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White Space #3
The Folded Sky
Dr. Sunyata Song must travel across the Milky Way to learn to communicate with the greatest discovery of her century: an artificial intelligence the size of a stellar system, in Hugo Award-winning author Bear's next science fiction epic.
Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.
Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.
She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files. But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her - and her family - halfway across the galaxy to save the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called the Baomind.
As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.
The remote research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.
Tens of thousands of light-years from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.
Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.
Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.
She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files. But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her - and her family - halfway across the galaxy to save the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called the Baomind.
As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.
The remote research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.
Tens of thousands of light-years from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.
1 pages, Audio CD
First published June 17, 2025
198 people are currently reading
1434 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Bear
310 books2,455 followersWhat Goodreads really needs is a "currently WRITING" option for its default bookshelves...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
October 8, 2025
4.0 Stars
This was an enjoyable space opera with some interesting science fiction ideas and technology explored. This is technically part of a companion series but you are free to jump in here as this book does not tie directly into the previous installments.
This was an enjoyable space opera with some interesting science fiction ideas and technology explored. This is technically part of a companion series but you are free to jump in here as this book does not tie directly into the previous installments.
February 23, 2025
The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear is White Space #3, following Ancestral Night and Machine, both of which I have previously read. The series shares world-building, but is not strictly sequential.
The cultural and technological milieu of book 3 is similar to the earlier ones in the series – relics of prior Koregoi civilization, pan-species cooperation among alien beings, brain-implanted foxes and ayatanas, time measured in dias (days) and ans (years), AI shipminds, clade persons, and rightminding. The gobbledygook physics borrows current vocabulary – the sort of thing I expect from fantasy writers working in science fiction, such as benevolent shadow-beings made of dark matter, and extravagant extrapolation of particle entanglement. The descriptions of Dr. Sunyata Song’s work – “archinformation” seems to be straight-forward pattern detection. All of the information from the ancient Baomind arrives serialized as Baosong, and Sunya writes parsers. But the really challenging part of understanding alien language should be context and semantics rather than syntax. Her ayatanas provide that somehow.
“Information doesn’t want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace. It wants to slurp down the drain like soapy water planetside, a slick Coriolis whirl and then – gone. Vamoosed. Kaput. Books crumble, digital media degrade. Evern holographic storage crystals grow lossy over time. As the universe expands, every cubic meter holds a little less information than it did the instant before. The sun’s rim dips. The stars rush out. At one stride comes the dark. Entropy requires no maintenance. Order and intelligibility do.”
Characters are a more important factor in this writing than the speculative science. There is a passive-aggressive first-person narrator, Dr. Sunyata Song, who uses her fox to rightmind her emotions and mitigate her personality traits. I find rightminding to be the most interesting and perplexing concept in the White Space books. It already requires a high level of self-awareness to know when rightminding is called for. With rightminding by outside intervention, from a shipmind AI for instance, what is left of free will? I feel the concept could easily go dystopian. But in this third novel, rightminding is used almost exclusively for interception of emotional reactions, so as to allow more considered decisions or action. At any rate, Sunya’s character evolves towards physical action when her children are threatened.
The main concern of the writing in this novel is Sunya’s relationships. Most important is her relationship with her sulky teenaged daughter. Most of the growth is on the part of daughter Luna, while Sunya’s rightminding allows her to not react disastrously to Luna’s provocations. Sunya’s relationship with her ex-lover and academic rival Vickee DeVine takes up way too much space, and doesn’t really go anywhere except as a recurring need for Sunya to rightmind herself. Finally, Sunya’s wife Salvie is a Mary Sue; a tirelessly saccharine alien warrior-wife and mother to their children. There are men in this world, but almost all of them are bad guys or pirates. Even the closer ones are described superficially, with no interior personality. I’m aware that superficial treatment of women was common in golden age SF; it was a failing of the genre in those times. Contemporary reversal is also.
There are multiple waves of female kickass action in space and within the ships and stations, with good attention to gravitation (or lack thereof), radiation, and visual display. I expect that aspect of the novel to be quite popular, but my primary interest is in conceptualization and world-building. This setting and plot further develops Bear’s White Space.
I read an Advance Review Copy of The Folded Sky in an ebook format, which I received from Saga Press through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 17 June 2025.
The cultural and technological milieu of book 3 is similar to the earlier ones in the series – relics of prior Koregoi civilization, pan-species cooperation among alien beings, brain-implanted foxes and ayatanas, time measured in dias (days) and ans (years), AI shipminds, clade persons, and rightminding. The gobbledygook physics borrows current vocabulary – the sort of thing I expect from fantasy writers working in science fiction, such as benevolent shadow-beings made of dark matter, and extravagant extrapolation of particle entanglement. The descriptions of Dr. Sunyata Song’s work – “archinformation” seems to be straight-forward pattern detection. All of the information from the ancient Baomind arrives serialized as Baosong, and Sunya writes parsers. But the really challenging part of understanding alien language should be context and semantics rather than syntax. Her ayatanas provide that somehow.
“Information doesn’t want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace. It wants to slurp down the drain like soapy water planetside, a slick Coriolis whirl and then – gone. Vamoosed. Kaput. Books crumble, digital media degrade. Evern holographic storage crystals grow lossy over time. As the universe expands, every cubic meter holds a little less information than it did the instant before. The sun’s rim dips. The stars rush out. At one stride comes the dark. Entropy requires no maintenance. Order and intelligibility do.”
Characters are a more important factor in this writing than the speculative science. There is a passive-aggressive first-person narrator, Dr. Sunyata Song, who uses her fox to rightmind her emotions and mitigate her personality traits. I find rightminding to be the most interesting and perplexing concept in the White Space books. It already requires a high level of self-awareness to know when rightminding is called for. With rightminding by outside intervention, from a shipmind AI for instance, what is left of free will? I feel the concept could easily go dystopian. But in this third novel, rightminding is used almost exclusively for interception of emotional reactions, so as to allow more considered decisions or action. At any rate, Sunya’s character evolves towards physical action when her children are threatened.
The main concern of the writing in this novel is Sunya’s relationships. Most important is her relationship with her sulky teenaged daughter. Most of the growth is on the part of daughter Luna, while Sunya’s rightminding allows her to not react disastrously to Luna’s provocations. Sunya’s relationship with her ex-lover and academic rival Vickee DeVine takes up way too much space, and doesn’t really go anywhere except as a recurring need for Sunya to rightmind herself. Finally, Sunya’s wife Salvie is a Mary Sue; a tirelessly saccharine alien warrior-wife and mother to their children. There are men in this world, but almost all of them are bad guys or pirates. Even the closer ones are described superficially, with no interior personality. I’m aware that superficial treatment of women was common in golden age SF; it was a failing of the genre in those times. Contemporary reversal is also.
There are multiple waves of female kickass action in space and within the ships and stations, with good attention to gravitation (or lack thereof), radiation, and visual display. I expect that aspect of the novel to be quite popular, but my primary interest is in conceptualization and world-building. This setting and plot further develops Bear’s White Space.
I read an Advance Review Copy of The Folded Sky in an ebook format, which I received from Saga Press through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 17 June 2025.
