Kea's Flight

by Erika Hammerschmidt, John C. Ricker

It's the 25th century, and humans have learned how to end unwanted pregnancies by removing and cryogenically freezing the embryos to save for later. But they never planned for how many there would be, or how much control people would want over their offspring's genetic makeup.

Kea was an exile before she was born. Grown from an embryo that was rejected for having autism-spectrum genes, she has been raised on a starship full of Earth's unwanted children. When a sudden discovery threatens their plan to find a home, Kea must join with other rejects to save the ship from its own government.

Genres: Science Fiction, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Disability, Queer, Dystopia, Space, LGBT

571 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 2, 2011

About the author

My first name is Erika. Not Erica. Not Ericka. My last name is Hammerschmidt, which has thirteen letters, including five consonants in a row. People still find it easier to spell than my first name.

In college I majored in German and Spanish. I also accidentally minored in art, just by taking so many art classes for the fun of it. I grow my own vegetables and sew my own clothes. I am obsessed with pet birds and reptiles. I make jewelry that looks like a Renaissance Fair gone wild.

I'm an author, artist and speaker who moved from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, and then to Los Angeles. Going by temperature, I'm on the road to hell.

I work in a pharmacy as well as giving speeches on autism and writing books.

Reviews

[Allison Hurd · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first third of this book held so much promise. You can tell it was more carefully edited. The rest unfortunately suffered from bloat and moustache twirling.

CONTENT WARNING: discussion of abortion, ableism, sexual assault (groping), homophobia, death of children, religion eating disorders and force feeding

Things that were cool:

-Gen ship idea. What if the babies we couldn't keep were sent in cryo to become the first wave of settlers on a distant planet? What would that society look like?

-Focus on people with autism spectrum disorder. It was cool to see so many characters with disabilities in the forefront--this focuses on autism and personality disorders

-Reason for kids being the catalyst. Yes they're teens out to save the world, but for a reason that isn't "the adults are dumb dumbs."

Things that needed to be axed:

-Scene framing. The author didn't understand how to frame a scene. If someone is struggling and is soothed by someone sharing banal information with them, you say "I chat with him about nothing in particular until he comes back down". You do NOT then explain about how genders work in three different languages for several pages of text, for example.

-Anime hero explanations. You know how in some anime someone heroic does this enormous deus ex machina and then monologues about how it's not actually out of nowhere, that there is a reason for how they could do this? Yea, that's all the points of resolution in this book.

-Uneven writing. Lots of cool ideas with lots of stuff that should have come out in post.

This was a 4 star read that shot itself in the foot and kept walking. Too bad!

[Alia · Rating 2 out of 5]

My kingdom for an Editor
Kea's Flight by Erika Hammerschmidt

This is such a hard book to rate. I found two sides, one which I liked, the other I didn’t much. For one, the whole set of ideas, characters (on the first half) and setting are amazing. On the other side, the execution, the lack of editor work and choice of progression were problematic for me.

The book takes a deep dive into tricky and not explored enough themes like autism, mental health, abortion, human rights, disability and how relative the normal label can be and the dire consequences of letting prejudice rule things. In a dystopian future where abortion is substituted by embryo removal (because is a sin, of course) of those deemed undesirable (another murky arena here), the way out is to send the unwanted to grow on decaying ships with shady people to take care of them, on course to probable planets to establish colonies. That felt a bit of a stretch, humanity has refined through history the out-of-sight (supposedly… come on) disposal of entire groups of people in cheaper, less fantastic ways. Anyhoo, we are in one of those ships, filled with kids that are treated poorly, which take us to the very real and actual misunderstanding of how some of these disorders work, where does that characteristic relates to value as a person and what opportunities might be denied by ignorance, worse, how much damage these attitudes can bring.

The characters are where the book shines, for the first half at least. We get a truly neurodivergent group of people, the mains being Aspies and autistic developed with thoughtful care, and they give us a glimpse of their perspective…. Maybe a little too much and here is where the first issue pokes out, there is a flood of ideas to communicate that aren’t filtered and the problem is not those ideas on themselves (I found them extremely interesting), but the delivery. They became extensive monologues that bury the plot, and the characters interactions feel less genuine and more as a stiff vehicle for those ideas. After the first half, even the characters are deeply buried in this flood and things start to fall to pieces. The interesting characters lose consistency, having huge shifts from one moment to another, lacking the progression and depth expected for them to take place. And finally, the ideas themselves lose track.

