One’s Aspect to the Sun

Debut novelist Ramsey uses classic science fiction tropes, but her setting cradles a more personal story of family trust and conflict. Capt. Luta Paixon of the ship Tane Ikai and her brother Lanar of the Nearspace Protectorate embody the technological legacy of their mother, geneticist Emmage Mahane. Emmage fled from her employer, PrimeCorp, when her children were teens. Now Luta and Lanar appear to be 30 years old despite being chronologically over 80. Luta’s husband, Hirin, connects her with an alien anti-aging researcher who wants the Tane Ikai to take him to a female human scientist, whom she hopes is her mother. Hirin, 92 and lacking the anti-aging gene, requests to join them so that he can die in space rather than in a care facility, and their daughter, Maja, despite hating both space and her mother, comes along as well. PrimeCorp is a cardboard cutout of a villain, but Ramsey soon shucks the bare-bones suspense plot to focus on the nature of relationships among teammates and relatives, in moments when death seems imminent and when it seems impossible. (Nov.)