Emma Goto

This was author Yume Kitasei's debut novel - I actually read one of her other books (Saltcrop) and liked it enough to go back and read this one. The plot revolves around Asuka, a half-Japanese, half-American girl who is part of the crew on a spaceship that is setting out to colonise the distant planet X, leaving behind an Earth that is doomed due to the effects of climate change.

I always like it when sci-fi books do something different, so the unique twist in this book is that the space ship's crew (of about 80) consists entirely of people who are equipped to be able to get pregnant and give birth (i.e. mostly women, but also at least one trans man and another with they/them pronouns). And they are all required to try and get pregnant at least once (via sperm they have stored on the ship), with the aim of eventually getting to their destination planet and being able to raise a new generation there. In a sense mandatory pregnancy is a little dystopian... but at least all the crew knew that fact when they signed up for it.

The plot starts on the ship, but has several flashbacks to when Asuka was a student attending the astronaut candidate school. Some of the friendships she made there with her fellow students continued onto the ship, so it's nice to get a bit of backstory. The main plot on the ship itself is actually a rather interesting whodunnit where Asuka goes around trying to figure out who was responsible for a murder. There's also an all-knowing AI onboard who conveniently is unable to give away confidential information (so the AI knows who committed the murder but is unable to tell anyone) which is a bit too convenient if you ask me - should have a clause baked in for crimes or something 😂

Asuka as a character has some big complexes. For one, she has a lower status on board the ship, having been assigned as an "alternate" astronaut who does odd-jobs instead of having a fixed role. For two, some issues around feeling betrayed by her mother. And for three, while she is being sent as the representative astronaut from Japan, she doesn't feel like a "real Japanese" - having been born and raised in the US, and not being able to fluently speak the language. The author is similarly Japanese/American so I assume this is drawn from her own lived experiences.

Writing it out like that makes it seem like Asuka might be a bit of a whiney character, but I think it sort of borders on the edge of just making her seem more relatable - if anything she grows throughout the course of the book, so I'd really like a sequel just to see her becoming a more self-confident character.

The pregnancy detail is kind of interesting. When you think about it, attempting to have babies ready to go in tubes when you get to the destination planet (Interstellar-style) is a pretty tall order so maybe it would make sense that you do one step removed from that and have as many "wombs" (for want of a better word) available to go on the ship. With how male-dominated STEM and the space industry is, it is a little hard to imagine that concept ever actually taking off (pun intended), but hey, that's the fun part about sci-fi.

I enjoyed Weir's first book about a science dude on Mars, but decided to give his second one a miss after hearing lackluster reviews about his attempt at a female protagonist.

For his third book, he's gone back to his tried-and-true approach of having a science dude talk about a lot of science shit and although my eyes glaze over as all the science shit happens, it was a fun and heartwarming read.

Heartwarming isn't the first word that comes to mind when the plot centres around him waking up alone on a spaceship but it really does turn out that way, somehow.

I don't want to spoil it any more than that, so give it a read if you like sci-fi (I would love if they could turn this one into a movie too).

——

Edit 2026/04/03:

I watched the movie, so I decided to give this one a re-read! I think the movie did such a good job of adapting this to the screen (and to be honest, removing a fair amount of the scientific explanations which weren’t that necessary to the core of the story). And considering you need an actor to basically act to himself alone in space and carry the whole movie, Ryan Gosling did a perfect job.

On a second read, and comparing it to other books I’ve read recently, I will say that the writing style itself maybe isn’t the most beautiful, but it gets the point across, and nonetheless the core plot points still make it a really fun read.

The book follows Bertie, a trans man employed by Germany’s Institute for Sexual Science, before and after the events of WW2.

In my mind I had naively assumed that LGBT rights improved with a mostly upward trend (albeit maybe with some flat bits) as society got more progressive over time. But actually there was work being done in pre-WW2 Germany to try and improve the lives of trans people, which was all reversed when the Nazis came into power in the 1930s.

The founder of the Institute, Magnus Hirschfield, coined the terms transsexual and transvestite (although these terms are now outdated they are used in the book for historical accuracy), and is featured as a minor character in the book. He also implemented a “transvestite pass” to allow trans people to present as their gender identity (as cross-dressing was illegal at the time). The main character, Bertie, works at Hirschfield's Institute, and helps gives tours to people interested in learning more about LGBT topics.

Now it’s not like things were perfect - there was still discrimination and harassment - but there’s quite a hopeful tone at the beginning of the book. But unfortunately this is also a book about WW2, which always gets quite depressing. With the Nazis coming into power, they quickly overturn any sort of progress, burn all the books and research in the Institute and even use the previously issued passes to root out trans people.

And then what’s really a kick in the teeth - when WW2 ends and America liberates Germany, they really have no interest in helping LGBT people (if anything, they share a lot of views with the Nazis). So while Jewish people and other minorities are freed from the concentration camps, those guilty of LGBT related “crimes” instead continue to serve out a prison sentence instead of being freed as well.

