Science fiction and mystery make excellent bedfellows, and setting a “whodunit” in space is many a sci-fi reader’s kryptonite. If that’s you, do yourself a favor and wade through the backlists for Yume Kitasei’s debut novel, The Deep Sky. It’s hard to believe Kitasei wrote this page-turner a mere three years ago considering she’s published two more books since its release. But this was the novel that hooked me and more fans on her futuristic, high-stakes adventures. Content warnings include miscarriage, fertility issues, and death of a child.
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
It’s bad enough when an unidentified murderer is on the loose but when you’re trapped with said murderer in a metal box hurtling through space? No thanks!
This is the predicament Asuka and her fellow crew members find themselves in. Oh, also, their ship has gone off track and they have limited time to correct the error. The Deep Sky is a ticking time bomb that puts a space team responsible for populating the new planet they’re bound for in dire straits. Asuka, whose Alt role identifies her as a jack of all trades master of none type, is cornered into playing amateur detective while her team, many of them pregnant, focuses on the big ship problem.
From the explosion that occurs when Asuka and a teammate go on a space walk, alerting the members to strategic acts of terrorism, to the a-ha! reveal at the end, Kitasei makes it difficult to put this book down. Driving the thriller is protagonist Asuka who’s burdened by the sense that she’s always and forever the odd one out among her peers. She’s biracial, has a complicated family life, straddles two countries, and struggles with insecurities about not being enough of anything. On top of it all, Asuka has old beef with the crew, but everyone either has old resentments, skeletons in their closet, or murky backstories thanks to growing up competing against one another for a spot on the spaceship Phoenix. Nobody is above suspicion, anyone might be the traitor in their midst.
This is a messy, emotionally-charged thrill ride filled with danger, deception, and flawed characters. One of my favorite aspects of Kitasei’s books is that they’re inclusive. The crew of this ship full of potential child bearers includes trans and nonbinary people, and Kitasei explores biracial identity with the intimacy you only get from lived experience.
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