Laura Hubbard

If you’re an employee of Parthenope Enterprises, there is no such thing as privacy. Your movements around whatever desolate space station you occupy are tracked constantly, and the only place you aren’t under video surveillance is in the comfort of your own quarters. Or so security officer Hester Marley believes. But when an old friend dies under mysterious circumstances after sending her an untraceable message, Hester is forced to reexamine her certainty about the Parthenope panopticon. In order to solve his murder—and indeed, in order to survive her investigation—Hester will need to reconsider not just her views of life within the company, but also what she knows of her own tragic past.

Kali Wallace's Dead Space is tense and kinetic. Wallace masterfully dances back and forth between two speeds, using them to guide us towards a destination that feels both surprising and inevitable. In some scenes, Wallace lingers over interrogations as Hester and her investigative crew dissect every word and facial expression of the dead man’s fellow crew members at the asteroid mine where he worked and died. In others, the narration careens from one impact to another, sometimes literally, as the body count on the mining station continues to mount.

Because it’s written in first person, the book centers almost claustrophobically on Hester. At first glance, Dead Space’s protagonist is not exactly dynamic. Hester is competent but miserable, having been forced into indentured servitude by medical debt from injuries she sustained in a terrorist attack. In the moment of the attack, her dream—to explore the moon of Titan as part of a team looking for extraterrestrial life—was ripped away from her, replaced by a sobering reality of imperfect prosthetics and a security job ill-befitting an artificial intelligence expert. At least, that’s the view of her we see initially.

Yet as bad goes to worse in the investigation, we witness Hester bloom into someone who is passionate, curious and fiercely intelligent. Dead Space is as much about processing grief as it is about solving a murder. The events on the mining station force Hester to fully reckon with her loss even as they push her to her limits, giving an intensely human throughline to a story that might otherwise lose focus during its many twists and turns.

The book opens with a bloody description of a body modification surgery gone horribly wrong, and descriptions of gore only escalate from there. But Dead Space gives readers who can stomach such things an amazing gift: a character-driven thriller full of secrets, mayhem and plenty of explosions that will leave them guessing from beginning to end.

They left as suddenly as they’d come. The Vai, the alien race who’d destroyed countless human settlers and whose violence was second only to their efficiency, inexplicably retreated, leaving salvage-worthy weapons and other materials in their wake. For terminally ill pilot Ash Jackson, first contact with the Vai meant losing everything. But their retreat presents an opportunity: With hundreds of Vai weapons scattered throughout the system, her dream of buying her way out of her corporate indenture and into full citizenship (and possibly a cure) is within sight. But when the salvage of a decimated warship produces the find of a lifetime, Ash is thrust into a web of intrigue that will shake not only her understanding of the Vai invasion but also the very balance of corporate power itself.

Karen Osborne’s debut, Architects of Memory, is a must-read for anyone who loves a good space romp. Part social commentary and part space opera, it is comfortable sitting between worlds. Osborne sets this first novel in her Memory War series in the aftermath of a horrifying first contact, but there are no aliens—only their remnants. The choice to show the Vai’s weapons and not the Vai themselves is a calculated one. Not only does it render the Vai as a shadowy, existential threat, but it also forces the action back into the realm of humanity. From predatory contracts that force uncitizens into near slavery conditions to the banal evil of corporate governance, there is plenty to horrify and excite within Osborne’s rich galaxy.

A word to the wise for readers not fond of spoilers: Read as little as you can about this book before you devour it. Avoid reading the back, or even the sentence on the cover (if you can) of this book. Architects of Memory is full of small surprises easily spoiled, and readers who like figuring out those little mysteries could easily be deprived of a few good ones. For readers who have already read too much, don’t worry—plenty more surprises lie in wait.

Architects of Memory is not “Firefly” or “Battlestar Galactica.” It is too grim to be the former and too hopeful to be the latter, although fans of both will likely love it. Rather, Architects of Memory is an exploration—not of new solar systems or of alien societies, but of human systems of power and the lengths to which corporations will go in order to gain and maintain just a little bit of market share, even in the face of certain destruction. A timely and powerful read, Architects of Memory will leave readers thinking for weeks to come.

