Facing extinction from apocalyptic climate change, a top-secret research facility releases a deadly virus to wipe out all the straight people and reduce the population overnight. With much less people to solve the ongoing issues afterwards the remaining population decides to expand in generation ships out to the stars.

Post climate-change is kind of a misnomer as we are in post-climate change now it is already happening all the extreme weather events are a part of it. Quite apart from the fact that billionaire mining magnates would squeeze the last dollar from the earth and then bugger off out into space, this book is more like a fantasy novel than anything else.

There’s no shame in saying you did not understand something and this book wasn’t really for me anyway. Hard sci-fi is called that for a reason and is also difficult to get right. It just doesn’t land for me especially the later sections and I did not care about what was happening with any of the characters at all.

Compared to something like Camp Zero with a similar post-climate change story but actually shows you more of what has happened and also that rich people get to escape most of the effects of it by living in their own protected cities while the rest of the population lives in slum-like conditions.

“What if being straight was illegal” is the kind of thing a teenager would write in their first story trying to be shocking and it smells of the writer just trying to stir up people to get more people. I am not falling for it! You need to bring more to the table than just doing a thought exercise. It belittles all the people who have fought for LGBITQ rights by making such base arguments. Think about what you write and put out something actually well thought out.

The sci-fi stuff is a bit bare-bones and just seems a bit sketchy and stuck in at the last minute. Due to the distances of interstellar space being so vast there would be so little chance of anyone alive today actually meeting intelligent life it is not worth considering. I prefer the Red Dwarf view in that there are no aliens and they only meet other people or the results of experiments in space.

If you really want to read it and decide for yourself or just have to read all the science fiction featuring LGBITQA themes by all means read this. Anyone else maybe have a look first before you dive in.

Rating: 2/5

Book details:

Format: 182 pages, Paperback

Published: April 26, 2024 by Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

ISBN: 9781035842988 (ISBN10: 103584298X)

ASIN: 103584298X

Language: English

Genre: Sci-fi