by Olga Ravn
First published 2018
The employees aboard the Six-Thousand Ship live ordered lives within their rigid routines. Everything changes when enigmatic cargo arrives and stirs desires they had buried deep. The crew members find their carefully constructed identities starting to crack. Their disciplined schedules fall apart as the mysterious objects exert an unsettling influence over them. Each employee faces questions they never expected to confront about their own nature and purpose. Fear mingles with newfound longings as they struggle to understand what drives them. Ravn explores the inner worlds of artificial and engineered beings who must decide what separates a person from a mere product. The crew discovers that questioning their humanity means confronting emotions they were never supposed to feel.
Genres: science-fiction, psychological-thriller, 21st-century, artificial-intelligence
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: existential-crisis, found-family
Setting: Six-Thousand Ship
Period: 21st-century
125 pages · Hardcover · New Directions
Content warnings: mental-illness