THE WANDERERS

released 6 april 368 pages | Hardback/ebook

Author Meg Howrey Publisher scribner

It’s been 48 years since we first made it to the Moon, and though NASA says it’s committed to taking humans to Mars, it still feels a long way off. The Wanderers envisions a near future where a private company, Prime Space, has stepped in and is planning a manned mission to the Red Planet – but there’s a 17-month simulation in the desert to get through first.

Helen, Sergei and Yoshi are three of the most qualified people on the planet, selected to perfectly complement each other’s talents and temperaments. They’re going to spend the next year and a half in a simulated training mission, constantly monitored as they deal with isolation, broken gravity systems and all the mechanical problems Prime can predict for the real mission.

Though The Wanderers is set in a future world of robot carers and interplanetary voyages, it’s not actually about any of those things. It’s really just about people: the sort of people who have the drive and focus and ability to exist in the extreme conditions and isolation of space, but also their families left behind: the maybe-gay teenage son, the adult daughter who’s always performing, the wife that was never really understood. Beautifully written and constantly quotable, it’s a sumptuous study of humans and our need to improve ourselves, to dream of the wonders of space while still worrying about the people we love back home. Rhian Drinkwater