The Deep Sky

This novel has a great premise: War and climate change are making Earth uninhabitable. The world’s richest person has decided to build an ark of sorts, with people from many nations, to take a one-way trip to the nearest star system with a viable planet in an effort to colonize it for humanity.

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The training program for the trip is intense. It’s a ten year process of whittling down the best of the best and when the final selection is finally made, you’d think those people would be in alignment with the ethos of the mission.

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Asuka shaped words with her hands, composing and deleting several irritable responses, including Then you should have asked me five minutes ago and Sorry, I’m busy and Go jump into space, before settling on: Yes, Captain. Because she did like spacewalks.

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This solid premise is what makes the behaviors and events in the story unbelievable. After a 10 year sleep, and 1 year into the awake period, things begin to go wrong, and we are taken on a journey to find out who did it and why. Ultimately, the reason why seems ridiculous and impossible after the intensive training and selection period.

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Asuka carried the box of defective bots to the Bot Shop, metallic limbs and stubby, cylindrical bodies rattling like anxiety trapped in an old mason jar under the bed. The box was heavy enough she could already feel her arms twanging. She stopped and hitched the box against her waist, trying to think of a capital P Plan.

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Anyway, it’s a good first novel that has a different sensibility than most novels I read, maybe because the author is Japanese and American (pointedly not Japanese-American) and was raised immersed in both cultures. I liked that there is respect for diversity in the story with many of the characters having more than one nationality or being transgender.

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While the story itself seems extremely unlikely, the fact that the plot and ending were never predictable is a testament to the talent of the writer.

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Much of the story is about relationships, but there are plenty of excellent science-fictiony bits that made this a fun if slightly disappointing read.

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Gently recommended.

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