The Scourge Between Stars

"I’m a scaredy cat. I don’t watch a lot of science fiction horror, but I like reading it. I can’t square that circle for you. I like reading scary books, as long as it’s not late at night. This book has been compared to Alien , and I think it’s a good comparison. It’s about a woman named Jack Albright, who is the first mate on a doomed generation ship. They traveled all the way to another planet, but it’s not hospitable. So, after all that, they’ve decided to turn around and come back to Earth, but now their old ships are falling apart. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Jack’s father is the captain, but he hasn’t come out of his room in weeks for some unknown reason, so she’s left in charge. And then all of a sudden, stuff starts happening. She hears knocking on the ship’s walls. They get choppy messages from other ships in the flotilla, saying: ‘Don’t open the door to the outside!’ Of course, someone does. It’s a very fast read. You tear through it. Very gory. Yes! The Deep Sky is a feminist sci-fi thriller about an interstellar voyage that is knocked off course by an explosion. The ship is already halfway to another planet, and the crew begins to turn against each other as they try to figure out what has happened. What caused the explosion? Who did it? Who wants to sabotage the mission? I say it’s a feminist space thriller because it’s the inverse of a lot of old science fiction. The entire crew of the Phoenix is selected for their ability to give birth, so there are no cis men on board. The main character is biracial, so the story delves into impostor syndrome, feeling like you’re not enough, and wanting to find meaning in your life. I wrote it during the pandemic when I was feeling big feelings. I joke that in the first draft of this book, there was somebody bursting into tears in every single chapter. It was an outlet into which I channeled all the rage and the helplessness of 2020. But it’s fundamentally a hopeful book about trying to achieve something better for the next generation."