April 6, 2025
I was looking forward to this new novel, the third in her "White Space" space-opera series. Elizabeth Bear is one of my favorite SF/F writers, and I liked the previous book in this series, Machine, a lot. I found this one to be a mixed bag: parts are great or near-great, but the last third is a bit of a mess. It does come to a sweet ending. For me this was a 3-star read: good but not great.
The opening is great, with a tedious 6-month voyage across the galaxy with an asshole shipmind pilot and a weird 5-way clone for company. Dr. Sunya Song expected to get most of the preliminary work done on her new job en route. Until she discovers the shipmind only brought half of her files! Among other mean tricks. Um. Why didn’t she bring a backup?
The Freeport pirates, fanatical anti-AI humans, are cartoonishly vicious and nasty. Numerous, crafty and very persistent. The space battles are nicely done. Sunya’s old nemesis, fellow data scientist Vickee DeVine, is mean but fun. She gets darker and nastier as the book progresses.
The Synarche civilization, you may recall if you have read the prior White Space books, is a multi-species affair that has expanded into a good part of our Milky Way. The one-system Baomind aliens are a much older culture. They are now endangered by their unstable star. The Synarche is going to attempt a rescue. Those pirates are the main obstacle. Communicating with the Bao aliens turns out to be tricky. And there are other surprises.
The long description of quantum physics, for a messaging system that wouldn’t work (per our current knowledge) was clunky. I know, we don’t read SF to learn science . . . An intriguing new civilization from the dark-matter universe was more fun, as were the details of the helpful Bao aliens. Baosong!
I (mostly) had fun with the book. Cautiously recommended for Bear fans. Don't start the series here!
I read an eArc courtesy of Goodreads and the publisher. The book is scheduled to be published in mid-June 2025.
The opening is great, with a tedious 6-month voyage across the galaxy with an asshole shipmind pilot and a weird 5-way clone for company. Dr. Sunya Song expected to get most of the preliminary work done on her new job en route. Until she discovers the shipmind only brought half of her files! Among other mean tricks. Um. Why didn’t she bring a backup?
The Freeport pirates, fanatical anti-AI humans, are cartoonishly vicious and nasty. Numerous, crafty and very persistent. The space battles are nicely done. Sunya’s old nemesis, fellow data scientist Vickee DeVine, is mean but fun. She gets darker and nastier as the book progresses.
The Synarche civilization, you may recall if you have read the prior White Space books, is a multi-species affair that has expanded into a good part of our Milky Way. The one-system Baomind aliens are a much older culture. They are now endangered by their unstable star. The Synarche is going to attempt a rescue. Those pirates are the main obstacle. Communicating with the Bao aliens turns out to be tricky. And there are other surprises.
The long description of quantum physics, for a messaging system that wouldn’t work (per our current knowledge) was clunky. I know, we don’t read SF to learn science . . . An intriguing new civilization from the dark-matter universe was more fun, as were the details of the helpful Bao aliens. Baosong!
I (mostly) had fun with the book. Cautiously recommended for Bear fans. Don't start the series here!
I read an eArc courtesy of Goodreads and the publisher. The book is scheduled to be published in mid-June 2025.
June 26, 2025
3.5 stars
September 24, 2025
I loved the previous books in this series but sadly I found this one boring and over complicated 😢
I think the book tries to do too much, but also personally I didn’t care about any of the family drama.
I think the book tries to do too much, but also personally I didn’t care about any of the family drama.
November 10, 2025
The beginning is a little slow but the last 1/3 definitely makes up for it.
March 17, 2025
I received a free copy from Saga Press via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date June 17th.
I was intrigued by this book's premise of space historians and first contact. In The Folded Sky, archinformist Sunyata Song has been chosen for a mission to study an ancient alien AI orbiting a dying star. But when Sunya arrives, she discovers that not only did her academic rival beat her there, but the station is under threat by pirates, not to mention a mysterious attempted murder...
Almost from the first chapter, I was struck by the rich worldbuilding of The Folded Sky. Ships and habitats are run by complex AIs who are major characters in their own right. A docked clade is a person who's one mind sharing many bodies, and apparently they can get divorced. Sunya has several recorded human minds called ayatanas stored in her brain. Humans have a computer called a fox in their heads and they choose to manually adjust the intensity of their emotions through "rightminding," which is intended to make people less ruled by petty impulse and more prosocial. Although this is apparently the third book of a series, I had no trouble at all following any of the worldbuilding elements or introduced characters. (I assume the books are shared world rather than a tightly linked trilogy, I haven't read the first two myself.)
However, as much as I enjoyed the worldbuilding, the plot was glacially slow. The characters spent a lot of time talking and thinking, and remarkably little pagespace on major plot elements, like the murder investigation or Sunya's research. Sunya herself is inclined to second-guess and ruminate over her thoughts. Part of this is, I think, her culture. Due to rightminding, Sunya has been brought up with a heavy emphasis on regulating emotions and correct thought. Unfortunately, Sunya's self-consciousness tends to make the interpersonal dynamics, for a lack of a better word, heavily therapized. There's a heavy focus on analyzing what other characters might be thinking in order to say the most politely correct thing possible. The one partial exception is Sunya's tempestuous relationship with her nemesis and toxic ex, Victorya. (Although heads up that it's not a romantic relationship, as Sunya's happily married.)
What a fantastic premise, but I found the execution rather lacking, particularly the slow pace. If you enjoyed Ada Hoffman or Skrutskie's The Salvation Gambit, you might enjoy this book regardless of its issues.
I was intrigued by this book's premise of space historians and first contact. In The Folded Sky, archinformist Sunyata Song has been chosen for a mission to study an ancient alien AI orbiting a dying star. But when Sunya arrives, she discovers that not only did her academic rival beat her there, but the station is under threat by pirates, not to mention a mysterious attempted murder...
Almost from the first chapter, I was struck by the rich worldbuilding of The Folded Sky. Ships and habitats are run by complex AIs who are major characters in their own right. A docked clade is a person who's one mind sharing many bodies, and apparently they can get divorced. Sunya has several recorded human minds called ayatanas stored in her brain. Humans have a computer called a fox in their heads and they choose to manually adjust the intensity of their emotions through "rightminding," which is intended to make people less ruled by petty impulse and more prosocial. Although this is apparently the third book of a series, I had no trouble at all following any of the worldbuilding elements or introduced characters. (I assume the books are shared world rather than a tightly linked trilogy, I haven't read the first two myself.)
However, as much as I enjoyed the worldbuilding, the plot was glacially slow. The characters spent a lot of time talking and thinking, and remarkably little pagespace on major plot elements, like the murder investigation or Sunya's research. Sunya herself is inclined to second-guess and ruminate over her thoughts. Part of this is, I think, her culture. Due to rightminding, Sunya has been brought up with a heavy emphasis on regulating emotions and correct thought. Unfortunately, Sunya's self-consciousness tends to make the interpersonal dynamics, for a lack of a better word, heavily therapized. There's a heavy focus on analyzing what other characters might be thinking in order to say the most politely correct thing possible. The one partial exception is Sunya's tempestuous relationship with her nemesis and toxic ex, Victorya. (Although heads up that it's not a romantic relationship, as Sunya's happily married.)
What a fantastic premise, but I found the execution rather lacking, particularly the slow pace. If you enjoyed Ada Hoffman or Skrutskie's The Salvation Gambit, you might enjoy this book regardless of its issues.
