Lawrence “Larry” Biz, Governor of Space Station Lagos, learns that the Ragtime has not landed on Bloodroot as scheduled.

Several catastrophes occur on the ship, including the loss of life support, disruption of communication with Bloodroot, and the release of experimental animal and plant species which attack the survivors.

The novel explores Afrofuturist ideas and "depicts a future where black folk, particularly those descended from Nigeria, are flourishing in the dark reaches of space."

[1] In Mond's view, Maxwell is "more of a Musk than a Bezos", and his exploitation of the Tehani is the "very act of slow genocide that the plot of the novel pivots around".

[1] Writing for Tor.com, Alexis Ong states that the Tehani "serve mostly as a stand-in for the multitude of oppressed indigenous communities in our current reality, as well as those that will inevitably fuel the future wave of space colonization with their bones and blood.

Thompson's use of the subgenre contrasts with an older view of space exploration that is mostly led by government programs such as NASA.

[4] A review for Tor.com stated that the novel "offers refreshing perspectives on both terrestrial and space colonialism, the impact of multiculturalism and Blackness in a realm historically dominated by white capitalism.

The review also notes that the novel is "considerably less drenched in the hallucinatory than Thompson's Wormwood Trilogy", but that the supernatural elements at the end of the novel leave it open-ended for the possibility of a sequel.

[6] A review in Lightspeed Magazine praised Thompson's ability to combine elements from various different genres and found Shell's voice to be gripping, but criticized the reveal of the killer as "spoon-fed".

[7] Ian Mond of Locus stated "I loved Thompson’s characters and the hectic plot ricocheting from one revelation to the next".