[Review] The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August

When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilisations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left – and whatever came for the others will one day come for them.

Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts- interesting technology, cultural rituals – anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable- a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.

Now Scout, their brother and their sometimes-fearless, space-faring cat, Pumpkin, must race to save what matters most.

First published 2022 | 193 pages | Adult Sci-Fi | Storygraph | Buy from Bookshop UK

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Review

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book – like, really, really enjoyed it. I’ve very much been in a space sci-fi/space opera type mood recently, and this is exactly that kind of book. I especially enjoy them when you have a crew that you get to know – it’s often a guaranteed found family situation, which is definitely my cup of tea. The crew here is small and actual family rather than found family, but I still enjoyed that aspect of it, although I would have liked more of them to really get attached. Regardless, one of them is a grumpy cat in a spacesuit. What’s not to love? Also, our main character is non-binary (yay representation)!

I also enjoyed the worldbuilding/set up of the world – it’s a world where planets are being killed by a mysterious force and both corporations and NGOs send people out to these planets to try and collect any knowledge they left behind – anything that could be useful, but also anything that might indicate what was causing all these planets to die. The set up of this unknown threat to the existence of any kind of life provided a good high-stakes reason to keep the plot moving and the opposition of the corporations who want to monetise the knowledge behind paywalls and the NGOs who want to make the knowledge available to everyone provided a good space for the author to discuss the morality of knowledge and how it is kept and distributed, although it’s more of a straightforward condemnation of the monetisation of lifesaving knowledge than a nuance exploration… not that I disagree with that argument at all. Where there is nuance is examining the role of those that are involved in the monetisation of said knowledge by gathering it for the corporation in the first place. That is a more complex issue and I felt it was explored decently here, although our main character clearly has very strong opinions on the matter.

Another theme that I did appreciate was the discussion of different peoples goals in life and how they want to deal with potential extermination of a species/planet. It’s done with nuance and care and an acknowledgment that not everyone who doesn’t actively risk their life or give up their passions to search for world-changing knowledge is a bad person. Not everyone has to change the world in order to life a worthwhile life. This was perhaps the element where our main character did the most reflection or had the most development in terms of his attitude… although not that much (see my issues with the book below).

In any case, I felt that the highlighting of these two issues were the best parts of the book in the end. In fact, I felt the discussion of these issues was actually more present and more well-done than the supposed exploration of grief in this book.

This, however, is also where the disappointing aspects come in. The issue with this book is that there was a lot of promise and the start of a good execution and then everything goes downhill from there.

My absolute biggest complaint is the ending.

(No major spoilers about what happens here, but some spoilers in terms of how the ending hits.)

By the end of the book all the philosophical debates and internal conflict have been solved and resolved (if not particularly satisfyingly – see my next point), but the external conflict is never resolved. It’s so unresolved it feels like you’re being set up for a sequel, but this is a standalone. The author doesn’t give enough information for the reader to make up their own mind about even what might happen next and the major question that the characters have been pursuing for the entirety of the book is not answered. And it’s not like the conclusion is “this question is unanswerable” or “we don’t know how to answer this question” or “we don’t need to or won’t find the answer to this question, we’re going to do something different”, it’s “we’ve got a lead that we can maybe follow to maybe find the answer or another lead” – which is the same as every other development in the book the whole way through. The plot is almost like a scavenger hunt through space, and there’s X number of clues before you get to the final prize and the book just stops at clue Z, with no indication as to what the final prize is except that our main character intends to carry on with the scavenger hunt. It was extremely unsatisfying, to say the least.

To make matters worse, I read To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers a week or two after this, which is really similar in some ways and also has an unresolved ending but one that really, really works. And the juxtaposition between the two really did this book no favours.

My other issue is with the character development (or lack thereof), especially in our main character. Our main character has very strong morals and viewpoints (which is great!) but they frequently ask or require the people around them to challenge themselves and their own ideas, but rarely are they put in the position to do the same themselves. On the rare occasion when they do, you might see a change in their opinion but you don’t really see the process of that change. It’s like a moment of confusion, then a blip and then everything has righted itself according to the character’s decision. It doesn’t feel authentic and it doesn’t feel like development. Besides that, because most of the internal conflict happens to other characters, characters whose heads we’re not in, it feels very tell-not-show and a little bit shallow.

I also didn’t feel the main character’s supposed grief beyond when we’re told that he’s grieving – that aspect of it didn’t feel present enough for me, and I say this as someone who is usually extremely emotionally affected by stories about dead and dying mothers/parents. It just all fell a little bit flat.

Verdict

In conclusion, the lack of resolution and/or sequel makes this fall flat as a space opera and the lack of emotional resonance and character development makes this fall flat as a more literary exploration of internal conflict. However, the beginning is extremely entertaining, it discusses important topics that are relevant to our contemporary society – such as putting knowledge behind paywalls, or how to cope with and face a threat to human existence – with some nuance.

In fact, the beginning of this story is so good that I initially gave the book 3.5 stars overall despite giving the beginning 4 stars and the end 2 stars. The more I sat on it though, the more the end disappointed me and the middle wasn’t incredible either (3.5 stars probably), so I ended up giving it 3 overall.

In conclusion, the beginning is great, but unless you like a complete lack of resolution in your stories, I think there are better novels in the genre that you could read.

Unless you’re reading for the astronaut cat. In which case, by all means go ahead, I really can’t blame you. All hail the astrocat.