Review of The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier

I’ve heard it said that science fiction is a “literature of ideas”. I never liked this. All literature is ideas. Thus, I would paraphrase to say science fiction is a literature wherein ideas that do not (yet) exist in reality often take priority over the realism of character, emotion, dialogue, etc. After all, alien species, extraterrestrial planets, radical technology, and alternate forms of society often receive more attention from science fiction writers than the characters around them. Science fiction by default, Herve Le Tellier’s The Anomaly (2022) nevertheless subverts this mode by putting its weight behind typically less-prioritized elements—ideas, as they were.

To say precisely how The Anomaly is science fiction is to spoil the novel. Therefore, it is a good time to pause and say if this is one of the first reviews you have read of The Anomaly, be cautious reading additional reviews if you are concerned about plot spoilers. The novel hinges around an “idea” that is revealed at about the halfway mark. I have read reviews which discuss it in nonchalant fashion, but be aware it is the hook on which the plot is hung.

And this hook is not immediately apparent. A tapestry of story, Le Tellier takes his time introducing multiple, multiple characters—an assassin, a lawyer, a hip-hop artist, an airplane pilot, an architect, a teen celebrity, and several more are brought to 3D life through effective vignettes. And Le Tellier does so in a sharp paucity of words. Slowly it becomes apparent that all of their lives are tied to one particularly turbulent flight from France to the US. To say more is to spoil things.

The strength of The Anomaly lies in its character portrayals. Each of the many people Le Tellier presents pop off the page, and are easily recalled once the novel moves past the bridge/spoiler and into resolution of the titular anomaly. Despite how intriguing the plot hook is, it’s the effortlessness and the vividity of these character vignettes that is the real hook of the novel, and the reason the reader keeps turning the pages even after the cat is out of the bag.

Another way of putting this is, for readers who like science fiction for its speculative concepts, The Anomaly does not offer loads of pseudo-science, technological extrapolation, or exploration of a theoretical concept. It’s not hard sci-fi. Once the anomaly is revealed, Le Tellier briefly describes it, and just as quickly resumes the everyday lives of his characters—coming to terms with the new meaning of their lives nevertheless in quotidian fashion.

From a purpose or meaning perspective, The Anomaly is one of those science fiction novels wherein the writer takes a smooth flow of a reality, inserts a disruptive idea, portrays character reactions, but ultimately allows the reader to draw their own conclusions about the ultimate meaning of it all—if any. Like The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson, Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, or J.G. Ballard’s catastrophe novels, it is a thought experiment. Accordingly, readers who appreciate the human over the conceptual side of fiction will get more out of this novel.

In the end, The Anomaly is a solid read, one whose pages tick by for the active, incisive manner in which the tapestry of characters is created, then pulled through a singular event. Le Tellier’s strong presentation gives these personal stories a good chance of engaging reader interest, with the undertow of mystery built in the first half generating the remaining momentum necessary. Does it all arrive at the most profound of existential doorsteps? Maybe; that is up to the reader. But it at least gets the brain’s gears turning, at least a little, through resonance and implications. Worth a read.