3.5 stars.

Imagining alternative worlds, thinking about and interrogating the political and ethical components of decision-making is a political act. And it is always exciting to discover young women writers that visualise new worlds and possibilities, and write thoughtfully about the political and moral considerations of space colonisation.

Temi Oh’s debut sci-fi novel Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is a story that explores all the above issues. The Earth is dying. Humans have triggered the sixth great period of species extinction in Earth’s history. Overpopulation, climate change and the alarming depletion of Earth’s resources,is putting the continuity of humanity at risk. To address the problem, the world’s nations’ are in a new space-race to colonise Terra-Two, an earth-like planet, which it takes 23 years to travel to. Britain is the first country that prepares and sends a group of four experienced astronauts (Alphas) and six carefully selected, for their intelligence, abilities and psychological stability, teenagers,between 18 and 20 years old (Betas), to prepare Terra-two for colonization. One morning, in the summer of 2012, the team is being boarding to Damocles, the small spaceship that will carry them to Terra-two. For the next 23 years, Damocles, a name that represents the idea that those in power always labour under the spectre of anxiety and death, will be their home.

The book focuses on the team of the teenager astronauts and centres in their last day on Earth and their first year in space. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is an unexpected and ambitious book. It is a study of how it is to live in isolation, either socially or emotionally, a sense that may lead a person to feel anxious, lonely or depressed. It’s a characters’ story that, although I didn’t really connect with any of them, they grabbed my attention, and I found myself immersed to their conflicts and emotions, their actions and reactions.

Temi Oh is looking into the emotional aspect of being an astronaut,the fact that you are completely alone most of the time, separating from almost everyone you know. In the case of the characters in the novel it feels like a kind of death, because they are basically separating from their families and friends forever, especially for the youngest crew there are things that they would never experience, feelings that they would never feel, and places that they would never go. After a few months on board there is that feeling that they are suffering from guilt and confusion over a loss, a prolonged and complicated grief that dominates the relationship between them. But there is also hope. They are going to found another planet,and although they all have different ideas of how they are going to do it, they have this adolescent optimism that encourage their dreams because they know they can come true.

The story takes an unexpected, and welcome, turn in the second half of the novel, when disaster forces the characters to action. It’s interesting to follow their emotional development, their determination, and how they are coming together to overcome their weakness.

I suppose one of the weakness of the novel is that the characters are not very well defined and, almost until the end of the story, I was quite unsure who the protagonists are. Also, the ending left me a bit unsatisfied; I just needed more of that intensity and action found in the climax of the story, I think.

I’ve got an early version of the novel from Net galley, and there were some formatting issues, such as certain names or places were not capitalised. Not important but it was a bit annoying for such a lengthy book.

Overall, I liked the plot, and Temi Oh’s writing is insightful and thoughtful. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is a journey of imagination from where when we return we are better able to interpret our own place in the world. I would love to read more work of this promising author.

Read the full review on Maquina Lectora