Davi Mai is a short story writer focusing on fantasy, science fiction, and transgressive fiction. Proxima Bound is Davi Mai’s latest novella. (Davi Mai, 2022)

Proxima Bound –  Humanity’s last hope rests with the colonists aboard the generational starship Attenborough bound for Proxima Centauri, a thousand years away. Catastrophe strikes when a reactor meltdown cuts off those in the ship’s front from the rear. Two factions must now struggle to survive. With four hundred years still to travel, we join a plucky teenager, “Thief.” She has found a way through the ventilation system, around the radioactive core of the ship, and into the front sections. The story begins as Thief is crawling through the ventilation shaft to access engineering and bring back, or ‘steal’ anything that Johan, the tech wiz of the colonists, can use to keep their section of the ship going. Deep down inside, Johan knows that there must be an AI onboard that can help them get an edge over the colonists at the front of the ship. This time, Thief brings back vital components that might help the rear-dwellers connect to the ship’s computer. For the first time in hundreds of years, there is hope. The colonists not only have to worry about surviving their environment, they have to constantly watch their backs because people are disappearing without a trace. To make matters worse, a new virus is stressing an already overworked makeshift hospital. Now that there is hope of communicating with the AI, Thief needs to crawl through the bowels of the ship, the furthest she has ever been, to retrieve the necessary components and hopefully rescue one of their own who was recently taken.

One of the best things about short stories and novellas is that the story is direct and to the point without unnecessary build up and other distractions. Such is the case with Proxima Bound. Right from the start, readers are introduced to Thief and how important this character is to the colonists’ survival. She is young, and therefore small enough to crawl through small spaces, but old enough to understand the harsh reality of what they are facing and how important her work is. All the action takes place aboard the starship, which makes it that much more exciting. The story is well paced, the language is down to earth, and the characters are relatable due to the main theme being the universal human survival instinct. Despite it being such a short story, the author manages to get readers to care about what happens to these characters, which proves how prolific of a story teller she is. Comic relief comes, ironically, via one of the antagonists, and the humor is sometimes a bit dark. An unnerving moment occurs when the AI, once online again, admits that she was programmed to make sure there are enough survivors to populate the new colony and luckily in this case it was the humans. Since there are still many years left in the voyage, hopefully this will become a series. Proxima Bound is a fascinating and suspenseful tale of human survival and is recommended for readers who enjoy science fiction and outer space adventures with a strong female character.

“Bianca swept through the corridors like a strong breeze. She told herself to slow down and adopt a more dignified poise, but found it hard to control her blood lust; to force down the urges welling up inside her— but prolonging the moment heightened the enjoyment when it came.”

*The author received a copy of this novella for an honest review. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to her.

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