I guess the issues that bugged me more are borne of this departure. Take Kea for example, at first, she is strong willed and has a very clear independent and creative thought, this is completely washed away by her love for Draz. I kept thinking: Poor girl! The excessive praise for Draz, checking on him for things she already knows, it made a hollow out of her, she even starts doubting her value. What if she didn’t have the opportunity to trick Screen Man at the end? Where would her self-worth would be? You also wonder here, where is the worth of non-savant neurodivergents? She is a supposedly linguistic savant (in a way, it felt more like she liked languages a lot, but I am ignorant of the issue, so…) and by that her super ability “isn’t useful”. Like… what? And here comes Draz, the computer savant, I didn’t understand the “leader” notion, it felt mismatched. I think their notion of group is the same, the way it holds itself and how they interact is different, but having ideas and hacking doesn’t make a leader out of you, hell, you don’t need to have any savant ability for that, it is a quality and hard work on its own. I don’t know what I missed, but the role of the group in some point was make up chatter and poke their eyes out… they couldn’t even pack some water? Study a blueprint of the ship? Check the situation beforehand? You don’t need to be a genius to do such things and neither the group has to hold hands and sing kumbaya, being overwhelmed and such, more like... purposeful ninjas (don’t get me started with ninja-Draz scene) with their tasks defined? I have to confess; the level of frustration was off the charts by this point.

The Gabria situation was shallowly handled (this is subjective of course), a huge wasted opportunity too and felt a bit weird the “I have empathy when others have empathy for me”. Why be greedy with empathy-like-gold-nuggets? It kind of gave me the impression that it reinforces the stereotype about care and empathy for neurodivergent people, when it is a more complex subject. Maybe I am not seeing something, the Gabria chick thing could have been a nice way to link and explore both things a bit deeper, just saying.

I don’t think I will continue the series, I liked very much what the author has to say, but the book didn’t work for me as I would love to.

[Jukaschar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kea's Flight is not an easy book to review. While there are some things that I really like about the book (for example autism representation in both author and characters), there are also things that I really didn't like.
I'm autistic myself, so it is extremely enjoyable to come across autistic characters in speculative fiction. I do think that the authors are doing a great job at presenting their main and secondary characters and writing a story and a world where being autistic, neurodivergent and/or disabled really makes a difference in how you will live your life. I think it's even important to shine a dystopian light on these topics, to metaphorically emphasize real world problems.

Why then do I only give three stars to Kea's Flight?
1. Kinda technical issues: I did not much like the pace. From hectic to extremely slow, everything was to be found and to me this just wasn't ideal. Even though I'm aware of Erika Hammerschmidt's stance on editing I think the book would have profited a lot if someone professional had given their thoughts on how to structure and pace the plot.
2. The ending is a lot too utopian for me and feels like a major mistake. I think this created a totally unnecessary black-and-white overlay to the whole book. From my experience I also think that the majority of autistic people would not enjoy being involved in governing processes, because of anxiety and self-criticism issues that are really typical for many autists. That's a minor detail though and something I could've overlooked easily.
3. Major personal, totally subjective issue in relation to Kea's special interest: as a linguist and person deeply interested in languages I was at first happy to find that the main character of the book is interested in languages, too. But my joy didn't last long as Kea's interest in languages is neither researched well nor executed well in my opinion. And that's just upsetting. I do know it's a very personal, eventually minor detail, but to me it matters a lot.
4. I agree very much with Ada Hoffmann's review where she points out that it's a major flaw of Kea's Flight that only 'stereotypically shiny Aspies' are represented fairly. Go read her review and explore her Autistic Book Party reviews, they're great!

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kea's Flight is a superbly original science fiction plot that's smart and relevant, but marred by a cumbersome execution that becomes mired in the minutiae of various autistic characters' thoughts. Thus, a highly imaginative story is bloated with too much verbiage. I loved the ideas in this book, and the authenticity of the characters.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read the synopsis for Kea’s Flight it definitely got me interested, but I had no idea what an awesome book it would turn out to be. And by awesome, I definitely mean awesome - this is already one of my favorite books of the year.

