This book is like if Murderbot DIaries and House by the Cerulean Sea had a love child and I couldn't get enough.

I quite enjoyed Sundowner. Mr. Alexander is an accomplished writer and imbued his lead character, Tova Lori, with personality and life. The same can be said for her robot “children”, AI consciousnesses she has fostered from infancy to adulthood. In the wake of tragedy that kills thousands and leaves robots under suspicion, Lir , an interplanetary courier and low-key scion of the Lunar royal family, finds herself pursued and persecuted by assassins, Sun worshippers, and other unexpected factions. This is foremost a story of love and determination, as Tir struggles to save a damaged “daughter” and reunite her AI family.

One thing is important to note; the book leaves many key threads unresolved. A key storyline seems resolved but many plots remain open. I don’t know why I expected a standalone but I did. Still, I will unfailingly read the sequel.

Well written, well paced, and generally delightful. The science seems suspect but that didn’t throw me. I think fans of Becky Chambers and Travis Baldree should enjoy this.

Thanks very much to NetGalley and Saga Press for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

When I started the book and saw a character named Agatha Panza von Sparkles, I thought to myself "oh, this isn't good". Cutsie names usually make me cringe. But I couldn't not read the book just because of that, could I? Well, I'm glad I continued. Really glad.

Agatha is an immature bot being raised by a human, Tova, as they travel the solar system as couriers. Yes, Tova fosters baby AIs in bot bodies to help them form a sense of self, and they get to choose their own names, hence the silliness. When they pick up a dead courier the trouble begins and Tova is on the run for her life, and Agatha's. This short, sweet novel is an easy, fast read. While it does delve a little into humans vs. bots and what is sentience, the plot is face-paced and not too complicated. A bit of a Becky Chambers feel, particularly with the foster family aspect. Recommend for readers of cozy scifi.

3.5 stars!

A nice bite-size read with a great premise and kind of a confusing follow-through. Definitely a good time but with a Becky Chambers comp my standards are going to be unreasonably high.

Much to her dismay, alongside her usual job as a courier, Tova Lir's boss encourages her to foster adolescent AI androids who need to be paired up with a guardian for a year to socialize and develop. After many foster children come and go, Tova's latest charge ends up scattered in the data stream after a tragic accident on Earth's moon. With tensions between humans and androids mounting and many forces at work behind the scenes, Tova must revisit all of her found and lost family members scattered across the solar system in order to put her charge Agatha's mind back together. I love this android fostering premise, and the moments where Tova is reminiscing about parenting all the androids and reuniting with them were some of the best parts of the book. There are also some really beautiful lines about family and grief, and I liked the concept of the Sun cult and would have liked to know more. The world-building and more action-forward plot outside of that gets a little lost in the sauce. I feel like I half-understand a whole bunch of components instead of fully understanding a select few, which made some of the scenes and character relationships hard to follow.

This book is very cool and there's nothing really bad about it, it's just a little overly ambitious considering it's cozy premise and 200 page run. Still probably worth a try and I'll keep an eye on what the author writes next!

Thank you to William Alexander and Saga Press for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

I really liked the setup to this book. An interplanetary courier has to reunite with her former foster children, who are AI bots, to saver her current charge. I also appreciated the theme of how their society treated artificial sentients vs human beings. But overall the narrative was just too tidy for me. Problems arose, then were dealt with quickly and easily. Most questions we had about the world or the characters and their relationships were answered via expository dialogue that read as unnatural. I wish it had let me read between the lines, and that the plot structure had been more dynamic than just going from point a to point b, point b to point c, etc.

It's a sweet and uplifting read. The vibe is definitely cozy, but still the story has real stakes with some action and the world is richly built.
I had a really good time in this universe and I hope to see more books in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Saga Press for the ARC of Sunward by William Alexander.

Sunward follows Captain Tova Lir, a galaxy traveling courier who raises baby bots in her ship for the first year of their lives before they gain independence. She and her 7th baby bot, Agatha, are on a routine run when they discover a smashed ship and another dead courier. By investigating the scene they set off alarms and Agatha takes a great risk in her personal safety to keep them both safe. Now hunted by those who were chasing the courier's message, Tova is on the run, Tova must escape assassins, religious zealots of the sun, and others as she tries to collect her other baby bots to help save Agatha and to get to the bottom of the courier's death.

This is a really engaging story with an interesting world-build and fun characters. A bird and an AI only talking through sneezing? A cozy assassin meet-cute? Engagement through reciting the NASA readouts? There is so much heart and found family brimming over in the pages. The story itself is also fast-paced and full of action. Overall, this is a really, really fun read.

God, I wish this was a full-length novel-- another hundred pages I think would have helped with all the layers of story we didn't get to explore or left on a bit of a cliffhanger. Or, maybe there is a sequel in order? I'd be totally down for that. I still have so many questions! I think this is because the novel is short and not for other factors, but I wish we had more information on the variety of religious systems that seem to be based in both Greek/Roman myth, but also the mentions of devils and angels and how it all relates. I wish we knew what was next for Tova's family after that ending! I want to write like 8 more questions I have but they would give away too much of the plot - I just still want more.

I know the marketing team is loving calling this a cozy science fiction novel, but I still felt like it has pretty dark subject material on a deeper surface level. For me, this meant it didn't classify as cozy, but I still really enjoyed it. Some of those darker themes revolve around the lack of autonomy/rights for bots and the ability to erase their lives at a whim, the overreach of the military/government on bot rights/the fears around the expansion of AI. In America in April, these topics do feel a lot heavier and more nuanced than they might if I were reading at a different time.

Sunward is a sweet short novel about a foster mom...of robots. Tova's day job as courier may take her away from her bio family but it led her into the amazing experience of being a bot foster mom and she cares for her bots even after they move on from her charge, connecting and instilling a sibling relationship among all of her fosters. When her current foster develops a problem, like any good parent, she goes to any lengths to save her, first to her bio family and then to her grown foster-bots. The lovely story of found family blends sci-fi with the cozy fantasies that warm your heart. The science geek in me appreciated the chapter titles' allusion to Newton's laws of motion. Philosophically, we can certainly read more into this story and as uses of AI expand in the world around us, with debates of risks and ethical implementation, consider Tova's and her brother's conflict, but I just enjoyed a story of the lengths a mom goes to for her kids.
I received access to this eARC thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, S&S/Saga Press) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.