Salt is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 author Adam Roberts.

Plot introduction

Colonists from Earth set out for a distant planet

Planet

A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...

, but during the voyage, a factional skirmish turns into an irrevocable grudge, to play out during the course of their colonisation. Rough-shod settlements are soon constructed around the sterile

Infertility

Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...

 salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 environment, yet old tensions quickly develop into war between two of these settlements, the rigid military dictatorship

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

 of Senaar and the Als anarchy

Anarchy

Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...

.

The novel explores the motivations of their warfare, and the viewpoints of the two narrators illuminate a dreadful, entwined inevitability. In all aspects of theme, setting, character development and prose style, Salt is a very stark, austere

Austere

Austere is the first release by the band Sparta, just one year after break-up of their former band At the Drive-In.-Track listing:#"Mye" – 3:33#"Cataract" – 5:09#"Vacant Skies" – 3:32#"Echodyne Harmonic " – 3:50-Personnel:...

composition.

Characters in Salt

Salt is narrated from the dual perspective of central characters Barlei and Petja, who function as representatives of Senaar and Als, respectively. Barlei is a senior military official—effectively a dictator—beholden to the well-defined hierarchy of the colony of Senaar. Petja, a wayfaring Alsist to begin with, hardens into a charismatic terrorist, resolved to resist a Senaar campaign that uses ever flimsier pretexts to continue destruction of the Als collective.