I’m not usually one for sci-if/futuristic space adventures, but there was just something about this novel that made it incredibly appealing. The characters were probably what did it for me, they were so well-drawn and felt very real. The characters are all teenagers who had been into space for having genes on the Autism Specter and I think it would have been easy to let them all blur together until they were all too similar. However, this is far from the case. The authors, Erika and John, have succeeded in creating relatable and flawed characters - Kea with her love of languages, Draz with his computer knowledge and emotional issues, Chris and his anger management troubles. I could go on forever, but the point is, I haven’t read characters such as these in a long time.

The plot was also great, with just the right amount of dialogue and action. There was a lot to wrap my head around in this novel, but the authors succeeded in creating a world that was believable and fairly easy to grasp. Some of it is quite daunting - for example, the computer knowledge involved - but I felt that it was all explained extremely well. There are a lot of ethical issues tackled in Kea’s Flight, and the authors did a great job with coming coming up with unique perspectives. The novel really made me think about a lot of things, and I loved all the differing opinions on some very real issues.

Overall, I honestly don’t think Kea’s Flight could have been better. It’s a self-published novel, but it certainly doesn’t read like one - I only managed to pick up a couple of spelling/grammar errors. For any 500 page book that’s an achievement! With richly drawn characters, and a plot to rival many of the novels out there at the moment, you really don’t want to miss this book. I highly recommended Kea’s Flight.

[Zoe Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I ever need to point someone toward an example of autistic characters done right, this is the book I’m giving them.

This is a science fiction story. It’s a dystopian story (yes, this is a dystopia, although I had no idea going into it). You could make the case that it’s YA, although it’s definitely not limited to YA audiences. And it’s a book about autism – but if that phrase inspires dread in you, making you think of cliched characters and special-episodeness, don’t run off. If you’re sick of those stories, then this may be exactly the book you’re looking for.

This book, like Kea herself, is subtly subversive. Take Draz. In many ways, Draz looks a lot like the stock aspie character we’re all familiar with – the painfully literal-minded computer whiz driven by logic and perplexed by emotions. But he isn’t the main character. He isn’t a quirky supporting character. No – he’s the love interest. The significance of that isn’t just that an autistic character, for once, got to have a genuine romantic relationship that wasn’t just an opportunity for one or both participants to grow as a person (*cough* Adam *cough*). It's also that normally that particular set of traits is used to show a character as other. Even if that character is the main character, it’s intended to set that character apart from the reader. (Think of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Readers were not supposed to relate to the main character in that book.) The love interest in a book is also set apart from the reader (you’re not generally supposed to relate to the love interest) – but in a completely different way. The love interest is set apart as an object of desire. So in a way, this author is using the character type the way it’s normally used – but at the same time twisting it into its opposite. Subtle. Subversive. And meanwhile, even though Draz fills this familiar role, he is also a fully realized character in his own right. He isn’t just an example of autism. He’s Draz, and there is so much more to him than a few well-known autistic traits.

And why would he need to be an example of autism? This book is full of autistic characters. Autistic characters who are different from one another. In this book, autistic characters don’t just exist as a counterpoint to neurotypical characters (or to the neurotypical reader). They are people in their own right. They aren’t defined by their autism, nor are they defined by their relationship to neurotypical society. If there were an autistic version of the Bechdel Test (something like: multiple autistic characters who talk to each other about something besides autism), this book would pass with flying colors. (The only other book I can think of at the moment that might pass that test is Viral Nation.)

Part of why the author is able to pull this off is probably that she’s on the autism spectrum herself. Instead of starting from an outsider’s perspective, she is able to get into Kea’s head much more deeply than a neurotypical author would be able to. It’s hard to bring up specific examples of this, because really the entire narration is the example, but one thing that stuck out to me was the characters’ obsessions. They weren’t treated as colorful quirks or as preoccupations that pop up every so often when the character is supposed to be paying attention to something else. Instead, they’re deeply woven into how the characters think and what they do. How different would the book have been if, instead of leading her to develop a communication system, Kea’s obsession with language and linguistics manifested as a collection of facts about linguistics sprinkled throughout the text, and Kea insisting on talking about linguistics when other people are trying to have important conversations with her? And yet I suspect that’s how most authors would have written it.

There are so many subtle things in this book, contrasts and parallels never explicitly explained but left for the reader to discover. Like how everyone makes so much of the autistic characters’ social dysfunction and yet their main guardian’s attitudes towards people are a lot more dysfunctional than anything we see from his charges. Or Kea spying on Jake and Chris’s unauthorized communication the same way the BGs spy on everyone’s communication. Or the parallel to Gabria’s story – to the way Gabria responded to being rejected by Kea and the others – in the story of Kea’s disastrous essay (how she was looking for approval from the BGs when she wrote it, and how their reaction was one of the main things that led her to become a rebel).

