Synopsis:
A cozy debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning writer William Alexander, this story of found family follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.
Captain Tova Lir chose a life as a courier rather than get involved in her family’s illustrious business in politics. Set in humanity’s far future, hiring a planetary courier is essential for delivering private messages across the stars.
Encouraged by friends, Tova begins mentoring baby bots, juvenile AI who are developmentally in their teens, and trains them how to interact within society essentially becoming their foster mom. Her latest charge, Agatha Panza von Sparkles, named herself on their first run from Luna to Phoebe station. But on their return, they encounter a derelict spaceship and a lurking assassin, igniting a thrilling chase across the solar system.
Tova and Agatha’s daring actions leave Agatha’s mind vulnerable, relying on Tova’s former AI pupils for help. As Tova starts gathering her scattered family around her, she is chased through the solar system by forces who want her captured and her family erased. This debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning author William Alexander is a must-read for fans of Becky Chambers and Ursula K. Le Guin. Lovers of poignant science fiction, where the bonds of found family, the evolution of AI, and the building distrust of centuries of bias, come together in this visionary look at humanity’s future.
Review:
Reading William Alexander’s Sunward was a delight that brought me back to the Golden Age sci-fi stories that I loved growing up. The setting and characters were Asimovian in how Alexander handled them and I would love to see more stories of Captain Tova Lir and her robot companions (children?) somewhere down the road.
Now, I know Isaac Asimov didn’t write cozy novels — frankly I don’t think the genre really existed back then. But looking back at his Elijah Baley robot detective novels, there is a certain coziness to them. The stakes are definitely there, hanging over his and his robot companions’ heads, but throughout it, Asimov keeps the focus narrow. Baley is a regular ol’ detective who just has the figure out a mystery worthy of Dame Agatha Christie – but set on a distant planet swarming with robots.
Here, our lead is Captain Tova Lir, content to simply take small jobs as a Third Class Courier while fostering newborn bots as they begin to experience life for the first time. As the book starts, we meet Tova and her companion, Agatha Panza von Sparkles. In just a short amount of time, the audience is shown the care and love that Tova puts into her relationships with her bots — how much she simply wants them to grow and mature with the wisdom she attempts to provide.
But, just like how Asimov gave his robot books a larger existential threat that Baley was partly involved with, Tova Lir finds herself smack dab in the middle of a threat that could debilitate her entire known universe. Soon, she finds herself with a disabled bot, a dead man, and the assassin responsible for the job. Her home – Luna – seems to have been attacked and for many protagonists that would have been the impetus for action, but not for Tova. She is more than willing to leave the crisis on Luna up to her family while she tracks down the cure for adolescent bot. Along the way, she reconnects with many of her former charges and we see the impact that she had as a captain and teacher.
William Alexander has a healthy backlist writing middle grade and young adult novels, but Sunward is his debut as an adult science fiction author. It’s going to get comparisons to Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes and Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot books — mainly because they are at least partly mentioned on the back cover of the book, but I think Alexander has done an outstanding job with this book. Sunward is cozy, but it has the right amount of action and a great “scavenger hunt”-type adventure that pushes Tova Lir along on her journey to find the best for her young robot companions. I highly recommend William Alexander’s Sunward for Sci-Fi and Cozy fans alike.
Thank you to Saga Press for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
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