The author has put a lot of care and research into painting a picture of what living as a trans person might have been like around this time in Germany, so I think it is a really valuable book. So in that sense, I feel a bit bad to give this one a 4 star rating. I thought it was an interesting and informative read, albeit a little depressing, but not one I would necessarily whole-heartedly recommend everyone to read (which is what classifies a book as a 5 star for me).

It is a very well-known fact that Shakespeare wrote a play named Hamlet. Less well-known is the fact that he had a son named Hamnet who died at the age of 11. People theorise that Hamnet's death in some way inspired Shakespeare's writing of Hamlet. (As for the difference in spelling - apparently Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeably used as names).

The author takes this, and a few other key facts that are known about Shakespeare - that he grew up in Stratford with a glove-maker for a father, married a local farmer's daughter named Agnes, and split his time between Stratford and London where he wrote his plays - and fills in the gaps. She imagines what sort of woman, wife and mother Agnes must have been, the opposition they had from their family considering the 8-year age gap (Shakespeare was 18 and Agnes 26) and their grief when they lost their son Hamnet.

Agnes is written as a very strong character - she has to be, considering Shakespeare is away for long stretches of a time as he writes his plays in London. And also as a bit of a free spirit as she goes traipsing about the countryside looking for medicinal herbs. There are some slight fantasy elements as she can also at times see glimpses of the future. This is all completely fictionalised but it's such beautiful writing and a worthy successor (loosely, of sorts) to Shakespeare's legacy.

The book was originally published in 2020, but I only heard about it more recently. I assume it picked up a lot of buzz after it was adapted into a movie last year, and then nominated at the Oscars. I haven't had the chance to see the movie, but the actress who played Agnes did win Best Actress so I'm glad it seems she did the book justice.

It felt quite topical to pick this up at this point in our world's history.

The book follows the story of Ellie and Homa, two girls who grow up in 1950s Iran under the reign of the Shah, and their enduring friendship despite their class and political differences.

It has several jumps forward in time as Ellie eventually moves to New York, and the Shah is overthrown in the Islamic Revolution. The Shah was not great - he arrested anyone against his regime, had secret police and would torture people for information - but ironically was better than what was to come after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 where the rights of women in Iran took a nosedive.

Ellie and Homa are really fleshed out as characters, and their friendship is heartwarming yet bittersweet as the pair lose touch over the years. A great book if you want to understand better the strength of the women of Iran.

It felt quite topical to pick this up at this point in our world's history.

The book follows the story of Ellie and Homa, two girls who grow up in 1950s Iran under the reign of the Shah, and their enduring friendship despite their class and political differences.

It has several jumps forward in time as Ellie eventually moves to New York, and the Shah is overthrown in the Islamic Revolution. The Shah was not great - he arrested anyone against his regime, had secret police and would toture people for information - but ironically was better than what was to come after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 where the rights of women in Iran took a nosedive.

Ellie and Homa are really fleshed out as characters, and their friendship is heartwarming yet bittersweet as the pair lose touch over the years. A great book if you want to understand better the strength of the women of Iran.

This is a sequel to the Darkness Outside Us, which on the tin looks like a sort of trashy romance book, but actually has some pretty serious turns and a good amount of sci-fi (I enjoyed it!)

In short, it was about two astronauts from opposing nations who came together to do a rescue mission (think like America and Russia).

It’s hard to talk too much about the second book without giving away spoilers for the first one, but the second book jumps back in time to before the two astronauts boarded the spaceship, as well as jumping forward in time to when the final two clones have arrived on their new planet, and follows their lives with their two children.

I liked how their backstories were a bit more fleshed out, plus the timeskip had some interesting details as well. A solid sequel - would love to possibly see even more of a timeskip if they did another book in the series, although I’m not sure how you’d continue the story on after the final two clones die - maybe there are more clones of them left as embryos?

This was the first book I read by Guy Kay. Apparently his trademark is to write fantasy novels, but modelled off of real historical periods and places. In this story we jump between Seressa (Venice), Dubrava (Dubrovnik) and Asharias (Constantinople) sometime during the Renaissance. There is a war going on between the Jaddites (Christians) and the Asharites/Osmanlis (Muslims/Ottomans).

There's a couple of different storylines going on here - Seressa wants to install a spy in Dubrava, and plans to send a doctor and a young woman pretending to be married to make it more believable. A young girl from the pirate town of Senjan tries to prove herself so that she can join her town's raiding crew. A boy who was abducted as a child from the Jaddite side is now being raised as a soldier in the Osmanli army, lead by the Grand Khalif. Seressa also wants to send a second spy, a young artist, to go and paint the Khalif while also spying on him.