There’s a saying, attributed to Chekhov, that if you show a gun on the wall at the beginning of a story, it needs to go off by the end. There are lots of (metaphorical) guns lying around in this book, so many that at first I mistook it for a lack of focus. I say “mistook” because by the end of the book, every single one of those guns had gone off.

I only had two quibbles with this book. The first is that a key scene near the end hinged on a character having a foaming-at-the-mouth reaction that struck me as a bit exaggerated and not entirely believable. The second may best be described by analogy. Earlier this year, I was watching a lot of the British TV show Spooks (MI-5 in the US). An American character showed up every so often, and while the British actress did a passable American accent, the way the character spoke – the words she would choose, the way she would structure her sentences – was still undeniably British. Likewise, in this book, Chris and Jake and Blaro aren’t autistic, and aren’t portrayed as autistic… but their dialogue is, in some indefinable way, still autistic. But neither of those things spoiled my enjoyment of this book.

If you want a smart, subtle sci-fi story, a dystopian story that doesn’t look like every other dystopian story out there, or – especially – a book with autistic characters who are fully-developed people, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Your re-education session has ended. Goodbye, and remember to make good choices."*

The 2400s. On a spaceship headed to a planet to establish a colony called "Charity IV." The future colonists are teenagers with disorders like autism and dyslexia, birthed from vats and raised largely by robots on ship. These were embryos that would have been aborted back on Earth, but starting in the 2200s abortion was outlawed and babies that would have been aborted instead were “retrieved” and frozen for the future.

Kea, her hacker boyfriend, and their comrades need to keep from being sent to the Re-Education Room* by the robots and so communicate with each other via a special sign language and code that they use while pretending to play games in the rec room.

The setup seemed more believable than the plantation slavery on the ship in An Unkindness of Ghosts, but I did not find it engaging enough to enjoy the whole book. Improbable situations, stilted dialog. The main character went off on tangents and seemed more like a vessel for messages about autism, than a real person on a real ship.

My favorite parts were Kea’s debate with Brandon, and the tangent about the differences between tenses in German and English. That digression that had nothing to do with the story, but since I’m living in Germany I was interested in the topic.

IMO would benefit from strong -- vigorous -- editing and being shortened to a novella. I thought I might learn more about what it’s like to be autistic, and although the characters often verbally reminded each other of their challenges a la "I’m autistic so I go off on tangents," "Well I'm a schizophrenic so I enjoy sharing obscure facts, here's one about autism," I didn’t feel my mind was expanded much. Nor my heart.
I wish Kea and company well on their future endeavors, but have no plans to read more about them.

[Landon Cramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this is another one that is a game changer. i like sci fi but there are so many copycats out there. this is one of the first science fiction books for a real long time I've read which is original. it has an underground following(like most really good quality work) and if you read it you'll get why. I read one reviewer here say it started too slow. if you are like that person and need a lot of people jumping over stuff on horses or whatever in order to keep your interest, then you might now like it. like all good authors, Hammerschmidt takes time to build her characters and form the plot. people with a lot of reading experience will thank her for it as that's what makes good literature. the story really picks up anyways and fast and it is really really memorable. Something new, memorable and original which intelligent readers can really get lost in. Kea's Flight is so rereadable(4 times reread) and I really hope there's a sequel in the works.

[Sendi]

I really liked the book, especially the main character and what goes through the head.

