The Cold Between and Remnants of Trust by Elizabeth Bonesteel
An interesting deep future, divided into three significant factions, and a number of colony worlds that think they’re more independent and self-sustaining than they really are.
It’s a tale of humanity divided – no on screen aliens, but some alien ruins do play a part. The three major factions are Central, PSI, and the syndicates.
We follow Commander Elena Shaw in both books; while we get other POV chapters and they’re often significant, they mostly round out Elena’s story. She serves aboard a Central Gov ship, which means that we’re mostly experiencing the universe from a Central POV.
PSI serves a big role in both books; local politics tangles the two groups together, and working their way through the accusations keeps Trey (our ex-PSI love interest) and Elena running together and sorting through decades of rumor and distance.
Central and PSI are both written as organizations of people as people, with factions and cross cutting interests, popular kids and those passed over and seething, keeping them from being one dimensional. [The third faction is mostly off screen and more inscrutable – the Syndicate – though they are foregrounded more in Remnants of Trust.]
The universe feels authentic, with lots of human touches — like all three factions existing largely to prop up colonies that constantly skate closer to collapse than their citizens can bear to understand; lots of wishful thinking and willful ignorance fills the colonies – but they’re not one-dimensional people sitting around waiting to be rescued either.
There’s also some love scenes; they begin early in The Cold Between, so you’ll quickly know if they’re to your taste, or more involved than you’re used to.
Becky Chambers is probably my favorite author, certainly my favorite that I’ve discovered within the last decade. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the sequel to A Psalm for the Wild Built, and continues to inspire. Both books were “delicious” in a way that made me pick it up and start reading it again the night after I finished my first read through.
Prayer is very much a book about friendship and obligation; the interaction between Dex and Mosscap is rich and layered and a beautiful way to muse about what we want out of life and our relationships.
If you want action and adventure, this is not the series for you. This is a world descended from an era that faced tremendous challenges, accepted them, and realigned their life to live sustainably and harmoniously. Even their sharpest edges and gravest worries feel like small beer in the 21st century… but what a beautiful approach to utopia they’ve created.
Dead Space by Kari Wallace is set a few centuries from now, in a more plausible and certainly more selfish future – one that’s easy to imagine that modern corporations have set us on the path to build.
Hester is a wage-slave police investigator for a corporation that she’s indebted to. She winds up elbowing her way into investigating the murder of a friend… who has their own secrets and discoveries that come to light as the investigation progresses. There are lots of twists and revelations that keep revealing new layers of the onion…