Author: Yume Kitasei
Narrator: Sarah Skaer
Yume Kitasei’s The Deep Sky is an enthralling sci fi thriller debut about a mission into deep space that begins with a lethal explosion that leaves the survivors questioning the loyalty of the crew.
They left Earth to save humanity. They’ll have to save themselves first.
It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.
Asuka already felt like an impostor before the explosion. She was the last picked for the mission, she struggled during training back on Earth, and she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left.
With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.
The Deep Sky is a story that takes place in deep space. I’ve read Project Hail Mary, which has a similar concept where the story follows the survivor(s) of an explosion in space. Asuka serves as part of the crew of the starship EvenStar that was selected to travel to Planet X and start a new world. As a science fiction novel, there is a lot of science throughout so there is a lot of jargon. This may be perceived as positive or negative depending on the reader. While I did find it interesting, I do think it could have been reduced slightly. The novel is structured like a mystery as there are a lot of questions about the explosion and the next steps. It is told in a nonlinear fashion so there are both flashbacks to events from the past and the main storyline of what is happening in the present.
The main character was interesting and, in her twenties, but there were times where it felt like she acted like someone in their teens. There is a lot of talk about pregnancy throughout the novel and there were moments where I wish it was fleshed out more. Initially, it seemed to be included just for the stereotype that women have that thought always in their mind (It might be true on some level, but it seemed difficult to connect with as a blanket generalization.) I could understand its repetition as one goal is to repopulate, but since it was a repeated concept, I wish it was fleshed out more. The concept of the story and some of the details, however, were nicely done, so there was some balance to the positives and the negatives. Overall, this author has a lot of potential and I look forward to reading more in the future.
chonkybooksreview.com 