[Richard Bunning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have fallen in love with this book, and already miss its adventure. The writing style flows like water, painting pictures that seem to float off the page. The main characters are interesting and deeply drawn, serious issues are bridged, suspense is held, and the book unravels to a suitably satisfactory and less than expected end.
A wide spectrum of readers should be as affected as I am, from Young Adult to “Seen-it-All” Veterans of a thousand books. We see the story through the eyes of a slowly maturing young girl who starts life in the deeps of autistic isolation, and follow her as she develops her savant skills in language and learns to interact with her peers. We are on a space-ship that is physically divided between a great number of variously handicapped children, living dormitory lives, and their controllers, the BGs, who “run” the ship. The novel seems to me to so well describe existence amongst the variously handicapped and marginalised, with their sometimes useful gifts. I am sure the insights and deep connections we feel with this bunch of “rejected humanity” would have felt less strong, if it were not for the fact that the authors have a particular closeness to autistic spectrum handicaps themselves.
This book is not just a must for those with an interest in science fiction, but should also be on the reading list of those who aren’t naturally sympathetic to that genre. As a writer of speculative fiction I started reading with high expectations, otherwise I would not have chosen this one from a pile of hundreds. It was one of the best totally undirected reading decisions I have even made.
There are a lot of social and philosophical issues covered in this story, from prejudice to individual rights, from the needs of society to equality of opportunity and the future of mankind. There are also many of the more familiar scientific and technological ingredients that are the grist of SF writing. All are blended into a plausible adventure that takes place on a cheaply produced tin can of a spacecraft, run with variously obsolete equipment, as it powers towards a predetermined destination. This is a destiny that needs avoiding if our unlikely crew and passengers are going to have much of a future. A thick fog of expectant failure grabs at us as we follow the story of this unlikely bunch of discordant friends, and get glimpses of their tenuous, unidentified supporters. So many varying emotional strands often weaken, but sometimes strengthen, any hope of survival. We have love, hate, paranoia, fear, pain, inferiority complexes, totalitarian venom, distrust and blind support all rearing their heads in a threatening to be tragic soup. And of course, with having so many classical elements of science fiction, even artificial “intelligence” raises its electronic head.
I really hope there is a sequel to this fine novel, as I really can’t abide the idea of missing out on the future adventures of Karen Anderson and Zachary Drazil.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

https://aspeccharactersoftheday.tumbl...

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book and I'm excited to see more from Hammerschmidt. I read the first edition which has some harmful/outdated terms (such as a bit of a hang-up on the concept of Asperger's and savant skills) which is understandable for a book published in 2011 by a person with that diagnosis. In addition to this, the co-authors' name is Elle (or ZA Tanis) and it just really bugs me that it was so hard to find their name online, as even Amazon and Erika's website (and THIS website) have her deadname. I've looked a bit into the author and her partner/contributor, and I believe the errors are the result of their ongoing self-education into the confusing world of neurodivergence and gender identity. These meta-issues aside, the writing could have used some revision which was exacerbated by the author-self-insert protagonist bragging incessantly about how great of a writer she is. This is hyper-critical of me, but I must explain that this book is an amateur effort...that punches way above its weight class.
The author presents us with a lived-in dystopia that feels honest and terrifying. She perfectly captures the feeling of millennial self-diagnosis/ the ex-gifted kid experience through a fantastic literary allegory. The book seems to ask the question, What if Winston Smith was autistic? What if the victims of authoritarianism had been forced into masking their differences, capable of divergent thinking, and unable to accept illogical systems without explanation? I really, really enjoyed this book, and I hope it gets re-released with some edits so that more people can enjoy the fantastic concepts therein.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kea’s Flight is a strange hybrid of science fiction, political dystopia, disability rights advocacy and coming-of-age story. It takes place in the future, on a board a spaceship which moves with near-light-speed from Earth to an unknown planet, which the population on board is meant to colonise after the 21 years it takes to get there. The entire story takes place during the space journey spanning almost 21 years.


The Background Story

The purpose of the mission (along with others like it) is to solve a domestic political dilemma faced by Earth’s government. Earth’s ideology and population at the time of departure can best be described as the American Bible Belt gone global.

The dilemma is that the need to prevent overpopulation on Earth and the availability of advanced prenatal screening technology that detects potential disabilities and other genetic problems in embryos and gives the future-parents the choice to bail out of the pregnancy – collides with the popular opinion that abortion is murder.

Therefore, “removal technology” replaces abortion to end unwanted pregnancies, and the removed embryos are cryogenically frozen and stored; their numbers accumulating. Eventually, a series of space colonisation missions are designed as a political solution and PR project to get rid of the frozen embryos in an ethically acceptable way.

However, all that takes place long before the story starts. Time tensions is one of the interesting aspects of the story.


On the Spaceship: The Plot

The spaceship the story takes place on, is one of those “garbage ships” with unwanted potential people, sent off from Earth to colonise a supposedly habitable distant planet.

The ship consists of two sections connected by a tube. One section is for its staff (“the BGs”) and the other for its people load (“the Rems”). The Rems are all mentally disabled kids – many thousands of them, greatly outnumbering their guards – with embryo-stage diagnoses like autism, Tourettes and dyslexia. They are all of the same age, since they were all gestated and raised on the spaceship under its strict, robot-enforced big-brother like regime controlled by the BGs. They have obviously never seen Earth.

