Book Review: The Stars Too Fondly
One hesitation I generally have with engaging with “real-world sci-fi” — that is to say sci-fi that isn’t, say, Star Wars, and is instead set in an around the planet Earth in the near to distance future — is that it generally feels pretty bleak. I understand why that is. The world at large feels pretty bleak no matter how you slice it, and fiction has always been a way for people to process their reality. Fortunately, I’ll sometimes come across a story that, yes, tackles the bleakness of the world around us, but that also infuses it with a message of hope, and such was the case with Emily Hamilton’s The Stars Too Fondly.
The story is set in a near-future Earth, where humanity once had aspirations of setting up a colony on another planet once it became clear the planet was deteriorating, but gave up on that when a freak accident caused the entire crew to disappear. Twenty years later, four friends — Cleo, Kal, Ros, and Abe — decide to break into the facility housing the now-defunct spaceship to investigate the mystery the world has given up on…and accidentally end up launching it instead. Their only assistance comes in the form of a hologram with the appearance, knowledge and memories of Billie, the captain of the doomed crew.
The Stars Too Fondly is a lot of things. It’s a queer rom-com, with Cleo and Billie going from snarky to something a lot sweeter. It’s got the Star Trek vibe of a small found-family crew doing their best to solve a problem. It’s a mystery that unravels just quickly enough to go from a compelling “what” to an intriguing investigation of “how” and “why.” But most importantly, it’s a book about hope, and love. It’s a lot like Mike Chen’s A Quantum Love Story in that way, with love the driving force behind the Big Important Sci-Fi thing that dominates the actual plot.
For comparison’s sake, the book reminded me of Disney’s criminally-underrated Tomorrowland, in that it tackled head on what it means to live in a world and a society that puts progress and the meaningful survival of the human race aside in the name of soulless greed and profit and despair. In that way, The Stars Too Fondly brings with it a message of hope, one that resonates long after the last page, and encourages its readers to go seek that hope for themselves, even if it feels out of reach.
The Stars Too Fondly hits shelves on June 11. Special thank you to Harper Voyager for the advance copy for review purposes.
