Book Review: Earthlight

I grew up in a sci-fi household. Star Wars is probably the most obvious, given what I cover most on this site, but my parents didn’t discriminate. Star Wars, yes, but also Star Trek, and of course, Babylon 5. The latter, in particular is a favorite of my dad’s, so hearing that series creator J. Michael Straczynski was penning a new original audio drama? Just color me curious.

Earthlight, out on July 9, follows a group of NATO fighter pilots, recruited for Project Earthlight, where they will fly an experimental new kind of ship in order to face a coalition of enemies on Earth, led by Russia. These ships are capable of spaceflight, and are unlike anything any of them have dealt with before.

I admit, Earthlight is a good deal more “hard sci-fi” than I am used to, with the added distance of also being a very military-action based story. I am used to both of these things in isolation — see Star Wars and Stargate — but the two at once did take some getting used to. But my brain was going about it all wrong, especially once I realized the closest comparison I could think of wasn’t anything strictly sci-fi: it was Top Gun Maverick.

All this to say, if you’re a fan of both the science fiction genre and Top Gun then you’ll enjoy this, especially since the comparison to the latter feels very intentional. As for me, I can’t wait to share this with my dad.

Earthlight released on July 9, 2024. Special thank you to Penguin Random House for the advance copy for review purposes.