September 13, 2025
What a disappointment. I generally enjoyed the earlier White Space books, and the way that they wove together sci-fi action with worldbuilding musings on psychology and society. But with this one… something went very wrong here.
Sunyata was a supremely unpleasant character to spend time with, to the point that I feel almost any other background character would have been a better choice. In the first two-thirds of the book she’s near-constantly oscillating between caricatured high anxiety and incredible weird pettiness, and rightminding chemistry is mentioned so often that it makes her sound like a tweaking drug addict. In the last third she magically loses all the anxiety and transforms into some kind of space action hero, who is proven to be right about everything and gets to lord it over her onetime rival in the most obnoxious possible way.
I don’t know how to describe the final effect, other than that it feels like someone’s diary of private grievances given fictional shape. I should have listened to myself and abandoned it much earlier.
Sunyata was a supremely unpleasant character to spend time with, to the point that I feel almost any other background character would have been a better choice. In the first two-thirds of the book she’s near-constantly oscillating between caricatured high anxiety and incredible weird pettiness, and rightminding chemistry is mentioned so often that it makes her sound like a tweaking drug addict. In the last third she magically loses all the anxiety and transforms into some kind of space action hero, who is proven to be right about everything and gets to lord it over her onetime rival in the most obnoxious possible way.
I don’t know how to describe the final effect, other than that it feels like someone’s diary of private grievances given fictional shape. I should have listened to myself and abandoned it much earlier.
July 13, 2025
Elizabeth Bear ties up the White Space trilogy with a spectacular cast of characters (the MC, Dr. Sunya Song, hits *all* the notes), deep worldbuilding, and a generous helping of humanity. The aliens are cool and thoughtful, and the AIs piloting the ships have distinct, generally admirable personalities (granted, one is a major PITA).
This feels like a very personal book, and I was very pleased to spend time with it. Of course, I am also sad at the journey's end.
Highly recommended.
This feels like a very personal book, and I was very pleased to spend time with it. Of course, I am also sad at the journey's end.
Highly recommended.
October 7, 2025
Love it! Gosh, she can write. The MC was unpleasant and un-self-aware enough at the beginning that I had doubts, but I shouldn't have--I could hardly put it down.
October 4, 2025
I always WANT to give the books in this series 5 stars but they just never quite get to that level for me. Not ever sure exactly why - maybe the pacing is off for me? Still the cats and dragon are great! And so are the Baomind and other SF ideas
June 18, 2025
The Folded Sky has big, interesting ideas, a colorful cast of characters that are fun to root for or against, and some great action sequences. Unfortunately, and surprisingly for an author as talented as Elizabeth Bear, the pieces struggle to coalesce.
Many of the White Space series strengths continue in this novel. The writing clearly and engagingly communicates big ideas about physics and culture (even if you can’t follow all the physics, like me, you can still clearly follow the implications behind it). Some action sequences towards the back of the novel are truly spectacular in their ability to combine physics, the chaos of conflict, and emotional stakes. And the hopeful world of the White Space series, filled with interesting characters largely trying to make it even better, continues to be a fun place to spend time.
This time though, the story struggles to find narrative momentum or a consistent style. Dr. Sunya Song travels to the edge of the galaxy to study a massive artificial intelligence, known as the Baomind, left behind by an ancient alien race. However, once there, she discovers that the research team is under siege by pirates. Seemingly, the narrative tension will come from her having to do her research while under threat from pirates. Except then, there’s also an attempted murder and it becomes partially about the investigation. The pirates and the research fade. In turn, the mystery often gives way to family drama and fails to really establish a convincing suspect list. Sunya also spends a lot of time lost in her thoughts, another frequent obstacle to narrative momentum. It seems that, admirably, the novel is trying to establish its own unique style by combining different types of stories. Unfortunately, I found that the different elements often worked against each other.
Still, in the novel’s back half I do think it finds a good style and narrative momentum, making for a strong ending (even if I wish it could have explored some of its very interesting ideas more). If you liked the first two White Space novels, you should read this one (even accepting you probably won’t like it as much).
Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for the ARC.
Many of the White Space series strengths continue in this novel. The writing clearly and engagingly communicates big ideas about physics and culture (even if you can’t follow all the physics, like me, you can still clearly follow the implications behind it). Some action sequences towards the back of the novel are truly spectacular in their ability to combine physics, the chaos of conflict, and emotional stakes. And the hopeful world of the White Space series, filled with interesting characters largely trying to make it even better, continues to be a fun place to spend time.
This time though, the story struggles to find narrative momentum or a consistent style. Dr. Sunya Song travels to the edge of the galaxy to study a massive artificial intelligence, known as the Baomind, left behind by an ancient alien race. However, once there, she discovers that the research team is under siege by pirates. Seemingly, the narrative tension will come from her having to do her research while under threat from pirates. Except then, there’s also an attempted murder and it becomes partially about the investigation. The pirates and the research fade. In turn, the mystery often gives way to family drama and fails to really establish a convincing suspect list. Sunya also spends a lot of time lost in her thoughts, another frequent obstacle to narrative momentum. It seems that, admirably, the novel is trying to establish its own unique style by combining different types of stories. Unfortunately, I found that the different elements often worked against each other.
Still, in the novel’s back half I do think it finds a good style and narrative momentum, making for a strong ending (even if I wish it could have explored some of its very interesting ideas more). If you liked the first two White Space novels, you should read this one (even accepting you probably won’t like it as much).
Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for the ARC.
December 14, 2025
I really enjoyed The Folded Sky. In general, Bear's White Space books have been uniformly interesting and compelling, even as I find them a little puzzling if not mysterious. I will explain.
Bear's characters and ideas are her strongest suit. Uniformly interesting, she gives readers character-driven science fiction that explores what seems like a mix of adventure, action, and heady conceptual thrills. And that's all great! However, I do feel like the first two White Space novels are more comprehensibly linked - this one was more of a struggle to relate to the other two as it is linked primarily in setting, less in chronology or characters, and I found the separation oddly jarring. I also found the principle tension between two major characters very cringeworthy instead of productive and threatening, which didn't help.
But the strengths are manifold. Action spills around every corner! People are and are not who they say they will be! Space pirates! Elder technology and discoveries in physics! And, perhaps most importantly, Bear writes with real heart about people who are fundamentally good, and whose goodness is their lantern in their worlds. That, for me, is the deciding point in making this good series great.
Start with the first in the series and then enjoy your way through to this one - that's my recommendation!
Bear's characters and ideas are her strongest suit. Uniformly interesting, she gives readers character-driven science fiction that explores what seems like a mix of adventure, action, and heady conceptual thrills. And that's all great! However, I do feel like the first two White Space novels are more comprehensibly linked - this one was more of a struggle to relate to the other two as it is linked primarily in setting, less in chronology or characters, and I found the separation oddly jarring. I also found the principle tension between two major characters very cringeworthy instead of productive and threatening, which didn't help.
But the strengths are manifold. Action spills around every corner! People are and are not who they say they will be! Space pirates! Elder technology and discoveries in physics! And, perhaps most importantly, Bear writes with real heart about people who are fundamentally good, and whose goodness is their lantern in their worlds. That, for me, is the deciding point in making this good series great.
