A beautiful exploration of space, fallen civilizations, and our own humanity
—Amanda Khong, Bookish Brews
Bookish Brews Snapshot
The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August
When the Home worlds finally achieve the technology to travel the stars, they discover a graveyard of fallen civilizations. It’s up to Scout, an Archivist, to scour the dead worlds to find civilizations’ last gifts: technology, rituals, and maybe even hope.
👽 Aliens 💫 Atmospheric 📕 Literary Fiction 🤔 Thought Provoking
- Genre: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Book Review
Smart, fun, sweet, profound, delightful, lovely, strong
The Last Gifts of the Universe is a lovely and well-rounded science fiction novel. Riley August has a delightful way of balancing the darkness of a mysterious phenomenon destroying all life in the universe, a soft love story, the very human feeling of loss, and the hope to save us all. It is exciting, dark, and light all at once, making it such a wonderful cozy read. Speculative fiction is strongest when it is used to enhance universal human emotions or experiences. The Last Gifts of the Universe manages to make deep space, multiple worlds, and alien species feel like home.
The universe is dying. When the Home planets achieve the technology to explore the stars, they find nothing but bones and ashes of a dead universe. The people of Home don’t know what happened, but they do know that they must be the last ones left and whatever came for the other civilizations is coming for them. Scout is an Archivist sent on a mission to find answers. To find salvation. Tasked with scouring dead planets for the last gifts: technology, information, cultural rituals; Scout miraculously finds a surviving message from someone who witnessed the world-eating entity. This could be what Scout needs to save everyone.
The Last Gifts of the Universe most impressed me with the way it explored generations of people choosing not to learn from those who came before them. Civilizations that Scout is uncovering felt warnings of this mysterious entity, but often were writing them off as fiction because they didn’t trust the warnings. People believe themselves invincible and write off vague future tragedies so long as it doesn’t affect them today. This remains to be true in echoes across the universe, and across civilizations, all the way until the last civilization. At what point do we stop and listen to warnings from people who are different than us? At what point do we start thinking about how we can prevent the perils of tomorrow so the joys of tomorrow can come to fruition?
The Last Gifts of the Universe is a delightfully balanced sci-fi that perfectly captures my favorite thing about speculative fiction: using speculative elements to emphasize humanity. All at once, it is a convincing look into the perils of not listening to those who come before us and a beautiful story of humanity.
