SUNWARD

The dark, intense cold of space is warmed by the emotional connections in this novel and by Lindsey Dorcus's expert narration. Courier Tova Lir, captain of the NEEDLE and loving foster parent of a juvenile AI, is on a routine mission when a lunar disaster upends everything. Suddenly, she's got an assassin onboard, and not one, but two, of her bot children are in lethal danger. Author William Alexander sets a fast pace, and Dorcus smoothly keeps up, applying various Earth accents to the people the NEEDLE encounters in the solar system. Crucially, Dorcus invests each of Tova's fostered bots with vocal personalities as distinct as their names: Cosmas, Torque, Halley, and Agatha Panza von Sparkles. Balancing humor and heavy themes, and ending on a cliff-hanger, this sci-fi romp is a charmer. V.S. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2025]