Start with the first in the series and then enjoy your way through to this one - that's my recommendation!
November 30, 2025
Apparently I didn't review either Ancestral Night or Machine? Oops.
Quick recap: very far future, galactic colonisation, (most) humans live alongside other species, they have 'right-minding' to deal with anti-social tendencies, and there's an ongoing search for the remnants of long-dead very powerful alien predecessors. Also, there's FTL travel, through White Space.
The three books in the White Space series are connected by being set in the same universe and dealing with some of the big issues, and events from previous books make the next books happen, but there's basically no character connections.
In this book, the archinformist (historian) Dr Sunya Song has left her family to go do research in one of the most exciting discoveries in centuries - an ancient AI left by that predecessor civilisation. Of course, things do not go at all as planned, starting with the very snarky AI ship she travels on, moving rapidly to a pirate attack, and then the arrival of her arch-nemesis. And there are the actual and attempted murders.
This is a space opera, with a whole lot of discussion about inter-species relationships on a personal and societal level, with both the continuation of racism and the desire to understand The Stranger playing significant roles. There's also some interesting crossover between this and Arrival / "Story of Your Life" in terms of how someone can come to understand a species whose entire way of looking at reality is utterly different from your own.
On a more mundane level, this is also a murder mystery, since Song gets involved in that side of things, when perhaps she shouldn't.
Overall this is a really fun story, with characters I enjoyed and a plot whose resolution I didn't entirely expect. However I must note that there were disappointments, particularly in some poor editing. For example on p414 of the trade paperback, and a few other times, questions are asked and then not answered in the conversation. Obviously this is sometimes deliberate, but there's no suggestion that's the case here - it just feels like a line is missing. There's also some repetition of information that feels like it's been doubled up because someone wasn't sure where it should go.
Will I read another book in this series? Of course I will.
Quick recap: very far future, galactic colonisation, (most) humans live alongside other species, they have 'right-minding' to deal with anti-social tendencies, and there's an ongoing search for the remnants of long-dead very powerful alien predecessors. Also, there's FTL travel, through White Space.
The three books in the White Space series are connected by being set in the same universe and dealing with some of the big issues, and events from previous books make the next books happen, but there's basically no character connections.
In this book, the archinformist (historian) Dr Sunya Song has left her family to go do research in one of the most exciting discoveries in centuries - an ancient AI left by that predecessor civilisation. Of course, things do not go at all as planned, starting with the very snarky AI ship she travels on, moving rapidly to a pirate attack, and then the arrival of her arch-nemesis. And there are the actual and attempted murders.
This is a space opera, with a whole lot of discussion about inter-species relationships on a personal and societal level, with both the continuation of racism and the desire to understand The Stranger playing significant roles. There's also some interesting crossover between this and Arrival / "Story of Your Life" in terms of how someone can come to understand a species whose entire way of looking at reality is utterly different from your own.
On a more mundane level, this is also a murder mystery, since Song gets involved in that side of things, when perhaps she shouldn't.
Overall this is a really fun story, with characters I enjoyed and a plot whose resolution I didn't entirely expect. However I must note that there were disappointments, particularly in some poor editing. For example on p414 of the trade paperback, and a few other times, questions are asked and then not answered in the conversation. Obviously this is sometimes deliberate, but there's no suggestion that's the case here - it just feels like a line is missing. There's also some repetition of information that feels like it's been doubled up because someone wasn't sure where it should go.
Will I read another book in this series? Of course I will.
July 23, 2025
I received this book as an eArc via NetGalley.
It has been a minute since I last read an Elizabeth Bear novel, simply because my TBR pile has become overwhelming over the last decade. I picked up this novel initially not realizing that it was third in a series (Machine and Ancestral Night are the other two titles). The good news is, I can confirm that even coming late to the party did not keep me from enjoying this novel.
Dr. Sunya Song is an archinformist (futuristic cross between an archivist and a historian with a side of space archaeology; her job is to both document and analyze history), headed to the edge of nowhere (space station named Town) to work with a dying alien artificial intelligence, the Baosong, to try to document its language and knowledge before it goes extinct because the star it is near is dying. This is a long and complex assignment, and Sun is looking forward to a bit of focused work and a bit of a break from parenting her two children, although she misses her wife Salvie.
Sunya Song is having a series of very bad days, even before she arrives at Town. The shipmind of her transport to Town really doesn’t like her. Her ex Vickie (also an archinformist) has beat her to Town, and happens to be on the same ship as Sun’s family, who have arrived to surprise her. While Sun is pleased to see her family, she is NOT happy to see Vickie, who was not only emotionally abusive but also stole Sun’s work and passed it off as her own.
Oh, and the star near the Baosong is sending out massive radiation and is going to collapse and kill everyone on the station of Town, humanoid and alien alike. And there are anti Artificial-Intelligence pirates trying to kill anyone trying to get to Town, leave Town, or generally existing while using AI in their vicinity. And also, Vickie’s assistant Trevor has been nearly murdered with brain-eating amoebas. And then there’s another murder.
It’s up to Sun to figure out how to save herself-and everyone else- from everything falling apart.
With tight pacing, pitched space battles, and thoughtful and engaging characters both human and non-human who are doing their best against impossible odds, it’s lovely to spend time in this universe.
Strongly recommended.
It has been a minute since I last read an Elizabeth Bear novel, simply because my TBR pile has become overwhelming over the last decade. I picked up this novel initially not realizing that it was third in a series (Machine and Ancestral Night are the other two titles). The good news is, I can confirm that even coming late to the party did not keep me from enjoying this novel.
Dr. Sunya Song is an archinformist (futuristic cross between an archivist and a historian with a side of space archaeology; her job is to both document and analyze history), headed to the edge of nowhere (space station named Town) to work with a dying alien artificial intelligence, the Baosong, to try to document its language and knowledge before it goes extinct because the star it is near is dying. This is a long and complex assignment, and Sun is looking forward to a bit of focused work and a bit of a break from parenting her two children, although she misses her wife Salvie.
Sunya Song is having a series of very bad days, even before she arrives at Town. The shipmind of her transport to Town really doesn’t like her. Her ex Vickie (also an archinformist) has beat her to Town, and happens to be on the same ship as Sun’s family, who have arrived to surprise her. While Sun is pleased to see her family, she is NOT happy to see Vickie, who was not only emotionally abusive but also stole Sun’s work and passed it off as her own.
Oh, and the star near the Baosong is sending out massive radiation and is going to collapse and kill everyone on the station of Town, humanoid and alien alike. And there are anti Artificial-Intelligence pirates trying to kill anyone trying to get to Town, leave Town, or generally existing while using AI in their vicinity. And also, Vickie’s assistant Trevor has been nearly murdered with brain-eating amoebas. And then there’s another murder.
It’s up to Sun to figure out how to save herself-and everyone else- from everything falling apart.
With tight pacing, pitched space battles, and thoughtful and engaging characters both human and non-human who are doing their best against impossible odds, it’s lovely to spend time in this universe.
Strongly recommended.
Read
October 24, 20256.5 out of 10
Not quite as good as the first two White Space novels, a little too much family melodrama for my taste, but the Synarche remains the next best future history after the Culture.
