The Deep Sky

The Deep Sky is a gripping story of adventure, mystery, friendship and hope set on a tiny spaceship hurtling through the galaxy in the hopes of a better future for humanity, and I enjoyed every second of it. Given that this book is about a small crew on an ambitious, dangerous journey through space on a small ship with no choice but to both clash and bond, there really was no doubt that I would like this. But it's execution was so good that I think this should go down as one of the greats in contemporary science fiction.

In The Deep Sky, we are following Asuka a young, half American, half Japanese girl who achieved the opportunity of a lifetime -- leave Earth on a ship of about 80 people of the same age for a distant, habitable planet where humanity can start over. The story splits between two timelines. The first follows the family of Asuka starting from when she is about 12: climate change refugees that are reeling from the death of their son Luis, Asuka's brother. After moving back to Japan, the whole of humanity is facing a critical break point. Nations are at war, terrorist groups clash with governments, and climate change threatens the whole of humanity. This is what leads the richest woman in the world to announce an initiative to recruit young children from the world to compete on a spot among the Phoenix, a state of the art ship designed to carry a small crew to the stars where they can start over as humanity has failed. With nothing else to lose, Asuka applies along with thousands of other youths across the world. To guarantee funding, this initiative allows countries to "buy" seats for their citizens among this ship, meaning the wealthiest countries get the most representation. Being half Japanese, and with her mother unwilling to let Asuka go, Asuka submits her application to score the sole seat for Japan among the Phoenix. But applying is not all it takes. After initial acceptance of over 800 children, all of them are relocated to begin their grueling 10 year training process where they are educated and assessed to ensure they are ready to take on this mission that will span over 30 years. With each passing year, more students are eliminated as the trials become more difficult with tensions among friends rising and falling as the students compete for a coveted position. But along with personal struggles among friends, ecoterrorist groups, men's rights terrorism, and numerous other organizations have mobilized to prevent this mission from happening, which is further complicated with Asuka's mother's involvement in one of them.

Flash forward 10 years, the first leg of the journey is complete as the 80 crewmates awaken from cryo sleep, and Asuka is one of them. The second leg involves all crew awakening, doing ship maintenance, cultivating food, and most importantly, getting pregnant so their arrival after another 10 years of cryo sleep will have the most difficult years of childhood behind them. It is a requirement to get pregnant and only individuals who can get pregnant are included in the crew. But tragedy strikes when a bomb detonates outside the ship, seemingly there the whole time, and Asuka was out there to see it. With terrorist groups back on earth claiming responsibility and talks of a sleeper agent on the ship, the story turns to a full scale mystery action/thriller as Asuka is tasked with rooting out this potential saboteur while the rest of the crew scramble to get the ship back on their trajectory, or else they risk starvation in the middle of space. Iterating between the past and the present by chapter, the story comes together in a beautiful way as we see how relationships build and crumble, motivations are revealed, and teamwork rises to overcome impossible odds.

Whew, the description is long, I know. But necessary to paint the complex picture of everything this book had to offer. I find it hard to think of one thing that fell short in this read. The short chapters and the shifting from past to present kept me fulling engaged on the edge of my seat for the entire ~400 pages. Each chapter complemented the next expertly weaving a cohesive and skillful narrative between two points of view which were essentially two different genres. The characters were all incredibly well-written and diverse, with the crew being filled with women, non-binary folks, and transgender men, all with their own motivations, ethos', and character arcs. If I were to have one criticism, I actually think Asuka was one of the lesser interesting characters with her personal arc being slow and less compelling than many of the side characters. The Past story kept me interested because it was clearly leading to a critical event that let to Asuka's selection for the mission when she was the clear underdog, which may or may not have involved machinations and sabotage across the large cohort. It also painted the full story of Asuka's complicated relationship with many of her fellow crewmates who she clearly has very different relationships with while on the ship. The Present storyline was filled with intrigue, mystery, action, and heart stopping tension that paired well with the slower paced Past chapters.

I really can't recommend this enough. I usually try to think of similar books one might have enjoyed in order to more accurately recommend the one I'm reviewing, but honestly I think if you are a fan of science fiction, you'll enjoy this book.

The Deep Sky is the story of a crew of late teen/early 20s women (mostly) who make up the crew of the first interstellar spaceship. Their goal is to establish a colony on a planet orbiting another star, hence why everyone has to be capable of bearing children. There's mention of one trans dude and a couple of possibly non-binary folk, but by and large the crew is female. The story alternates between episodes on board and flashbacks to crew member Asuka's time on Earth with her family and in the ultra-competitive institute that is both training and selecting crew members.

When the story begins, Asuka and her friend Kate are about to go on a spacewalk to investigate an anomaly on the exterior of the ship. They decide to race, and Kate reaches the anomaly first and thus is the person who dies when the bomb goes off.

Despite being told these are highly competent people, the crew never feels like a crew trained to work together. They neglect their duties. They let personal animosities not only interfere, but drive them. To do anything at scale, you need a competent team, not just a set of competent individuals. The book seems to miss that.

To be fair, the entire sabotage plot wouldn't work like it does if this was a competent team. It'd be a very different book.

All that aside, at about halfway through the plot became less navel-gazy and I was finally able to suspend disbelief well enough to read through to the end. When something is actually happening, such as Asuka finally doing some investigation or the saboteur stepping up attacks some of the flaws can be ignored.