Life isn’t easy in the great, wide universe. Especially if you’re a SecUnit who’s hacked your governor module in order to watch thousands of hours of human media feeds. Or if you’re responsible for the health and safety of a crew of humans who seem just so incredibly bent on getting themselves killed, either on standard survey missions or in attempted hostile incursions from the Corporation Rim. Despite the downsides of caring for humans (most notably, caring for them interferes with television time), Murderbot is content with its position within Preservation Station and with the life and associates it has collected over the years. But when an old acquaintance kidnaps Murderbot’s crew and demands its help as ransom, Murderbot is forced away from the media feed to save the day (again) and get its humans back safe and sound.

Network Effect is the first novel-length work in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries saga and the fifth entry in the series overall. Like Wells’ previous novellas starring Murderbot, Network Effect is a masterclass in tone. Murderbot’s sarcastic, adolescent humor suffuses the book, giving readers the distinct feeling of reading real-time logs directly off Murderbot’s strange, twisted core processor. The result is, at times, laugh-out-loud insights into human behavior. At others, it’s the feeling of intruding on someone as they try to understand exactly how to relate to their fellow sentient beings—and often fail. Despite its name, Murderbot is the most awkwardly human character to come out of science fiction in a long time.

Of course, Network Effect is far from a book on philosophy. If it is, it’s a book on philosophy wrapped in the perfect space opera, full of mysterious alien remnants, thrilling firefights inside of sentient space ships and political and corporate intrigue. Wells’ fight scenes are kinetic and tactical, juxtaposing visceral descriptions of Murderbot’s organic parts sloughing off with occasionally balletic fight sequences between Murderbot, its drones and whatever targets it happens to be facing off against. The result is not for the overly squeamish, but it is also gory within reason. After all, Network Effect is a book based in humor as much as it is in action.

New readers to the Murderbot Diaries universe need not fear; although it is well worth your time to go back and binge-read the first four novellas in the series, Network Effect delivers on its promise as a stand-alone story (one that, somehow, miraculously, only contains a few spoilers for the rest of the series). Although not every relationship is explained to its fullest, the book contains everything readers need to know about Murderbot and its team. And for longtime students of the many (mostly sarcastic or mildly annoyed) moods of Murderbot, this will be a satisfying return to some fan-favorite characters. No matter your background with sentient murder robots, Network Effect is the perfect fare for any seeking the perfect weekend binge read or escapist vacation.

Set hundreds of years in the future, A Pale Light in the Black imagines a universe where humans—and the branches of our military—have expanded beyond the solar system. Least among these branches is the Near-Earth Orbital Guard (NeoG), who are often derided by their fellow service members as being little more than “space cops.” A Pale Light in the Black follows the members of the NeoG Interceptor team Zuma’s Ghost. After a narrow defeat at the annual Boarding Games, the team has trained hard to redeem themselves. But that training is thrown into jeopardy when one of the team’s core members is unexpectedly promoted and reassigned. In his place they are given Maxine “Max” Carmichael, a young, awkward lieutenant with no experience in the Games. And when it becomes apparent that someone is targeting the team following a routine smuggling-busting mission, the Games aren’t the only thing Zuma’s Ghost will have to deal with.

There are plenty of TV shows and books out there for folks who want gritty, high-stakes action and intrigue. A Pale Light in the Black is not that. While it does have a mystery subplot with sabotage and murder, most of the book’s action covers the all-consuming Games. And while this might seem boring compared to alien invasions and intergalactic warfare, the Games make the perfect backdrop for the real focus of the book: the growing bond between the members of Zuma’s Ghost and their new lieutenant. At its core, A Pale Light in the Black is as much about Max learning to be more confident or Commander Rosa Martín Rivas worrying about her daughters as it is about the games themselves. Far from boring, Wagers’ focus on character growth and relationships is refreshing, providing a welcome palate cleanser from the grimdark dramas that have come to dominate much of the science fiction landscape.

But all this isn’t to say that the book isn’t exciting. Wagers has a gift for describing action, especially in the sequences surrounding the Boarding Games’ cage match-style fights, emphasizing the feel of a tooth coming loose after a particularly hard hit or the panic of knowing that you’re about to get hit hard. For readers who enjoyed Rocky or Top Gun as much as they did Star Trek, A Pale Light in the Black is a thrilling and heartwarming ride.