Not quite as good as the first two White Space novels, a little too much family melodrama for my taste, but the Synarche remains the next best future history after the Culture.
October 20, 2025
zero stars - garbage
I just can’t.
I liked/loved the first two books.
This one? Garbage.
The main character is a perfect example of someone that I’d never, ever tolerate.
If at dinner, I’d just up and leave.
I’d they were family, I’d go NC to avoid. For all eternity. Until all the information was erased. Until the mean AIs just went away and I could be yawn boring.
Such a disappointment after the first two.
I just can’t.
I liked/loved the first two books.
This one? Garbage.
The main character is a perfect example of someone that I’d never, ever tolerate.
If at dinner, I’d just up and leave.
I’d they were family, I’d go NC to avoid. For all eternity. Until all the information was erased. Until the mean AIs just went away and I could be yawn boring.
Such a disappointment after the first two.
September 5, 2025
Sunya is a scientist, an archinformist, specializing in using data to put together the full story, whether it be how something works or the history of a species. When we meet her, she's traveling to the data storage left by the only (I think) known spacegoing predecessor civilization in the galaxy. The star that the Baomind is orbiting is dying, and the Synarche would like to rescue the Baomind, or as much of its data as possible, sooner than later.
The Synarche government and its multispecies civilization is the only thing this book has in common with the previous two books in this "series." There are just a few things that are covered in those books and not explained from scratch. One is the rightminding, where people can adjust their brain/body chemistry as needed or desired. Sunya sometimes adjusts her anger down, or in crisis situations, adjusts her metabolism so that she can work most efficiently.
Sunya is looking forward to doing her research alone, but as she reaches the area, so does another spaceship, carrying not only her professional/personal nemesis, but also Sunya's wife (who is not human) and their two (human) teenagers. Which would be disrupting enough, but then they are all set upon by - space pirates! When they finally all get to the settlement, there are two murder attempts, including one on Sunya. So she also takes on (with the local authorities) the task of solving those, while hoping there's not another, maybe successful, one.
Sunya gets to do some work, probably the best (but still preliminary) interactions with the Baomind and its tesserae (read the book) so far. Plus, she finds out a lot more about the shadowy shapes she's been seeing. Oh, meanwhile, her rebelling teenage daughter won't talk to her and is enamored of her nemesis.
Does that sound like a lot? It is. In her afterword, Bear says that while writing it, "...often I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew trying to meld a family drama with a first-contact novel and a space opera, with a smidgen of murder mystery thrown in for seasoning." I think she succeeded very well. The only think I disliked was the number of times they had to engage with the pirates; I'd have preferred at least one less encounter. The science, especially the quantum physics "observer effect," wasn't always to my liking; when the anthropic principle was first mentioned, a character called it solipsistic, which is my take. The way quantum physics worked in sending super-long-distance messages seemed very unlikely. But who knows? It's fictional science anyway.
I loved, as I did in the previous books, how humans are just one species of the many that make up the Synarche. The crews, both of the station where Sunya is working and of the ships that are trapped there by the pirate blockade, are accordingly multispecies, and she becomes fond of people of various species. Artificial intelligences, mostly ship minds, are also part of the team. Some of them are not happy about being created with a debt that they have to pay off (covered in the earlier books). There are some prejudices - Sunya is put off by a 6-body human (I think) group mind, and the ship she came on doesn't like humans much - but for the most part, everyone gets along. Except, of course, with the pirates.
There's another overarching theme of, what is a narrative; what is a story? I was reading more for the action and may have missed some of that content, but at one point, Bear says:
The Synarche government and its multispecies civilization is the only thing this book has in common with the previous two books in this "series." There are just a few things that are covered in those books and not explained from scratch. One is the rightminding, where people can adjust their brain/body chemistry as needed or desired. Sunya sometimes adjusts her anger down, or in crisis situations, adjusts her metabolism so that she can work most efficiently.
Sunya is looking forward to doing her research alone, but as she reaches the area, so does another spaceship, carrying not only her professional/personal nemesis, but also Sunya's wife (who is not human) and their two (human) teenagers. Which would be disrupting enough, but then they are all set upon by - space pirates! When they finally all get to the settlement, there are two murder attempts, including one on Sunya. So she also takes on (with the local authorities) the task of solving those, while hoping there's not another, maybe successful, one.
Sunya gets to do some work, probably the best (but still preliminary) interactions with the Baomind and its tesserae (read the book) so far. Plus, she finds out a lot more about the shadowy shapes she's been seeing. Oh, meanwhile, her rebelling teenage daughter won't talk to her and is enamored of her nemesis.
Does that sound like a lot? It is. In her afterword, Bear says that while writing it, "...often I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew trying to meld a family drama with a first-contact novel and a space opera, with a smidgen of murder mystery thrown in for seasoning." I think she succeeded very well. The only think I disliked was the number of times they had to engage with the pirates; I'd have preferred at least one less encounter. The science, especially the quantum physics "observer effect," wasn't always to my liking; when the anthropic principle was first mentioned, a character called it solipsistic, which is my take. The way quantum physics worked in sending super-long-distance messages seemed very unlikely. But who knows? It's fictional science anyway.
I loved, as I did in the previous books, how humans are just one species of the many that make up the Synarche. The crews, both of the station where Sunya is working and of the ships that are trapped there by the pirate blockade, are accordingly multispecies, and she becomes fond of people of various species. Artificial intelligences, mostly ship minds, are also part of the team. Some of them are not happy about being created with a debt that they have to pay off (covered in the earlier books). There are some prejudices - Sunya is put off by a 6-body human (I think) group mind, and the ship she came on doesn't like humans much - but for the most part, everyone gets along. Except, of course, with the pirates.
There's another overarching theme of, what is a narrative; what is a story? I was reading more for the action and may have missed some of that content, but at one point, Bear says:
People's lives are like histories. Personal histories, not like stories: They aren't neat. They are tangled and contradictory. They don't necessarily generate an arc.Life and storytelling...I love how she thinks.
We impose arcs upon them, because that's what human minds do. We cut edges where no edges previously existed. We press them into frames. We give them an end and a beginning. We draw hard lines all over the gradients that compose them, and we choose what to emphasize and what to deprecate. In doing so, we craft a narrative...
July 14, 2025
The Folded Sky is the third in Bear's White Space series of somewhat connected novels, taking place in the same setting but with different protagonists each time. It has some major flaws, but I liked it despite them. Here, our intrepid protagonist goes far away from the core worlds to research the Baomind, a precursor massive alien AI. When I first glanced at a description of the novel, I was expecting a cozy science fiction story where our researcher untangles the how and why of the Baomind, with a bit of action thrown in on the side.
Instead, what we get is less cozy and more of a blockade situation where sociopathic "pirates" try to destroy the research outpost due to their unhinged philosophy. Pirates in quotation marks because they aren't pirates and more of a non-unified political faction at odds with the galactic mainstream. Not that the novel or the series as a whole is interested in exploring their point of view, the overall setting is so utopian at times that it's hard to come up with convincing opposition and so the best Bear has done is throw some rather one-dimensional human throwback libertarian assholes in there that merely acts as goons to be disposed of.
Structurally, the novel also adds a murder mystery, a competitive researcher with whom our protagonist has a bad history, family drama (a rebellious daughter), and it all adds up to something entirely different than what I was expecting. Not in a bad way, though, just not quite what I thought I would be getting into.
