In the first chapter of Leanne Su’s novel Peri Peri Paprika, there’s an extended sequence of exposition which initially comes across as a potential liability to the story, but which I think eventually ends up demonstrating the strongest themes of the book. In this scene, Su introduces her main character, Moss, who is stumbling out of her quarters on the intergalactic spacecraft the Rusty Raccoon after awakening from an alcohol-induced hangover. Here, Moss reflects on the realities of her existence, all the while noting to the reader that these are details she finds either tedious and boring or—due to how they represent what she sees as her many life failures—deeply demoralizing.
It’s in this context that we learn the Rusty Raccoon is a ship belonging to the intergalactic organization SPOWM (Space and Planetary Orbital debris Waste Management). This company’s many ships are, Moss’s disinterested narration explains, routinely contracted to travel to planets scattered across the known universe, releasing swarms of automated “gnat” drones which encircle the worlds SPOWM has been tasked with servicing. These gnats then in turn latch onto drifting bits of space debris which they tow back to the Raccoon’s cargo hold, with the ship in turn carrying this material to one of the many specially designated salvage yards that SPOWM maintains.
As Moss slowly makes her way to her desk on this ship, her narration also explains to the reader how the Raccoon’s massive crew is divided into three main work shifts, with Moss belonging not to the higher-status alpha and beta shifts, but instead to the lower-status “skeleton shift,” the staff of which are almost never afforded a say in any of the important decisions regarding the Raccoon’s operation. Moreover, Moss’s own job within the skeleton shift (monitoring the function of one of the Raccoon’s engine nozzles via a live video feed) is one that we are told she is not technically supposed to have—in fact, she has been required to enroll in a distance learning course at a community college on Venus about Earth’s culinary history, purely to make it seem like she is pursuing one of the advanced engineering certifications the job legally requires.
As these paragraphs stretch on, we are even given a moderately detailed discussion of the real-life physics behind the Raccoon’s engines—how the ship is powered by a “radioisotope thermal generator” with a “z-pinch fusion rocket,” while interstellar travel is handled by an Alcubierre Warp Drive (a technology which, Moss explains, is commonly referred to as the ship’s “All Wheel Drive” due to its acronym happening to form the letters “AWD”). Meanwhile, intergalactic travel is handled via a network of artificially created wormholes generated via the very same space-bending negative energy upon which the AWD operates, with this energy itself being a resource that is harvested from intergalactic space.
Much of this information is not strictly important to the plot of Peri Peri Paprika. The story that immediately follows this scene does not concern the Raccoon’s mission of gathering up orbital space debris. Nor does it concern the equipment used to accomplish that mission. It also doesn’t concern the relation of the Raccoon’s crew to the larger SPOWM organization, or the way that the Raccoon’s skeleton shift navigate interactions with the alpha and beta shifts, or even the physics of how the Raccoon’s engines work. In spite of this, what could very easily have become an uncomfortably long stretch of exposition instead proves fascinating. As the book opens, Moss is established as a person who regards her life with a perpetual apathy. Yet throughout this same scene, Su also simultaneously gives an intricate description of Moss’s life that conveys a sense of importance to all of its aspects.
Part of the skill with which some of this information is conveyed is undoubtedly due to the fact that Su is, according to her website, a postdoctoral researcher designing propulsion systems for use in real-world spacecraft. Her descriptions of the physics of space flight draw upon her field of study. Yet on a broader level this sequence also functions as a foreshadowing of the book’s themes. While Moss actively insists otherwise, Su’s opening chapter introduces her protagonist’s life in such a way that it is inherently fun to read about, even when Moss herself claims the contrary. And it’s ultimately Moss’s abandonment of her apathy that the novel depicts.
The inciting incident of Peri Peri Paprika’s plot occurs when, shortly after finally arriving at her desk, Moss remembers that her skeleton shift manager on the Raccoon, an elderly and eccentric janitor known only as Turnip, has neglected to file her regular paycheck. Defying protocol by leaving her desk while on duty, Moss tracks Turnip through the ship, only to stumble across this man as he is loading what is clearly stolen equipment into one of the Raccoon’s emergency escape pods. As Moss realizes that the Raccoon’s janitor is in fact an intergalactically wanted criminal, Turnip similarly realizes that Moss’s presence in the cargo bay will now implicate her in his crime. For this reason, Turnip makes the split-second decision to conduct a very apologetic “legal kidnapping” of Moss—making a show of visibly dragging her into the escape pod as he hurriedly explains that this abduction is only to ensure that it’s abundantly clear to the Raccoon’s security cameras that Moss is not a willful participant in his theft of the Raccoon’s equipment. He promises immediately to let her off on the next space station, so she can return to the Raccoon without incident.
