Book Review: The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

 

The Deep Skyby  Yume Kitasei

399 pages, Hardcover
Published July, 2023 by Flatiron Books

Let me make it clear, that I root for every book, every book I open, I want it to rule, and I want to enjoy the experience every time. Science Fiction most of all. I don't remember where or how I heard of this novel. At some point, I put a hold on it at the library and was just hanging out on my hold shelf at the library. I honestly don't remember why I put it on hold.

I started reading it cold, reading nothing of the plot, but I did see this was the author's debut novel. This is a technically well-written novel and I enjoyed reading it for the most part. It was such a straightforward 21st-century science fiction novel it felt kinda like eating a plain bagel. I like my science fiction weird, with some jagged edges and that is not this.

To me, this felt like a super safe, down the middle mostly "hard" Science fiction. the story of Auska a half-Japanese woman who is chosen to represent Japan on a dangerous mission. The Phoenix is a generation ship sent out into the void to make sure the human race survives the coming ecological crisis. Trained from their young adult years a crew of all women who travel to the new worlds and mother to a new generation on the new world are traveling out.

The novel's events start with an explosion and Auska or point of view character barely survives. This starts the narrative that cuts back and forth with details about the training. It had to be this way since the first half being set up for the mission could have worked; it was better to have the action of the mission drive the narrative.

Auska and Ruth's story also benefits from how information is released slowly and carefully. The order of everything is carefully designed to keep the reader assuming that we will get answers to the mystery of who bombed the ship.

One of the problems I had with this novel is there was little new that I felt the novel brought to the table. The concept of the DAR (which I think stands for some form of augmented reality) was interesting, in that it made every corner of the ship like the holodeck, to keep the astronauts from feeling trapped in the tin can of the ship.

“Sometimes Auska admitted, but only after Gabriela was gone. She reached two fingers to her temple and triggered her DAR. She should be floating in the sky above Earth, arms outstretched surrounded by birds, but wherever she looked, puce-colored clouds pressed in. She couldn’t see a thing.”

The DAR was used in the story, it was Auska's malfunction in the system that led to key revelations, but I really thought we would go weirder places with it. I kept waiting for the AI or the antagonist to use this tech to manipulate reality.

For me, one of my favorite aspects was the relationship between Auska and her radical environmentalist mother. I could have used more of that part of the story. I am sure that is just a me thing.  That is part of the problem the novel lacks a true antagonist. That could be seen as refreshing, but I saw it as a missed opportunity.

“She thought how there was nothing pure about love after all. How it had to get muddy with misunderstanding. People like her mother, like Ruth, they would always be other stars, visible but impossibly far away, and she would have to settle for imagining she knew what they were like inside.”

I don’t want to sound like I am being too hard on this author and this book. I was entertained. And there were things I liked about the experience. *Spoilers ahead* The biggest problem I had with it is something I am not sure would affect most Sci-fi readers. Too safe not enough jagged edges. The idea that a radical made it on the Phoenix was far more interesting than the story solution we got. This novel seemed to run away from dramatic tension. Auska and Ruth come together in a greater understanding. I felt lots of dramatic potential was left on the table. The fact that the great distance of interstellar space kept Auska and her mother from coming to terms with each other was great drama again I thought it was best to leave it unsolved.

Yume Kitasei is a talented writer and I will check out her work in the future. The Deep Sky had enough going for it, that I am excited to see where she goes from here.