Without revealing too much, the plot has to do with the fact that just like the ship’s load of disabled kids are people who were not wanted on Earth, its technology is a mix of highly advanced ai systems and crappy old computers, all of which have one thing in common: they were not wanted on Earth for various reasons, like poor quality or dangerous ai features. Even the staff are Earth rejects – selected convicts with relevant experience like child care and computer programming.

In a twist of absurdity, Earth may no longer exist at the time the story takes place. In the 21 years it takes the spaceship to reach the destination planet at near speed-of-light, 1100 years have passed on Earth and on the destination planet. Earth’s government that designed the mission, and which’s propaganda the BGs so zealously enforce, did so in an ancient past and human civilisation on Earth may have collapsed long ago.

The story follows Kea, a girl prenatally diagnosed with autism, as she grows up on the ship and later becomes part of a group of seven friends, all with prenatal mental diagnoses, mostly autism – nerds highly specialised and capable in each their area of interest such as computer programming, physics & astronomy, math, language, and politics.

The composition of the group is obviously a handy set-up for the dramas that unravel as they gradually discover the truths about the mission design and the general condition of the ship’s technology, and the ship’s government in denial. The friends all have each a unique set of abilities and vulnerabilities that makes them relatable, distinct, and highly useful for the plot.


My opinion

I also enjoyed the action parts, all the descriptions of the ship’s interior and its society on board, and the philosophical implications.

What I did not like much was the dialogue and the characters’ tendency to waste time talking about feelings, random thoughts, sex and interpersonal issues even in extremely urgent emergency situations. I felt like shouting SHUT UP AND FOCUS, and found myself skimming pages even in high-suspension action scenes to get on with the plot and past all the talk.

I also wasn’t fond of any of the romances. I do understand how they may be relevant in the story, given that the characters are teenagers coming of age, but at times it was like reading a teenage romance instead of a science fiction story.

Also, I found the book too demonstrative about its disability / autism advocacy agenda, almost propaganda-like, using the characters to provide explanations that would have been better left out, conveyed indirectly, or maybe put in an appendix because it somewhat undermined the authenticity of the characters.


------------- [Spoiler alert:] -------------

Finally, I was looking forward to see what happened at the destination. There were some (thrilling) complications to that, but the end point of the story was still a planet and I was still waiting for the culmination on the journey. I was therefore disappointed about the story’s ending, which was a happy mix of romance and a promising future, but no planet yet. It is like the ending is missing and after 570 pages, that is frustrating.

In summary, I think the story idea is brilliant and the plot and scenery is fascinating, there are just many sidetracks and the dialogue is very dominating, wordy and conscious – as if the reader can’t be trusted to understand but has to be lead by the hand in the right direction.

I think the story could be an amazing movie in the hands of a great movie director, or a great book in a new, slimmer version with harder editing. The story and scenery really has great potential, it just tries to do too much at once.

[SFFBC (BR)]

SFFBC Buddy Read discussion

[Bethany Sheldahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Neurodivergent teenagers/young adults are raised aboard a spaceship bound for New Charity III, having been removed from the womb as embryos and frozen as an alternative to abortion. Because the main cast of characters are disabled, they are treated like permanent children and closely monitored by robots and surveillance tech. Kea and her friends secretly rebel against the system. The book explores topics of sexuality and disability rights and is a real page turner. Content note: there is some murder in the story and a fair amount of ableism and homophobia from the establishment. Some sex scenes but not super graphic.

[Den · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kea’s Flight
In recent years, it seems that authors seem to be exploring characters on the autism spectrum, both in print and on television. Analog is currently serializing Triggers, a novel by Robert J. Sawyer that includes at least one character with Asperger’s syndrome. The short-lived TV series Flashforward, based on a novel also by Sawyer, featured at least two autistic characters. Characters with autism have also cropped up as guest stars on TV series such as In Plain Site and Law and Order. Whether this is a trending topic caused by increased awareness about the nature of autism or just a statistical anomaly, I don’t know.

Kea’s Flight, however, is the first book I’ve discovered that was written by an author who is on the spectrum herself. Erika Hammerschmidt was diagnosed with Asperger’s at the age of eleven and perhaps this gives her an insight into the spectrum that few other authors can have.

