Adrienne Martini Reviews The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei, Starter Villain by John Scalzi, and Winter’s Gifts by Ben Aaronovitch
The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei (Flatiron Books 978-1-250-88553-1, $29.99, 416pp, hc) July 2023.
In Yume Kitasei’s The Deep Sky, a billionaire offers humanity hope after an overwhelming number of environmental calamities have come home to roost. She’ll provide starter funding for a one-way mission to Planet X. Each government that provides additional cash will get to place its citizens on board in proportion to the donation. That scheme works out – and Kitasei plunks us in media res aboard the spaceship Phoenix halfway to humanity’s new home.
Asuka is on a seemingly innocuous mission on the Phoenix’s hull when a bomb goes off, killing three of her crewmates. That incident is what prompts an action-filled plot to figure out who in this close, all-female crew is the saboteur. Is it Ruth, Asuka’s blunt best friend? Is it the new captain? Or is it Alpha, the not-quite sentient computer who takes care of so many of their needs?
On this whodunnit frame, Kitasei hangs a deeper story about what mothers and daughters owe each other and how complicated that relationship can become when bridging tragedies large and small as well as crossing cultures. She also grapples with how the intense pressure to succeed in this mission causes fractures no one can repair until it is much too late. Those quieter moments give The Deep Sky a resonant depth and make it a more thoughtful story than it might initially appear.
Starter Villain, John Scalzi (Tor 978-0-7653-8922-0, $28.99, 272pp, hc) September 2023.
Business reporter turned substitute teacher Charlie Fitzer is eating breakfast with his cat when he finds out his very rich Uncle Jake died and left his supervillain business to Charlie. That kicks off Starter Villain, John Scalzi’s latest romp. Charlie’s lonely life is about to get seriously weird in a dozen different (and very fun) ways that include a lair on a volcano, some smart-ass dolphins, and a gang of other villains who want him dead.
Starter Villain’s plot ticks right along, Swiss- watch style, without ever feeling like it’s being forced into this rhythm against its will. What really ups the overall level of amusement are the trappings Scalzi’s hung on the supervillain archetype, like a bunch of business bros who will do anything to join their elite ranks. There are moments that are laugh-out-loud funny, and there’s just enough character development and pathos to hold it all together.
Starter Villain is Scalzi in light entertainment mode à la The Kaiju Preservation Society or The Android’s Dream (rather than in his worldbuilding space opera mode like the Collapsing Empire series). Like those stories, Starter Villain is a snappy pleasure.
Winter’s Gifts, Ben Aaronovitch (Orion 978-1-473-22437-7, £14.99, 220 pp, hc) June 2023. Cover by Stephen Walter.
In Winter’s Gifts, Ben Aaronovitch leaves Peter Grant’s London demimonde behind for an even more exciting part of the world: rural Northern Wisconsin. A tornado flattens the isolated town of Eloise Point in the middle of winter, which is not when such weather should occur. There’s some weird bollocks afoot, as Grant would say.
Fortunately, the FBI also has a small unit tasked with digging into events that defy rational explanation, but there is no Scully or Mulder on the force. Instead, Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds (who Rivers of London series readers have met already) sets out from Quantico to figure out this mystery.
Aaronovitch sheds Grant’s distinctive voice and swagger with more success than not. There are moments when Reynolds sounds like a British actor doing a Southern American accent after watching Steel Magnolias, but these bobbles are minor. As you’d expect, the plot bounces right along, and Reynolds’s encounters are decidedly New World in flavor. Winter’s Gifts may be a good place to start for a reader new to this universe – or one who wants a quick read set in a land of ice and snow, with occasional magic.
Adrienne Martini has been reading or writing about science fiction for decades and has had two non-fiction, non-genre books published by Simon and Schuster. She lives in Upstate New York with one husband, two kids, and one corgi. She also runs a lot.
This review and more like it in the October 2023 issue of Locus.
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