Three and a half centuries ago, a generation ship left Earth and was written off, forgotten. But now it arrives.

The Able is too fast to stop. If it does not get ripped apart by the star it is bearing down on, it will keep going, through the system and into interstellar space. Gone.

On board, a geologist wakes from cryosleep to find himself the only survivor who remembers Earth. He is alone among tribes of people who have never seen a sky, who keep their failing vessel alive with ritual and chant, and who have no word for horizon.

The colonies of 18 Scorpii are in no condition to help. And no one there has the time, or the capacity, to care about the Able. Only an Elder who has outlived every friend he ever made, and a pilot who breaks protocol the way other people breathe.

Three trajectories. One window. And the slow realization that humanity's greatest adventure was never the journey outward.

It was refusing to leave them out there.

For readers of Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora and James S.A. Corey's Expanse novels: a generation ship story with worked-out orbital mechanics, no faster-than-light anything, and three point-of-view characters across two civilizations who carry the book. The physics is load-bearing. So are the people.

This is a book of convergence. Three threads run separately before they meet, and the science is not decoration: delta-v, comms lag and fuel budgets drive the plot and constrain what anyone can do about it. The tension comes from those constraints rather than from pursuit, and the payoffs are cumulative. The rescue does not save everyone. The ending is hopeful rather than triumphant. If you want military SF, alien war or a clean happy ending, this will disappoint you and I would rather you knew now.

Content notes: on-page death including a killing and an execution, decomposition and human remains described in detail, mass casualties, chronic pain and disability, grief throughout, frequent profanity.

Debut novel. A prequel novelette, Carolyn, is free at irvo.eu if you want to test the voice before committing to 129,000 words.

Honest reviews only, positive or otherwise.