she’d like to spend on research is reallocated in service of the diversity program that brought the boy to the academy. The real-world commentary on junior and adjunct faculty shouldering the burden of service to the department even when they’re the ones with the most pressure to publish is clear enough, and unnamed though she may be, the woman is a vibrant character who is extremely easy to invest in. 

But while I may praise the characters, this is a theme-heavy novel, and it develops those themes with aplomb. The stark class divide and shocking oppression of the Chained draws the eye and delivers real narrative weight, but the portrayal of the academy’s role here is remarkably nuanced and fascinating. The culture shock aspects of the boy’s story remind me a lot of the strongest elements of Premee Mohamed’s We Speak Through the Mountain or R.F. Kuang’s Babel, but The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain digs much deeper. It’s easy to see the academy’s tacit endorsement of oppressive structures, but just as firmly on display are the efforts of faculty members—themselves in precarious positions—to try to make a difference, mostly yielding small-scale programs that suck up time while only nibbling around the edges of the real problem, but that are nevertheless better than nothing. This tremendous interview with Samatar directly draws the parallel with DEI initiatives, offering a critique from the left that’s even more fascinating in light of the current political battles around DEI. 

The same interview digs into the use of symbolism that I see as one of the major strengths of the novella. I immediately noticed the references to biblical prophecy, divorced from their context and lingering as cultural images for which there are no reference points—they dream of a River that is a Sea without ever having seen either a river or a sea. But the most fascinating symbolic element is the twofold meaning of the Chain. It’s undoubtedly a shackle and a symbol of oppression, but at the same time, it’s also a means of connection and support. This comes through extremely early in the story, with the boy’s inability to balance without the Chain, and it only develops further as the novella progresses. I won’t wade too deeply into the subject so as to avoid spoilers, but I’d argue that the development of the Chain symbol constitutes the thematic climax to the story, anchoring a tale whose plot in the third act can otherwise wander a bit too far into the surreal for my taste. I’m not usually such a symbol guy, but here, it brings everything together in spectacular fashion. 

With its poetic language, heavy use of symbolism, and prioritization of theme over plot, I imagine that The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain will be a divisive story. But while there are some critiques I can make—the final quarter, for instance, moved a bit quickly for my taste—I have surprised myself by coming down vehemently on the favorable side of the divide. Perhaps this is partially informed by my own experiences, but I found it remarkably accessible in light of its obvious literary ambition, with excellent characterization that made it easy to invest in the story. The thematic work is both hard-hitting and nuanced, coming from an author who is clearly deeply familiar with academic settings. And the symbolism provides layers upon layers that deliver an emotionally compelling conclusion and spur a whole lot of reflection and conversation after the fact. It’s a very good read, but it’s an even better book club selection that only improves during the discussion. 

Recommended if you like: theme-driven novels, academic settings, literary speculative fiction.

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s a Book in Parts written by an Author of Color, is a Book Club selection, and fits Down with the System.

Overall rating: 18 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.