The biggest reason I liked it is that our main protagonist is a mom who also has to deal with her wife (who is an alien) and her kids while trying to get some time for herself to work on the Baomind. Science fiction as a genre has far too few stories with mom's as their protagonists (honestly, I don't remember anything at the moment) and this felt so genuine in how it depicted her struggles managing her time, trying to do right by her partner, by her kids but also find time for herself, setting the right boundaries and dealing with various other issues.
Where it also shines is the continued exploration of the concept of right-minding, which for me is that standout idea of the white space series, and that elevates what could have easily been told in a mainstream novel (if you stripped out all the sci-fi bits) to something that could only work in genre. Here the focus is to show that while right-minding is a very useful tool that helped humanity and many other aliens to manage their worst impulses, it's not a panacea for all issues and his limits. But like other tools, it’s good for what it is.
And the exploration of a culture where right-minding is used by pretty much everyone, where people can easily allow others to look into their minds or not, how this shapes behavior and attitudes, sets this far above many other current space operas.
It's a bit messy, sometimes trying too much, and it feels like the narrative is pulled in many different directions. There's a bit where the author suddenly has a discourse on the anthropic principle, then brings in quantum entanglement as a plot point to solve one issue, and it felt like an author trying to unload her Wikipedia research. Still, for all its flaws, I had a grand time with the book, and I do hope Bear continues the series with many more books and many interesting protagonists.
Instead, what we get is less cozy and more of a blockade situation where sociopathic "pirates" try to destroy the research outpost due to their unhinged philosophy. Pirates in quotation marks because they aren't pirates and more of a non-unified political faction at odds with the galactic mainstream. Not that the novel or the series as a whole is interested in exploring their point of view, the overall setting is so utopian at times that it's hard to come up with convincing opposition and so the best Bear has done is throw some rather one-dimensional human throwback libertarian assholes in there that merely acts as goons to be disposed of.
Structurally, the novel also adds a murder mystery, a competitive researcher with whom our protagonist has a bad history, family drama (a rebellious daughter), and it all adds up to something entirely different than what I was expecting. Not in a bad way, though, just not quite what I thought I would be getting into.
The biggest reason I liked it is that our main protagonist is a mom who also has to deal with her wife (who is an alien) and her kids while trying to get some time for herself to work on the Baomind. Science fiction as a genre has far too few stories with mom's as their protagonists (honestly, I don't remember anything at the moment) and this felt so genuine in how it depicted her struggles managing her time, trying to do right by her partner, by her kids but also find time for herself, setting the right boundaries and dealing with various other issues.
Where it also shines is the continued exploration of the concept of right-minding, which for me is that standout idea of the white space series, and that elevates what could have easily been told in a mainstream novel (if you stripped out all the sci-fi bits) to something that could only work in genre. Here the focus is to show that while right-minding is a very useful tool that helped humanity and many other aliens to manage their worst impulses, it's not a panacea for all issues and his limits. But like other tools, it’s good for what it is.
And the exploration of a culture where right-minding is used by pretty much everyone, where people can easily allow others to look into their minds or not, how this shapes behavior and attitudes, sets this far above many other current space operas.
It's a bit messy, sometimes trying too much, and it feels like the narrative is pulled in many different directions. There's a bit where the author suddenly has a discourse on the anthropic principle, then brings in quantum entanglement as a plot point to solve one issue, and it felt like an author trying to unload her Wikipedia research. Still, for all its flaws, I had a grand time with the book, and I do hope Bear continues the series with many more books and many interesting protagonists.
September 2, 2025
Really 3.5.
This is the third book in the White Space series. Note that the following thoughts assume you've read at least one of the previous books and are familiar with the general universe.
In this outing, human archinformist (a kind of historian) Sunya has taken advantage of a dream research opportunity to download as much data and information as she can from the Boamind before the nearby red giant star finally dies. The only problem is that she has to travel clear across the galaxy, leaving her alien wife and their teenage human children behind. It's likely that she will not see her family in person for a very long time.
Just as her ship is about to dock with the research station, it's attacked by pirates. These Freeporters are totally against all things AI and often engage in terrorist acts. When she finally makes it to the research station, Sunya has to contend with a couple of surprises. First, her research rival and very-ex-lover has beaten her to the site. Second, her wife and kids are there to greet her.
At the reception given to greet the researchers, a young man (human) falls victim to a murder attempt (it's unclear whether a stay in cryosuspension will save him). Thus the book is mix of mystery (who is the killer and who was the intended victim?), action (will the Freeporters destroy the research station?), and philosophy (what are the ramifications of AI?).
As with the earlier books in the series, the characters contend with a number of complex issues. First and foremost is the necessity of AI. Ship minds control space ships and research stations, making sure that all runs smoothly for the various species onboard and under their care. Humans use rightminding, which help regulate their out-of-control emotions and spiraling thoughts. The book also explores interspecies relationships of all sorts, from colleagues to lovers. Other topics involve family dynamics, selfless actions to save others, and the physics of space travel.
In general, I liked The Folded Sky: I enjoyed trying to work out the mystery, I got caught up in the action, and I was interested in Sunya's family. Though I found myself thinking about the pros and cons of AI, much of the deeper technological and philosophical questions went in one ear and out the other. Still, I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
Sarah Slimani was the narrator for this book. I thought she did a fine job distinguishing among the characters and conveying the action. I have no complaints.
Thanks to SimonAudio for the review copy.
This is the third book in the White Space series. Note that the following thoughts assume you've read at least one of the previous books and are familiar with the general universe.
In this outing, human archinformist (a kind of historian) Sunya has taken advantage of a dream research opportunity to download as much data and information as she can from the Boamind before the nearby red giant star finally dies. The only problem is that she has to travel clear across the galaxy, leaving her alien wife and their teenage human children behind. It's likely that she will not see her family in person for a very long time.
Just as her ship is about to dock with the research station, it's attacked by pirates. These Freeporters are totally against all things AI and often engage in terrorist acts. When she finally makes it to the research station, Sunya has to contend with a couple of surprises. First, her research rival and very-ex-lover has beaten her to the site. Second, her wife and kids are there to greet her.
At the reception given to greet the researchers, a young man (human) falls victim to a murder attempt (it's unclear whether a stay in cryosuspension will save him). Thus the book is mix of mystery (who is the killer and who was the intended victim?), action (will the Freeporters destroy the research station?), and philosophy (what are the ramifications of AI?).
As with the earlier books in the series, the characters contend with a number of complex issues. First and foremost is the necessity of AI. Ship minds control space ships and research stations, making sure that all runs smoothly for the various species onboard and under their care. Humans use rightminding, which help regulate their out-of-control emotions and spiraling thoughts. The book also explores interspecies relationships of all sorts, from colleagues to lovers. Other topics involve family dynamics, selfless actions to save others, and the physics of space travel.
In general, I liked The Folded Sky: I enjoyed trying to work out the mystery, I got caught up in the action, and I was interested in Sunya's family. Though I found myself thinking about the pros and cons of AI, much of the deeper technological and philosophical questions went in one ear and out the other. Still, I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
Sarah Slimani was the narrator for this book. I thought she did a fine job distinguishing among the characters and conveying the action. I have no complaints.
