Exiles by Andrew Pyper (writing as Mason Coile)

 

"I read this in 24 hours," was part of the recommendation I received from a library visitor the other day. Mason Coile's other horror novel about artificial intelligence (W1LL1AM) has been on my list for a few months, but her enthusiasm about Exiles pushed this to the front of the list. 

The plot is simple and terrifying: Astronauts aboard a space shuttle to Mars wake up from deep sleep to learn that something is wrong at their destination. The robots sent ahead of them to build the colony are not responding. But the astronauts' one directive is to continue the mission, so that is what they do as everything continues to go sideways. 

It is a suspenseful, exciting, short novel (just 200 pages). The pace never slackens: It is one thing after another.  Stories set in space are claustrophobic and this is almost unbearably so. Quickly, this book became not just about space and isolation but also about sexism, artificial intelligence, our fragile, brief life. Pyper was a writer who really had a grasp on storytelling and it is a pleasure to read. 

-Michael G.