THE FOUNDRY

In response to a mysterious but welcoming message, a spaceship full of human colonists leaves a rapidly destabilizing Earth for a decadeslong trek in this SF novel.

As Earth reels under the combined effects of overpopulation and climate catastrophe, astrophysicist Jackson Hughes and his biologist wife, Adriana, finagle their way onto the exploratory spacecraft Vasco Da Gama with their 5-year-old son, Milo. The ship is part of Earth’s desperate response to a message from the far reaches of space, roughly translated as “Hello, humanity. We are the Foundry, come see us soon.” Along with 450 other passengers, Milo calls the Vasco Da Gama home for the next 20 years. He negotiates all the usual childhood, tween, and teen milestones as well as the complications of space travel. From Earth, messages of devastation increase, the most personal of which is the loss of Milo’s maternal grandmother when a flood destroys her town. Milo is barely out of his rebellious teens when the ship finally nears its destination, “a torus of gold and silver...its hull studded with geodesic domes of ivory and obsidian.” But as the Vasco Da Gama attempts to slow down for the approach, Jackson makes a startling discovery. The Foundry has taken control of the vessel and is pulling it in. The humans aboard soon realize that they are no longer in control of their fates and that, as one of the aliens they meet tells Milo, “Survival outside one’s home world takes cunning and cruelty. You will be forced to do things, to give things up in order to survive.” Mauldin’s SF bildungsroman is written with an intimacy and humor that will draw readers in to Milo’s familiar yet highly unusual rites of passage. The high-tech elements are nicely futuristic without being incomprehensible, and the story evolves fairly convincingly from teen memoir to alien adventure. There are a few derivative moments, such as a stereotypical “cat fight” between two girls who like the teenage Milo and an alien who speaks with Yoda-like syntax: “Argue this I will.” But overall, the many alien species are creatively imagined and the high-tech swashbuckling is suspenseful fun.

An enjoyable coming-of-age SF action tale that builds to a satisfying conclusion.