Thanks to SimonAudio for the review copy.
October 19, 2025
I was so eager to read this, having enjoyed Ancestral Night and Machine so much. However... this one didn't quite delight me the same way. Originally, the idea of "right minding" (having conscious control over your emotional state, with the ability to "tune" (down) and "bump" (up) your reactions) seemed pretty powerful to me. As I've read more of these books, I'm starting to see it as an enormous crutch (and for all I know, maybe that is the author's point).
This book is set in the Synarche (or, well, right out on the edge of it), a multi-species and multi-culture-spanning federation of sentient beings. Protagonist Sunya Song aims to study the Baomind, an ancient alien artifact, and extract and preserve what knowledge she can as they race to transport it to a more stable environment (the star around which it orbits is about to go nova). Meanwhile, there's a murder mystery distracting everyone, a toxic ex-girlfriend, an alien wife, two teenagers, four cats, DARK MATTER, some wild spacewalking and hyperspace jumping, and a bunch of other chaos. I wished there could have been more focus on the first-contact language translation problem :)
Some quotes I enjoyed:
* "I hate it when people with terrible belief systems turn out to be reasonably intelligent. It upsets my sense of the natural order of the universe, which is to say: that everybody smart should agree with me."
* "When you interrogate the universe, the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. Our questions help reality define itself. The universe and the observers make each other. So we have to choose to look outside ourselves. To widen our view. It doesn’t require us to sacrifice our ambition, because that’s a bad story. But it requires us to bend our ambition to consider others."
* "Humans make a lot of terrible mistakes because we rely so heavily on narrative to understand the world. It allows our brains to be hacked by convincing fairy tales, to be hijacked by memes whether they have any objective reality or not. We probably needed rightminding more than most species just to remind us that stories are not the truth, even when they feel like the truth. Even when they suit all our biases and reinforce all our prejudices."
This book is set in the Synarche (or, well, right out on the edge of it), a multi-species and multi-culture-spanning federation of sentient beings. Protagonist Sunya Song aims to study the Baomind, an ancient alien artifact, and extract and preserve what knowledge she can as they race to transport it to a more stable environment (the star around which it orbits is about to go nova). Meanwhile, there's a murder mystery distracting everyone, a toxic ex-girlfriend, an alien wife, two teenagers, four cats, DARK MATTER, some wild spacewalking and hyperspace jumping, and a bunch of other chaos. I wished there could have been more focus on the first-contact language translation problem :)
Some quotes I enjoyed:
* "I hate it when people with terrible belief systems turn out to be reasonably intelligent. It upsets my sense of the natural order of the universe, which is to say: that everybody smart should agree with me."
* "When you interrogate the universe, the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. Our questions help reality define itself. The universe and the observers make each other. So we have to choose to look outside ourselves. To widen our view. It doesn’t require us to sacrifice our ambition, because that’s a bad story. But it requires us to bend our ambition to consider others."
* "Humans make a lot of terrible mistakes because we rely so heavily on narrative to understand the world. It allows our brains to be hacked by convincing fairy tales, to be hijacked by memes whether they have any objective reality or not. We probably needed rightminding more than most species just to remind us that stories are not the truth, even when they feel like the truth. Even when they suit all our biases and reinforce all our prejudices."
June 17, 2025
I read the ARC for The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear, White Space #3, following Ancestral Night and Machine. These are standalone stories that share world-building. So you can read in any order really.
In The Folded Sky we follow Dr. Sunyata Song who has left her wife and teen children behind with her wife to travel to a distant space station for a project that is to salvage her career. As they are approaching the space station another ship is blown up by pirates and pirates attempt to stop Sunyata’s ship as well, but they are able to escape. It is unknown if they will be able to leave as the pirates are running a blockade because they are fanatically anti-AI.
Complicating the story, Dr. Song learns that her ex and rival, Dr. Vickee DeVine will be arriving at the space station ahead of her and she feels that is disastrous for her project. DeVine is good at everything especially convincing everyone of how wonderful she is even though she has stolen other people’s work, include Sunyatas. Another surprise, Sunyata’s wife and children arrived on the same ship as Vickee to surprise her.
Okay, the world is fascinating and the pacing of the story is good, but here I found the characters to be the weakest part of the story. They were good – Sunyata is interesting and the concept of ‘right-minding’ is fascinating. Basically the fox imbedded in the brain is able to suppress the reactions/emotions that you show to others. Sunyata uses right-minding a lot. This would make for a fascinating dystopian novel if this was out of the control of the human and AI just determined the right-minding. Vickee, the ex and rival is pretty much a one note character. Salvie, Sunyata’s wife, is practically perfect and always sunny disposition – is such a person real? But, she seems to be as effective as right-minding in putting Sunyata back on track. Another interesting character is Salvie and Sunyata’s daughter Luna who seems to get the real character development.
Overall, I really liked the writing and the world building and I wished for better character development. I’ve given this book 3.75 stars rounded up to four. It is a good read. This book is released today, June 17th and I need to thank Net Galley and Saga Press for my advance reader copy. #SagaSaysCrew
July 27, 2025
This is the third in the White Space series by this author. I have read the previous two, and complained a little about the excessive touchy-feely aspects of the narration. It’s that modern science fiction phenomenon where a character feels the need to interrogate their every thought and action for bias and prejudice.
As I think I said before, I’m not against thoughtfulness, taking other peoples’ feelings into consideration, but when you are under attack by space pirates and a jury-rigged space station is falling to pieces, maybe act first and think about it later? So often, in this and the other books, the narrator is busy going over her emotions when she is hit sideways by some incoming object/enemy.
Anyway, it seems silly. The good news is, as an audiobook, this is much more bearable. Narrator Sarah Slimani is the one who has to plough through all the feelings while I drive my car or drift in and out of consciousness on the couch. So I enjoyed this more than the other two.
Each of the novels stands alone, and is merely set in the same universe. You get a different set of characters, but (weirdly!) they all have the same concerns about feelings and what is called “right minding”. I actually like some of the details of this world. For example, the idea that you would be able to “tune” your reaction to things in order to be able to cope; or the idea that a society might demand that you undergo “judicial right minding” to fix your sociopathy.
Dr. Sunyata Song specialises in rescuing information from corrupted files; she’s a historian of information systems. Across the Milky Way, a vast artificial intelligence built by a long-vanished superior race is facing destruction because its star is decaying. Song is hired to join the team that is trying to communicate with it, rescue its data, and ensure that it is not lost to time. But on arrival in the system, her ship comes under attack by pirates, and things go downhill from there.
It’s quite entertaining, with some interesting ideas, and now I’ve discovered the audiobook method, I will approach further instalments with pleasure.
As I think I said before, I’m not against thoughtfulness, taking other peoples’ feelings into consideration, but when you are under attack by space pirates and a jury-rigged space station is falling to pieces, maybe act first and think about it later? So often, in this and the other books, the narrator is busy going over her emotions when she is hit sideways by some incoming object/enemy.
Anyway, it seems silly. The good news is, as an audiobook, this is much more bearable. Narrator Sarah Slimani is the one who has to plough through all the feelings while I drive my car or drift in and out of consciousness on the couch. So I enjoyed this more than the other two.
