With Kaaro, you see both elements, and how it can be used to harm as well as help (as an agent he assists at interrogations because he can vividly see and experience what the suspect remembers). In the current political culture, where the ability to ‘other’ anyone who stands in your way appears to be a strength, empathy can feel like a burden rather than a gift. This is the element of the story I found most intriguing. He now has both a day job and moonlights as an interrogator but we see through flashbacks how he was once a petty thief who used his gift to work as a ‘finder’, a kind of unofficial private investigator, before being investigated. Kaaro is a nuanced, morally ambiguous character. The aliens are believed to have led to a fungus-like ‘xenoform’ which leads those who are susceptible to experience a heightened level of empathy, which almost amounts to mind reading. It can also, however, cause bodies to heal where the mind is dead and these ‘reanimates’ haunt the community. The biodome opens its doors twice a year and exposure apparently heals people with diseases. Rosewater is the community that grew up around them. It’s set in a near-future Nigeria where aliens have landed and occupy a biodome. I don’t read a massive amount of science fiction but Rosewater had an interesting premise.
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