Get reading with these exciting sci-fi adventure books curated by the review team at Stelahub.
The Red trilogy, Linda Nagata
Robotics and science fiction are synonymous (2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the term). Over the years, we’ve seen authors approach the field ranging from benevolent servants (C-3P0 or Robbie from Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot) to cooly malevolent (Hal, 2001: A Space Odyssey.)
As robotics and artificial intelligence have advanced in recent years, too have the stories we’ve told about them. One of the most intriguing reads about artificial intelligence is Linda Nagata’s The Red, a military thriller set in the near future. The story follows Lieutenant James Shelley, a soldier who’s part of a cybernetically enhanced unit and who has a knack for getting out of trouble thanks to a voice in his head.
That voice turns out to be a massive, distributed artificial intelligence that’s emerged amidst the world’s myriad of systems, and it uses soldiers like Shelley to carry out its plans, particularly when it comes to imminent threats to human civilization, like nuclear warheads. Nagata’s vision for artificial intelligence is scary and realistic — a powerful, unknowable force that has the potential to shape our lives in ways that we don’t expect, and it’s a very different take on the types of robots and artificial intelligence that have come before it.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (2014)
Ever since cyberpunk and Frank Miller’s run on Batman in the 1980s, it feels like the entire field of science fiction has lurched somewhat towards an aesthetic of grim realism. The world is a dark, angry place where terrible things happen, and life is meaningless. There’s no shortage of genuinely insightful, good books that adopt that mindset, such as Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon or Paolo Bacigalupi’s relentlessly bleak The Windup Girl or The Water Knife. And that’s before you get to the superhero films (at least up until Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok).
That’s why Becky Chambers’ debut novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was such a breath of fresh air for a lot of readers. It’s an endlessly optimistic science fiction adventure that follows a young woman, Rosemary Harper, who joins the crew of a ship that helps create wormhole tunnels, The Wayfarer, as they travel across the galaxy, stopping by planet after planet.
It’s a cozy read, one that will feel familiar to anyone who likes the Firefly brand of space opera. Chambers takes a keen interest in understanding each crew member’s interpersonal workings and how they fit together. It’s a book that’s endlessly fascinated about how a complicated world works and one that retains its sense of optimism when its characters take to the stars. It’s a book that understands that communities and civilization as a whole operate because of a greater sense of empathy, understanding, and compassion for one’s neighbors, a lesson that’s desperately needed these days.
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