This week's science fiction offerings present a spectrum of speculative narratives, from witty space adventures to profound explorations of time and impending global disaster.
Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne offers a warm and witty sci-fi adventure centered on Torian, a character who finds her fortunes changing with the discovery that her spaceship is a high-tech masterpiece. The vessel's unusual moss covering hides a genius intelligence with advanced hacking skills, propelling Torian on a mission to save her sister's life.
Temi Oh's Not With a Bang is described as a searing, rich, and powerful end-of-the-world novel that focuses intensely on the personal lives of its characters. The Minton family's emotional struggles are mirrored by the approach of a rogue planet, or possibly a spaceship, whose gravitational distortions threaten catastrophe. The narrative delves into complications such as an expensive survival bunker, a mother prioritizing work, and heightened sibling tensions as disaster looms.
Joseph Eckert's The Traveler is a high-concept foray into time travel that confronts significant themes of love, loss, hope, and despair. The novel follows Scott, an average man who begins to experience accelerated jumps forward in time. Within weeks of his subjective experience, he finds himself decades in the future. The story chronicles his loss of his wife, his son growing up, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the accelerating history of Earth towards what is described as a transcendent conclusion.
These novels, published by Tor and Solstice respectively, offer readers diverse perspectives on the possibilities and perils of speculative futures.