With NASA’s Artemis moon project in the headlines, I thought it would be fun to look at a few imagined off-Earth futures. I wouldn’t claim to be a diehard fan of science fiction, but I do like a good story set on another planet or aboard a spaceship, such as Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow” or Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary.” Plenty of recent books fall into this category, but many are part of long-running series, and I didn’t want to jump into one already established. These novels are all firsts or standalones.
“A Hole in the Sky” by Peter F. Hamilton is the first of a new series. This coming-of-age story starts out like a YA romance with the feel of “Hunger Games.” It’s a special day in the life of Hazel, 17, and her brother, Frazer, 14. They live on the arkship Daedalus, a generation ship from Earth that’s been searching for a new planet for 900 years. “To start with, the ship was an asteroid, just a huge lump of stone floating round Earth’s sun. The Builders hollowed out the habitat section in the centre, making a cylindrical chamber fifty-five kilometres long and eleven in diameter.”
The ship comprises 100 villages, each with about 1,000 people. The “sky” is an optical illusion, and the lights go on and off automatically to simulate day and night.
About 400 years previously, there was a huge Mutiny aboard the ship. Mutineers destroyed most of the machines and technology aboard, so now the civilization is mostly agrarian and almost no-tech. To maintain the populace, people over age 65 or who can no longer contribute are “cycled” (killed). When her brother is badly injured and threatened with cycling, Hazel escapes with him to another village, and the adventure begins, which turns into a techno-thriller in which she has to save the ship and the future generations.
I really enjoyed this one. It’s suitable for all ages and for anyone who appreciates a good story. I enjoyed the descriptions of life aboard the ship, and I liked the characters. It’s a page-turner, but I was really mad about the cliffhanger ending. Happily, the sequel comes out in June. Will I read it? Yes!
“Detour” by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart is another first of a new series. It’s made up of three sections: (1) In the year 2031, an off-duty cop saves a rich and famous guy from being killed. The rich guy invites him to join the crew of an upcoming space project. (2) The ship goes to Saturn. (3) The crew returns to Earth. The project is a two-year round trip to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.
“The ship is made up of four parts: three wheels (decks) which will turn continuously, creating rotational (aka artificial) gravity, and a gravity-free central spoke, through which you can travel between the three sections.” That’s one section for navigation and systems, one for living quarters and recreation, and one for cargo.
We’re given a hint early on that not everything is kosher. Some of the crew sense trouble and feel “Something about this wasn’t sitting right.” When the astronauts return to Earth, there is indeed something wrong: little things are different, then big things. Just as the action gets really intense, it ends with a cliffhanger.
It’s improbable to me that they would send untrained civilians on a two-year trip or that they’d send an active alcoholic on a ship carrying beer. Part 2 is way too short for me, because I was enjoying the description of life aboard the ship. Part 3 turns into an eerie thriller, reminiscent of an old “Outer Limits” or “Twilight Zone” episode. I very much want to find out what happens, but there’s no news as to when the sequel will appear.
“Jitterbug” by Gareth L. Powell is a lot of fun, featuring space pirates, bounty hunters, a stealth ship, and a vastly changed solar system. Sometime long after 2092 (that’s when the Martian uprising took place), the outer gas planets have disintegrated and the rings of Saturn are unraveling. The “Swirl” is the name given to the material left from the planetary breakup. People are living on those remnants and on Mars and Luna (our moon). “Almost a century ago, something had disassembled the gas giants and used their material to create an entirely new set of structures. Where the asteroid belt had once been, now eight sections of a hollow sphere hung in stately orbit around the Sun.”
Bounty hunter Copernicus Brown captains the spaceship Jitterbug, operating with a small crew, planet hopping while looking for criminals out in the Swirl. They pick up a pirate, unaware that she’s carrying a crystal with encrypted secret data others would kill to get their hands on. “When things started exploding, it was always best to be somewhere else,” Copernicus tells us, and wisely says, “Some mysteries are too large to be solved in a single human lifetime.”
This is a wild, wacky adventure in space. The physics make no sense to me, but who cares? I enjoyed its interesting premise and eccentric characters. (Some of the book is narrated by the ship itself, whose personality is remotely embodied in a robotic parrot.) Yeah, it’s kinda crazy, but exciting. Think “Red Dwarf” or Sam Spade in space, or an old-fashioned Saturday morning space/pirate/cowboy adventure movie. And it’s a standalone!
“Otherworldly” by Dwain Worrell is set on “the farthest known planet in the solar system,” Orbis Alius, way out in the Kuiper Belt. Cleo is a terraforming engineer and one of five astronauts, all from the Caribbean, assigned to determine the seemingly barren planet’s suitability to be terraformed for future human habitation. One astronaut stays on the main ship, and each of the others travels to a different area on the planet’s surface in their small capsules to spend three months exploring their assigned territory. Cleo finds one unique environment after another — some livable, some not. She soon discovers “There was something wrong with this world,” and the adventure turns into a horror story.
There’s lots of swearing, and Cleo’s AI robot is programmed to rap and rhyme everything, which is truly annoying. I couldn’t picture most of the characters, who really aren’t well developed.
And it’s gross. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t killed several times, and the descriptions of bodily fluid spewage were offputting: “She had burst like the neck of a wine bottle — ruptured eardrums, bleeding nostrils, bloody lips, even her tear ducts leaked. Any hole the blood could escape from, it did.” That’s just one example. I was distracted by the idea that without taking a shower every five minutes and changing her spacesuit, she’d be covered in ick.
It was a bit wearying for me, but probably good for true SF fans, as it makes you think. And it’s a standalone!
“The Rainseekers” by Matthew Kressel is a rather short 151 pages and is more a think piece than an adventure. A group of travelers journey across miles to be the first humans to see and feel the first rainfall on a terraformed Mars. The main character is photographer Sakunja, who interviews her fellow wayfarers, so we get their stories, too. She says, “Every soul has a story worth telling. All we have to do is just shut up and listen.”
Sakunja recounts the “long trek across these frigid Martian plains ... with a bunch of strangers” and describes a sunrise on Mars: “The sky fills with a billion purple streams the color of orchids and butterflies and eggplants and lilac. The sky has become an enormous blossoming flower.”
It’s nicely written, but not much happens. Most of the action is in the travelers’ back stories, which can be emotional. The ending is lovely.
Happy reading!
Mary Louise Ruehr
Mary Louise Ruehr is a books columnist for The Portager. Her One for the Books column previously appeared in the <em>Record-Courier</em>, where she was an editor.