Christopher Swiedler

I get a lot of good suggestions for science fiction from John Scalzi's blog, Whatever. A number of times a month he allows writers to post their Big Idea about a forthcoming book and this book was the subject of the June 15, 2021 blog post.. The Big Idea for Christopher Swiedler was that people are no longer exposed to the "otherness" of other people. He says " Humans are pretty hard-wired to consider otherness a threat, but we’re also social creatures who tend to see everyone around them as part of their identity. When we’re exposed to otherness for long enough our response is to expand our definition of self so that the otherness ceases to exist." Now, he feels that due to technology we aren't exposed to others because we don't interact with them. How does that play out in a YA space novel? Read on.

Lucas has spent his whole life in space. His father is an asteroid miner and Lucas has been in free fall more than any measure of gravity. His adopted sister, Tali, was born on Mars. Based on that fact, she was accepted into the Navy cadet training. Lucas also wants to join the Navy but a Belter (i.e. a citizen who was born in the asteroid belt) has never been accepted into training. Then, a prospective cadet gets ill on the way to the training ship, the Orpheus, and they have an opening for someone nearby. Lucas is asked to join; reluctantly, his father gives his permission. As the sole Belter in training (no-one knows Tali is his sister as they have different last names and she has never disclosed she grew up in the Belt) Lucas experiences hostility from some of the other cadets. Luckily, his two bunk mates, Rahul and Elena, seem disposed to be friendly. Lucas finds some aspects of the training extremely difficult but other things are for skills that he is already proficient at. He is trying to fit in but then he sees Tali plant something on the hull of the Orpheus. When he goes outside to find out what it is, accompanied by Rahul and Elena, the ship suddenly starts acceleration and they are almost lost in space. In the confusion he loses the item so he's not sure what it was supposed to do but he suspects Tali is in trouble. And soon he finds out that Tali is obligated to some people who are wanting to start a revolution against the Navy. Through good ideas and some good luck Lucas is able to impress most of the other cadets. This helps when all the cadets have to cooperate in order to free themselves from the revolutionaries.

I read most (possibly all) of Robert Heinlein's juveniles when I was young and this book reminded me a lot of them. I'm not sure if Heinlein had "Big Ideas" about those books but they did make an impact on me. I'm happy to see there are still writers to carry on that tradition.… (meer)