Love flourishes amid technical puzzles and planetary mysteries in Latner's strong debut, which offers a healthy dose of the sciences—astronomy, physics, geology, biology—along with an intriguing cast of characters. After the interstellar colony ship Aeon
leaves a failing Earth to build a better world, the people aboard discover that even the most thorough planning can't prepare you for everything. It's medical officer Catharin Gault's job to care for the crew, both in stasis and out, but even the best medical technology can't hold back the effects of time, especially when the Aeon
's voyage ends up taking hundreds of years longer than originally envisioned. The colonists' stasis sleep has left them open to dangerous side effects on the molecular level, changes that alter their health and their ability to have children. Prickly molecular biologist Joseph Devreze, a last-minute addition to the Aeon
's crew, may be able to repair the damage, but his solution could change humanity forever. Well-known for her hard SF short fiction, Latner should win new readers with this fine first novel. (July)
