Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2019
320 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
From the author of national bestseller The Book of Speculation, a poignant, fantastical novel about the electric combination of ambition and wonder that keeps us reaching toward the heavens.
Eleven-year-old Nedda Papas is obsessed with becoming an astronaut. In 1986 in Easter, a small Florida Space Coast town, her dreams seem almost within reach - if she can just grow up fast enough. Theo, the scientist father she idolizes, is consumed by his own obsessions. Laid off from his job at NASA and still reeling from the loss of Nedda's newborn brother several years before, Theo turns to the dangerous dream of extending his living daughter's childhood just a little longer. The result is an invention that alters the fabric of time.
Amidst the chaos that erupts, Nedda must confront her father and his secrets, the ramifications of which will irrevocably change her life, her community, and the entire world. But she finds an unexpected ally in Betheen, the mother she's never quite understood, who surprises Nedda by seeing her more clearly than anyone else. Decades later, Nedda has achieved her long-held dream, and as she floats in antigravity, far from earth, she and her crewmates face a serious crisis. Nedda may hold the key to the solution, if she can come to terms with her past and the future that awaits her.
Light from Other Stars is about fathers and daughters, women and the forces that hold them back, and the cost of meaningful work. It questions how our lives have changed, what progress looks like, and what it really means to sacrifice for the greater good.
"Swyler's beautiful story, told in eloquent prose, induces shivers of wonder. This meditation on time, loss, and the depth of human connection is both melancholy and astonishing." - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"This tale's originality brings to mind the quintessential pioneering writer who used science to explore the human condition, Mary Shelley." - Booklist (starred review)
"Grand in scope and graceful in execution, Swyler's latest is at once a wistfully nostalgic coming-of-age tale and a profound work of horror-tinged science fiction." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A masterful story that hops through time to tell a tale of love and ambition, grief and resilience ... It is full of joy and wonder, a reminder to never stop looking up into the stars and the infinite spaces in between them." - Nylon
"As smart and ambitious as its heroine, Light from Other Stars is an absorbing, propulsive story of exploration and loss." - J. Ryan Stradal, author of Kitchen's Of The Great Midwest
"A poignant, beautiful tale that perfectly captures humanity's timeless struggle to reconcile love and loss. As Nedda Papas faces mystery and danger both in the orange groves of her childhood and the vastness of space as an adult, Light from Other Stars keenly but tenderly illuminates the almost magical limits of science, the sacrifices that passion requires, and what it truly means to be a family." - Peng Shepherd, author of The Book Of M
"Wonderfully imaginative ... a poignant novel about the flawed but limitless love between parents and children. Swyler presses a deft finger on the fissures between art and science, love and loss, regret and hope, imprinting the reader's heart with an exquisite ache - the kind that lingers long after the story ends." - Aline Ohanesian, author of Orhan's Inheritance
"At once expansive and strikingly intimate, Light from Other Stars is a story you won't be able to put down ... This book is no less than a declaration that life is worth living, which makes it a vital book for our times." - Adrienne Celt, author of Invitation To A Bonfire
This information about Light from Other Stars was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Erika Swyler's first novel, The Book of Speculation, was one of BuzzFeed's 24 Best Fiction Books of 2015, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Her writing has appeared in Catapult Story, VIDA, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She lives on Long Island, NY, with her husband and a mischievous rabbit.
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