It’s on this unusual note that both characters are thrust into a chaotic series of adventures as they flee across the universe. Immediately realizing that she enjoys a life spent evading the galactic police far more than one spent sitting behind a desk, Moss quickly opts to join Turnip in his travels, finding in him an unexpected mentor, while Turnip for his part soon recognizes an unspoken moral strength and competence in Moss that no one else in her life has bothered to see. It’s in this way that the two begin moving from one world to another, as they seek to remain one step ahead of the galactic authorities who have been pursuing Turnip for much of the last decade. Throughout all of this, Moss learns of the continually updating laws and prohibitions by which Turnip lives his life as an outlaw—a collection of rules recorded in a notebook titled “the Tenets of Turnip,” and which among other things forbid the hoarding of wealth, while also requiring that Turnip steal only from individuals or organizations using their resources to harm others.
This narrative is in turn supported with brief but weightier moments of personal reflection on Moss’s part—scenes in which Moss gradually comes to terms with the many setbacks in her past, and which she initially viewed as personal failures, but which with Turnip’s help she begins to see in a more compassionate light. In one scene, Moss mentions to Turnip that her life aboard the Raccoon was one she regarded as pointless, only for Turnip to respond by gravely remarking that, in an unthinking universe, apathy like Moss displays is the “coward’s choice.” In another scene, Moss reflects to Turnip that she was long ago diagnosed with what sounds like an untreatable form of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; she remarks with self-directed anger that humanity can now build faster-than-light engines, but can’t find a way to fix her brain. To this, Turnip simply remarks that the issue is that humanity has not prioritized creating a truly accessible society, not anything over which Moss herself should personally feel shame. Likewise, when Moss reveals to Turnip the extent to which she turned to alcohol to cope with the depression she later developed, Turnip responds not with the amusement that Moss expects, but an acknowledgement of Moss’s addiction and the harm it has caused her.
There are a few times when Su’s handling of this material stumbles, with the book glossing over important story beats in a way that strains believability. Moss’s early decision to join Turnip in his travels through space happens a little too quickly to be believable, because it’s only hours after leaving the Raccoon that Moss decides she will enjoy the meandering adventures she imagines she’ll have with Turnip far more than her prior life on the Raccoon. Had we been given more than the brief sequence in which Moss and Turnip pilot the Raccoon’s escape pod through a dangerous asteroid field (perhaps an additional chapter in which both characters are briefly captured by the “space pirates” who Turnip fearfully mentions reside in the area at the start of this scene), then Moss’s sudden decision to become Turnip’s protégé after the pod had safely landed might have felt less forced.
Similarly, while we are repeatedly told throughout the book that the moral philosophy which Turnip pursues has required that he spend years working to redistribute the galaxy’s wealth, Su never provides us with a direct depiction of the selfless acts of theft that supposedly have occupied so much of Turnip’s existence. While we are given passing references by Moss of instances in which she and Turnip stumble across large sums of money, and then covertly wire these resources to various humanitarian organizations, these acts of good will don’t factor meaningfully into the book’s main plot. Despite the centrality that Turnip claims his philosophy holds for him, on the scene-to-scene level the majority of Peri Peri Paprika is comprised not of acts of charity but primarily of a sort of intergalactic road trip that Moss and Turnip embark upon—complete with unscheduled visits to futuristic gift shops and interstellar tourist attractions.
And yet, as the novel enters its final act, these structural oversights cease to matter, because—as was foreshadowed by Su’s opening chapter—the central focus of the book returns to the slow process by which Moss comes to abandon the apathy with which she initially regarded her existence.
Slowly, Moss learns that Turnip’s voyages through space are not random, and that in fact he has spent the past ten years striving to reach a mysterious planet named Peri Peri (a world so named due to how its unusual orbit makes its surface accessible only during the brief period in which it has reached periapsis). Yet, as the nature of Turnip’s quest for Peri Peri slowly comes to light, and Moss learns why it is that he has spent so long searching for this world, this information transforms this character from an eccentrically competent space thief to a surprisingly vulnerable individual who, while honest in his desire to spend his life helping others, is also perhaps in need of the same support he has given Moss.
Su accomplishes this shift in the dynamic between her two characters via a plot point that also doubles as an example of her book’s humor, all of which heightens the novel’s end effect. I don’t want to spoil what this plot point is—why it is that Turnip has spent so long searching for Peri Peri—other than to say that this is a story element that is foreshadowed by the individual to whom Su has dedicated the novel. Suffice to say that, while Moss starts out her story convinced that her own life is meaningless, Turnip’s eventual story by contrast ends in a way that could have come off as frivolous. Yet it’s by honestly following both narratives to their natural conclusions that each character’s life comes to represent something profound.
In this way, Peri Peri Paprika eventually takes a story that outwardly seems absurd and finds the courage to seek within that narrative things that, as both Moss and Turnip eventually realize, are very much worth caring about.