tamaranth | 2025/150: The Last Gifts of the Universe

2025/150: The Last Gifts of the Universe — Riley August

I have been viewing her last stand wrong. Like so many things, it is an issue of translation... It is not a stand — defensively — but a stance. A position. The last one they give to their loved ones, or the world, before they die. [loc. 1776]

Scout and Kieran are siblings, and Archivists -- interstellar archaeologists, searching for whatever killed every other civilisation humanity has ever found. Together with their adorable, plot-relevant ginger cat Pumpkin, they land on yet another dead planet (where Scout, breaking the rules, plants some seeds: 'it doesn't have to be dead forever') and find a recording made by one of the last survivors of an ancient civilisation. In turn, that leads to other planets, and a breakneck race against Evil Corporate Verity Co, who want to secure any data for themselves.

It was the cat that lured me in, obviously: but I kept reading because -- despite some clunky metaphors ('so irreversibly damaged that the data print amounted to Wingdings': really, centuries from now, people still remember Windows fonts? Why?) -- it's a sweet and thoughtful exploration of grief and loss: not only the dead civilisations and the woman in the recordings, but Scout and Kieran's mother, who's recently died.

Pumpkin is a delight, and so is Scout's love for him. The bond between the siblings, with its amiable friction, feels very real. And Scout is, subtly and in passing, revealed as trans: which does not change anything about the plot, except that the Verity Co. mercenary can show off her research with a simple deadnaming.

The SFnal trappings might not stand up to hard scrutiny, but the emotional arcs are solid. Also, cat in space! "...cats are magic in any universe." Truth.