Helen Sedgwick

With FullLife’s service, women can finally get rid of all the negative aspects of pregnancy. No more sickness, no more pain during child birth and no more abstaining from alcohol and cigarettes and all the fun. And the best: the men can play a part, too! Simply use the pouch and have your baby cuddled in the perfect environment for 9 months. It does not take too long to convince the people that this is real evolution, the next step that makes mankind throw away the ballast and dangers connected to a pregnancy and child birth. And not to forget: this is how non-traditional families can finally fulfil their dream of having a baby. That’s what science is for, to lift mankind to a higher level, isn’t it? But progress normally also demands a price to be paid, it never goes for free. Up to now, however, only few people know how high the price really is.

Helen Sedgwick’s novel which is somewhere between Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale, raises a lot of questions. First of all, how far do we want to go for comfort and the fulfilment of our wishes. It only sounds too attractive to overcome all the negative side effects of being pregnant. And of course, the line of argumentation that now men and women are really equal since women cannot be reduced to reproduction anymore is also tempting at first. Second, we see scientists who – for different kinds of reason – act against their conscience and subordinate everything to alleged progress. Ethics cannot be ignored, undeniably, but sometimes there seems to be the time and space when you can sedate these thoughts and mute them in a way. Yet, quite naturally, this does not make the questions go away.

The novel tells the story from a very personal point of view which allows the severe topic to come across in a very human way with characters who have feelings and who suffer. In this way, you get involved in what they go through, the loss, the hopes, the fears. It does not provide easy answers to huge ethical dilemmas, but it adds some perspectives and reveals that quite often, there is much more than just black and white and that it is the different shades of grey which make it difficult for us to decide on the core questions of life. Lively characters portray this dilemma in a convincing way thus the novel can take it on with the great names of the genre. 

(4.5 stars)

2017: When Róisín and François meet at a research station in the Antarctica, they aren’t aware of the many encounters they had in the past.
20th century: Róisín grows up in a small Irish village, becomes an astronomer and breaks out of her monotonous rural surroundings, while François’ mother Severine learns a family secret from her dying grandmother shortly before her son is born. This secret binds her to Bayeux for the rest of her life, but it is also the reason for François’ and Róisín’s shared passion for comets.

Set between 1066 and 2017, the plot spans almost a thousand years and tells the story of Róisín’s life and Severine’s family history. Severine’s family is closely connected to the Bayeux Tapestry and this valuable work of embroidery is skilfully threaded into the storyline. The chapters alternate between the present and the past, just like a needle repeatedly piercing the fabric to see what lies underneath.

While the blurb suggests that this is a story about Róisín and François, for me it is a story about Róisín and Severine. Not only are the two women close in age, Severine’s character is very well developed and the most fascinating in the whole story. Severine, who has a strong connection to the past, is bound to stay in Bayeux for the rest of her life, whereas Róisín travels the world and shows us more than just France and Ireland. She takes us to Hawaii, to Canada, to the United States and, finally, to the Antarctica.

Helen Sedgwick created a very special story that is so firmly set in this world that I had to Google a couple of things while reading. Its unique plot, likeable characters and references to real-world circumstances make The Comet Seekers a captivating novel that is hard to put down.