With all this talk of Seressanis, Senjanis, spying and different belief systems - honestly I found the first part of the book really hard to follow. I also didn't even realise that there were parallels to the real-world until I got to the Acknowledgements of the book so I think that really didn't help with me connecting the dots in my head either.

Once we start to get deeper into following the individual stories and you don't have to care so much about the country-level politics, I found the book more enjoyable. Pirate-archer-girl Danica makes for quite a badass character, as does the doctor's young wife, Leonora, who starts to come into her own as the book progresses. I also quite liked the interactions between the painter and the Khalif - quite a brutal guy, yet I like how he was humanised by his interest in the painting style. The female POVs helps to offset the amount of sex that the characters seem to be having - it's not explicit or anything, and maybe it's realistic to the time period (and realistic with people in general). But if this was only a book about a bunch of dudes, and it kept mentioning their sexual escapades with the locals I probably would have docked a star or two (lol).

Speaking of sex, there is also a touch of romance, but I feel like it was not quite enough. The characters actually seemed quite indifferent to each other and would go about their lives before things would suddenly wrap up neatly with a "Oh, actually I think I love this person", which was sort of nice, but not too satisfying to read.

Even with all of my nitpicks, this was a decent read! This is my first time hearing of Kay, but as a fun piece of trivia before beginning his writing career, he helped edit Tolkien’s Silmarillion, which was published posthumously in 1977.

This was the first book I read by Guy Kay. Apparently his trademark is to write fantasy novels, but modelled off of real historical periods and places. In this story we jump between Seressa (Venice), Dubrava (Dubrovnik) and Asharias (Constantinople) sometime during the Renaissance. There is a war going on between the Jaddites (Christians) and the Asharites/Osmanlis (Muslims/Ottomans).

There's a couple of different storylines going on here - Seressa wants to install a spy in Dubrava, and plans to send a doctor and a young woman pretending to be married to make it more believable. A young girl from the pirate town of Senjan tries to prove herself so that she can join her town's raiding crew. A boy who was abducted as a child from the Jaddite side is now being raised as a soldier in the Osmanli army, lead by the Grand Khalif. Seressa also wants to send a second spy, a young artist, to go and paint the Khalif while also spying on him.

With all this talk of Seressanis, Senjanis, spying and different belief systems - honestly I found the first part of the book really hard to follow. I also didn't even realise that there were parallels to the real-world until I got to the Acknowledgements of the book so I think that really didn't help with me connecting the dots in my head either.

Once we start to get deeper into following the individual stories and you don't have to care so much about the country-level politics, I found the book more enjoyable. Pirate-archer-girl Danica makes for quite a badass character, as does the doctor's young wife, Leonora, who starts to come into her own as the book progresses. I also quite liked the interactions between the painter and the Khalif - quite a brutal guy, yet I like how he was humanised by his interest in the painting style. The female POVs helps to offset the amount of sex that the characters seem to be having - it's not explicit or anything, and maybe it's realistic to the time period (and realistic with people in general). But if this was only a book about a bunch of dudes, and it kept mentioning their sexual escapades with the locals I probably would have docked a star or two (lol).

Speaking of sex, there is also a touch of romance, but I feel like it was not quite enough. The characters actually seemed quite indifferent to each other and would go about their lives before things would suddenly wrap up neatly with a "Oh, actually I think I love this person", which was sort of nice, but not too satisfying to read.

Even with all of my nitpicks, this was a decent read! This is my first time hearing of Kay, but as a fun piece of trivia before beginning his writing career, he helped edit Tolkien’s Silmarillion, which was published posthumously in 1977.

40,000 years in the future, five imperial queens take turns ruling the galaxy to ensure stability. As their bodies age, they transfer their mind into a new host body, allowing them to reign eternally. The host bodies are sourced from the queen's genetic children - and they battle to get the coveted spot of next host, so it's not as dystopian as it seems (well, it still is).

An arkship sets out from Earth in 2200, and ends up here 40,000 years in the future (something something space travel). They meet Finn, a high-ranking member of the noble class. As you'd expect he's a bit of a spoilt brat, but sick of the luxurious life he leads and instead wants to explore the galaxy.

The main problem with the story is the amount of info-dumping - the first 10% was quite a struggle to get my head around. Finn meeting the arkship also gives the author plenty of opportunity to infodump, as the arkship people have about 40,000 years worth of history to catch up on.

The last Peter Hamilton book I read (Pandora's Star) I gave 3 stars, which was also for the fact that it felt very long and quite confusing with all that was going on - so maybe this is just Hamilton's writing style.

Along with the queens and Finn and the arkship, there's also another subplot around a police officer dealing with spies and politics. To be honest I had the hardest time following this and couldn't explain to you what was going on, although all three storylines come to be tied together by the end.

If I let my eyes glaze over and speed through the long explanations, otherwise the book had an interesting plot and I was keen to see it through to the end!