Kea’s Flight is a colony-ship novel, a well-trotted trope in science fiction. Fortunately, Hammerschidt avoids many of the clichés, such as generations passing with the inhabitants forgetting that were on a ship. Kea is part of the first generation of travelers and, like most of the colonists on the ship, she wasn’t a volunteer.

While she was still an embryo, Kea tested positive for genes that made high risk for developing autism. The religious extremists who control the government in the 25th century have come up with a solution for the “unwanted” children. Kea and the rest of her classmates were launched into space to become the vanguard of a new colony. Gestated in artificial wombs, they were raised in special schools where they were taught a program of steady propaganda. All of Kea’s fellow students have some form of autism. Soon, however, Kea and several of her classmates find ways to rebel and circumvent the restrictions on them.

Soon, they peal back the lies and learn many of the secrets their teachers want to keep hidden. Eventually, the learn even more and find that the entire ship may be in danger.

The book is an engaging read and an engrossing story. It’s a surprisingly fresh take on an old trope. Perhaps the only place where Hammerschmidt comes up a little short is in her portrayal of the villain, who comes across as a little two-dimensional.

Still, if you’re looking for a good yarn about colony ships and interstellar travel, you’d be advised to pick this one up.

[Cornelia Johansson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tricky book to review. There are things about it I really really liked, such as the rather unique premise, and things I honestly felt needed a lot of polishing before the book hit the shelves.

Anyway. I've lately tried to read as much diverse literature as possible, and Kea's flight does something very few others do: it gives multiple characters with the same marginalization (in this case neurodivergence, a majority of the characters are autistic). If there was only one autistic character, having her be asexual, or a technical genius, or bad at understanding emotion (the list goes on) would have been a stereotype. But there are many of them, and these aspects become just that: aspects of who they are, not representative of the group a a whole. There isn't just a single character who has to carry the whole weight of representing a very wide group of people.

They are in the same way allowed to be flawed. Some of them are very angry, or scared, or very bad at working with other people. They have to overcome their dificulties together.

That said, most of them are, for lack of better word, very high functioning (I've yet to come across a YA autistic character who isn't either the stereotypical five-year-old-white-boy-who-doesn't-talk or someone able to mostly pass as neurotypical. I've heard the writers are planning on fixing that by adding new characters in the sequel though.

On to the less good things. The dialogue was often stilted or taking place in very improbable situations, and a lot of the time it felt wholly unnecessary. There are long passages on spanish grammar and geneaology math and while I get these are special interests and very important to the characters, I still felt they could have been toned down a bit. We didn't need to read Kea's every detail in several language essays. Just... compress it a bit, maybe? Especially if the characters are communicating via secret messages where every syllable counts.

All in all a good book that takes up many important subjects, such as abortion and ableism, without trying to simplify them to black and white, I think that if a few chapters where shaved off by working on dialalogues and monologues it would have been an incredible book. As it is, it's still good and very important.

[Maryam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Also reviewed on the blog:
http://gloriousbooks.blogspot.com/201...


Kea’s Flight is definitely a very different read. I liked the different characters who were, at times, vulnerable, relatable and enjoyable to read about.

I really liked the idea behind the story and you can really learn a lot from this book, however, for me it was one of those reads that start of great but then loses it’s steam.

I started to feel like there was no basic plot line…not that there wasn’t a plot but that there were so many things happening that led on to another happening that it just became too much. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t enjoy it either…it just wasn’t for me.

I do recommend this book for others though. It was a really clever read at times and it surprised me at points. It was just one of those times when I found myself losing interest…it happens.

[Teresa Carrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science fiction, YA distopia. Main character has Aspberger's, and is growing up on a starship filled with other children that also have various mental disabilities. Interesting reading, with a happy ending that leaves a lot of room for sequels (but I'm not sure any are planned).

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book

What if abortion was outlawed, and the embryos who would have been aborted were instead sent out to colonize other planets? Who'd be in charge of those missions? What if things went wrong? This book is a fascinating, intense exploration of that idea.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking book which although technically SF is far more about human growth in a diffiçult environment.

[Dylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm hoping for a book II.
Most of the characters, while having different values and traits, have similar communication styles (regardless of their associate mental abnormalities).
Still a fun read.

[Disability in Kidlit]

Almost all of the main characters are on the autism spectrum, as are the authors.