Book Review: Sunward by William Alexander

(I received a free ARC in exchange for honest feedback)

Cozy fantasy has been all the rage since 2020. Cozy sci-fi seems to have had a harder time getting off the ground (punintended), despite the ultra trendy solar-punk aesthetic being ready made for that exact purpose. (Why aesthetic and not genre? Check out my two post series on dieselpunk- 1, 2).

Sunward, by William Alexander is marketed as “a cozy debut science fiction novel by National Book Award–winning writer William Alexander, this story of found family follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.” I want to clarify that debut science fiction means this is Alexander’s first science-fiction novel, not his first novel, although it does appear to be his first adult novel and first science-fiction novel.

And to be totally honest, I’m not entirely convinced of the description’s accuracy. It pulls in a bunch of tropes that I don’t really see. The found family is, for the most part, made up of our courier protagonist (Tova) and the androids she raised. They’re not biological family, of course, but that’s not exactly found family either. Nor is there anything that really strikes me as being cozy, except that it does focus on family, and has a relatively small and focused setting (the ship).

A quick side note on androids, because the story revolves around them, their AI, and the data streams they use. Most of the setting is never explained, so you have to piece it together. Basically, when androids are made, they are primarily software that are placed into physical chassis. The software part of them, which makes the AI function, grows and develops over time, basically the same way that humans do. They develop their own personalities, choose their own names, mature in skill and experience, and choose their preferred pronouns. When these androids are young, however, they lack the skill to survive the complexity of the information streams, and the term the people in the book use is that androids will “drown.” Despite having humanlike personalities, aptitudes, intelligence, and creativity, androids do not have the same rights as humans. They are owned by humans, forbidden from writing, and generally mistrusted if they become too humanlike.

That all comes to a head when the massive starships docks on the moon suddenly collapse. Nobody knows how or why, but many, many people are killed, and the androids on the moon disappear. Add in the mistrust of androids and a zealous sun-worshipping cult, and the androids take the blame.

Meanwhile, we don’t see any of this happen, as we’re with Tova in her ship for the entire situation. She’s most concerned about helping Agatha’s ‘brain’ recover, so she seeks out one of her earliest AI children, who pretended to be human to get advanced degrees in robotics and AI. He has also disappeared and Tova discovers she’s not the only person looking for him after being attacked. Finding clues that he had left behind, she then sets out in search of him, which is a journey that takes her to most of her other former AI children. At the same time, the sun cult is chasing her for being a heretic who desecrated a grave and the people behind the initial attack.

Everything else in the description happens off-screen and we only hear about it second-hand. Hence, I’m not convinced the blurb is a good descriptor. I’m not even sure they confirm that the explosion was actually an explosion.

Overall, I did enjoy it. Tova is a refreshingly ordinary, realistic, and down-to-earth (no pun intended) protagonist. She can scrap in a pinch, but she’s not great at it. She can pilot and do the basic repairs essential for her job, but she’s no mechanical wizard. Just an ordinary woman with a deep love for her children, even if they’re not biological in anyway. As a character study and reflection on person-hood and bias, it’s very good. The androids are all deftly drawn, as are the supporting characters, making it a very three dimensional cast of characters. The end was ambiguous, but satisfying. I wouldn’t say it’s spectacular or groundbreaking or defining the cozy sci-fi genre like Legends & Lattes did for fantasy.

It’s a solid little novel. I finished it a while ago and still think about it, so that’s a success.

Sunward can be purchased here from Bookshop.org. (Always support your local bookstores!)