I’m obsessed with space travel stories these days. Blame (or thank) Spock.

In The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton, Cleo and her three best friends have grown up with the knowledge that Earth is pretty much a lost cause. Climate change is ravaging the planet, and there isn’t much to do now but wait for the inevitable end. After all, the Providence mission to head off for Proxima Centauri failed spectacularly twenty years ago, and there’s no plan or money for a new mission like it. But that doesn’t stop the four of them dreaming about going to space, and so they decide to sneak aboard the remnants of the Providence ship one day, just to look around. What they didn’t plan on is the dark matter engine starting up of its own accord and launching them into space. So they have to figure out how to survive when the dark matter starts to affect them in unexpected ways, and also how to deal with the hologram version of Wilhelmina “Billie” Lucas, the snarky captain of the original Providence crew. And then there’s the fact that this flight might lead to universe-ending danger…

This is a fun sci-fi story, especially for fans of queer sci-fi (like Becky Chambers’ books). This book’s biggest strength is definitely in the characters and their interactions. I love the main four, Cleo, Kal, Abe, and Roz—though it’s occurring to me now that, because I listened to the audiobook, I’m not sure I’m spelling a couple of those names right. Oh, well. I still love the characters. They’re goofy but also so devoted to each other; you really feel that they’ve known each other since childhood and have now navigated their twenties together too. This story wouldn’t work at all without these characters being a team, even if they come into conflict with each other on occasion due to their bizarre circumstances.

I also thought the time period was pretty compelling—the bulk of the plot takes place during 2061, close enough to our current time that the world and culture feels familiar. But seeing how hopeless everyone is about their survival on Earth is pretty sobering, a quiet warning and call to action for us to do more now. However, Hamilton doesn’t linger on these more bleak elements, instead focusing on the Providence mission of 2041, a global effort to send a ship of Earth’s best and brightest to another solar system to establish a colony there. It’s an optimistic goal, which I had some trouble swallowing, but it’s also a nice idea that we as a planet could come together like this to combat a common problem. And other stories (Project Hail Mary, Pacific Rim, etc.) have done it too, and I liked seeing the records of the Providence mission, especially knowing how it ended.

The current 2061 timeline is exciting as well, as it’s so different from the original planned one. Having these four characters who have had no astronaut training combine their knowledge to make it work is excellent, a testament to human determination and ingenuity. And while the romance between Billie and Cleo was really predictable, I still liked it. They’re a charming pair, even if their first bad impression of each other totally indicated they’d fall in love by the end of it. But seeing them learn to open up to love was very sweet.

I do wish, in terms of the more sci-fi side of the story, that we’d seen more of what the characters dubbed the Other Place. Without getting too detailed, there’s an element of parallel realities, and I really wanted more scenes that showed what that universe was like. I feel I barely got a sense of it, and having the contrast to our world would have been really nice; instead, I feel like we barely scratched the surface, so the stakes didn’t hit as hard for me.

I also wanted more backstory on Halverson, one of the important workers on the original Providence mission. Seeing how he was before the disaster, especially in regards to his working relationship with Billie, would have probably made his current character development more impactful. As it was, I felt like he was pretty one-dimensional. 

In the end, though, I liked The Stars Too Fondly. It’s a decently paced adventure with interesting sci-fi elements like dark matter, unusual powers, and high stakes. The setting being mostly on a spaceship the characters barely understood how to operate was intriguing, and the romances and friendships between the characters were lovely. It’s definitely a character-forward, rather than plot-forward, story, though. And honestly, I could have used a little more worldbuilding sometimes. But this was fun nevertheless, and the audiobook narrated by Vico Ortiz was excellent. Ortiz (whom I’m familiar with from Our Flag Means Death) does lots of fun character voices, which makes for a really entertaining listening experience.

The Stars Too Fondly is available now!