The best way I can summarise its themes is that it's a story about the Earth. Our connection to it; its history; the things we understand and the things we don't; the things we lose when we move beyond it. All of these things filtered through the perspective of Leigh, a detached yet ambitious scientist.

The supporting characters don't get a lot of development. It's not that type of book. It's slow, it's often meandering. It takes its time. The focus is very much on, as I said, the world: its beauty and its horror