by Ken MacLeod
First published 2024
John Grant arrives on the planet Apis using faster-than-light travel, only to find human colonists who believe he has journeyed through time rather than space to reach them. The mysterious alien race called the Fermi have disappeared from Apis, taking crucial knowledge of the universe with them. Marcus Owen, a robot AI who has developed consciousness, suspects the Fermi did not simply abandon this world. He knows they would not leave the native species of Apis defenseless, and they will resist humanity's attempts to claim a planet that belongs to others. As Grant navigates this strange world where his very arrival defies the colonists' understanding of reality, he must confront what humanity's expansion into the galaxy truly means. The final volume of MacLeod's Lightspeed trilogy brings together questions of artificial intelligence, interstellar politics, and the cost of human ambition among the stars.
Genres: science-fiction, adventure, space-opera, artificial-intelligence
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Apis, Lightspeed
Period: Future
400 pages · Paperback · Orbit