Maybe I've just been missing true hard science fiction, but the grimness which makes the (*not a spoiler*) destruction of Earth in the first view pages of the novel suggests at first that there is nowhere for the novel/narration to go: I was quite wrong.

Using some hard truths of biochemistry, robotics, and physics, Pellegrino and Zebrowski still find room for history, theology, and hope if only . . .

"If only." There is one of the most important roles ethically speaking for the best writers: understanding our responsibility for our present and future.

"The Killing Star" has plenty of turns and unexpected moments, resolutions and untied strings. But mostly it uses not "grimness" but hard facts to reveal some pathways of real caution in our "innocent" arts and ambitions . . . and hope, too.

*Sidebar: Find everything Pellegrino has put his pen to for more like this. He is hardly without controversy and he has often been wrong, but when you forward 20,000 speculations of the future and miss the mark on about 100, read the other 99.5%.