Chalk full of tension, the thrills of augmented reality, and an interesting library of bird facts, Yume Kitasei’s The Deep Sky is a solid science fiction thriller set on the Phoenix, a spaceship transporting the highly selective crew from Earth to Planet X with the hopes of rebuilding humanity. When explosion kills several crew members—including the Captain—and derails their course, Asuka is tasked with unraveling the mystery of what caused the explosion… and which of the people on their ship is responsible.

I genuinely fell in love with the character of Asuka as the story unfolded and we as the reader learn more about her life before becoming one of the members aboard the Phoenix and the intense years of training before the final few were selected. Asuka feels much more connected to the reader, because she is an Alternate—a jack-of-all-trades, the second choice for a mission she had dedicated years of her life to potentially join. Her deeply fraught relationship with her mother and her special interest in birds further fleshes out her character in a way that enhances the drama and intrigue of the mystery-thriller sections of the novel.

Speaking of mystery-thriller…. I still don’t know if they’re for me, but I think this was a fairly competent thriller entry in the science fiction genre. There were moments where the confusing hallucinations brought on by Asuka’s DAR—a neural implant that allows for fully immersive augmented reality—that made me feel more confused than anxious while reading. I think that sort of element works better in a more visual medium compared to in a novel, but there were still cool and visually interesting moments. Additionally, some of the flashbacks undercut the tension that the previous chapter had been building, which made the pace sometimes feel a bit disjointed.

Despite some of my minor hangups with this book, I’m excited to see where Yume Kitasei goes in their future writing projects, because they have a great talent for character work and conveying interpersonal relationships between characters with an earnest nuance.

I would certainly recommend this for fans who love the dramatic tension, complex parent-child dynamics, and humanity of Interstellar.