Each of the novels stands alone, and is merely set in the same universe. You get a different set of characters, but (weirdly!) they all have the same concerns about feelings and what is called “right minding”. I actually like some of the details of this world. For example, the idea that you would be able to “tune” your reaction to things in order to be able to cope; or the idea that a society might demand that you undergo “judicial right minding” to fix your sociopathy.
Dr. Sunyata Song specialises in rescuing information from corrupted files; she’s a historian of information systems. Across the Milky Way, a vast artificial intelligence built by a long-vanished superior race is facing destruction because its star is decaying. Song is hired to join the team that is trying to communicate with it, rescue its data, and ensure that it is not lost to time. But on arrival in the system, her ship comes under attack by pirates, and things go downhill from there.
It’s quite entertaining, with some interesting ideas, and now I’ve discovered the audiobook method, I will approach further instalments with pleasure.
September 2, 2025
There's something to be said for the capacity for long flights to sharpen the focus of your reading. I took a short trip, with 4-hour long flights, and along with some music, it allowed me to give my undivided attention to The Folded Sky.
I'm very glad I did.
I was beyond excited to delve into a new White Space novel. The previous two had been highlights of their respective publication years, so I had high hopes for The Folded Sky.
There is a loose connection to Ancestral Night, as doctor Sunyata Song travels to the Baomind, a vast matryoshka brain created by an ancient civilization. It is an intelligent construct, an AI created to hold knowledge through the ages, found at the edge of the galaxy.
After millenia, the star is dying, and when it collapses, it will take the Baomind with it.
Dr. Song is there to study it, learn to communicate with it, and to help transfer the pieces of it to another star system before the star destroys the system.
What follows is a fun romp that skillfully weaves transhuman, or more accurate, transpecies culture and technology, first contact dilemmas, well-crafted family drama, murder mystery, big science ideas, and edge-of-your-seat space opera action.
Intertwining all these ideas into a cohesive novel sounds daunting, but Elizabeth Bear pulls it off with style, making The Folded Sky intriguing, fun, and exciting all at once.
It starts with a slow burn, setting up the pieces and the players, then it kicks in and keeps cranking the twists and turns.
I loved it.
It also added something that resonated with me, which I bet resonates with a lot of you. We've all met someone who is a horrible person that has shown us their true colors, but has a knack for charming everyone else, and it's difficult explaining to others how vile that person is without sounding like an ahole.
Well, Bear really captures that feeling in the interaction of some of the characters involved. No spoilers, but damn do I know how that feels.
I truly hope that Bear writes more White Space novels, because now that I finished The Folded Sky, I'm sad that I'm leaving this universe. Hopefully not for long!
I'm very glad I did.
I was beyond excited to delve into a new White Space novel. The previous two had been highlights of their respective publication years, so I had high hopes for The Folded Sky.
There is a loose connection to Ancestral Night, as doctor Sunyata Song travels to the Baomind, a vast matryoshka brain created by an ancient civilization. It is an intelligent construct, an AI created to hold knowledge through the ages, found at the edge of the galaxy.
After millenia, the star is dying, and when it collapses, it will take the Baomind with it.
Dr. Song is there to study it, learn to communicate with it, and to help transfer the pieces of it to another star system before the star destroys the system.
What follows is a fun romp that skillfully weaves transhuman, or more accurate, transpecies culture and technology, first contact dilemmas, well-crafted family drama, murder mystery, big science ideas, and edge-of-your-seat space opera action.
Intertwining all these ideas into a cohesive novel sounds daunting, but Elizabeth Bear pulls it off with style, making The Folded Sky intriguing, fun, and exciting all at once.
It starts with a slow burn, setting up the pieces and the players, then it kicks in and keeps cranking the twists and turns.
I loved it.
It also added something that resonated with me, which I bet resonates with a lot of you. We've all met someone who is a horrible person that has shown us their true colors, but has a knack for charming everyone else, and it's difficult explaining to others how vile that person is without sounding like an ahole.
Well, Bear really captures that feeling in the interaction of some of the characters involved. No spoilers, but damn do I know how that feels.
I truly hope that Bear writes more White Space novels, because now that I finished The Folded Sky, I'm sad that I'm leaving this universe. Hopefully not for long!
May 7, 2025
3.5/5 Stars rounded up for the plot and continued White Space storyline. I have always loved how Elizabeth Bear invests real effort in the worlds she builds in her novels; you can tell when reading any of her books that a tremendous amount of thought and planning went into the intricacies rendered on the page. As a hard science fiction lover this book delivers, reflections on humanity and space travel all wrapped up in physics, time, and resource management. There's so much to dig into and enjoy whether you enjoy the research aspect or the action-adventure side of things. I feel confident saying that you won't find similar out there in the world of science fiction right now.
That said, the reason for only 3.5 stars comes down to the main character, Sunya Song. I really struggled to relate to her as a character and unfortunately spent a fair amount of time irritated with her inner monologue and choices. I think her struggles as a researcher and parent are very relatable, but it was hard for me to feel sympathy when she's lambasting her teenager while also acting like a child; and not doing much reflection on her actions (outside of what her wife is prompting her to do). I also found her prejudice to be a bit of a non-starter, especially because she's so harshly judgemental and critical of others. This isn't something she confronts in any meaningful way in the course of the book, which I found surprising since so much of Bear's writing is often a reflection on our humanity and choices.
All this is to say, this is NOT a bad book. I think the story is very enjoyable and unique, something that I appreciate as so many books all feel kind of the same nowadays. Yes, the main character misses the mark for me in some very important respects; but I do think Sunya Song has an interesting character arc. And there's something to be said about book characters not being perfect, I just found myself very frustrated at times. So, all in all, if you love hard science fiction and complex worlds; this book is for you, and you should give it a shot!
That said, the reason for only 3.5 stars comes down to the main character, Sunya Song. I really struggled to relate to her as a character and unfortunately spent a fair amount of time irritated with her inner monologue and choices. I think her struggles as a researcher and parent are very relatable, but it was hard for me to feel sympathy when she's lambasting her teenager while also acting like a child; and not doing much reflection on her actions (outside of what her wife is prompting her to do). I also found her prejudice to be a bit of a non-starter, especially because she's so harshly judgemental and critical of others. This isn't something she confronts in any meaningful way in the course of the book, which I found surprising since so much of Bear's writing is often a reflection on our humanity and choices.
All this is to say, this is NOT a bad book. I think the story is very enjoyable and unique, something that I appreciate as so many books all feel kind of the same nowadays. Yes, the main character misses the mark for me in some very important respects; but I do think Sunya Song has an interesting character arc. And there's something to be said about book characters not being perfect, I just found myself very frustrated at times. So, all in all, if you love hard science fiction and complex worlds; this book is for you, and you should give it a shot!
June 16, 2025
Book Review: The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear
Thanks so much to the author and Saga Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
Information doesn’t want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace—and in less than a year, that’s exactly what will happen to the Baomind, an ancient AI orbiting a star nearing supernova. Dr. Sunya Song is on a mission to save it, but with enemies at every turn, can she protect the Baomind—and her own family—from destruction?
The Folded Sky is truly immense. It’s a murder mystery, an action-packed space opera, a first contact story, a philosophical debate, and a family drama all at once—and much to my delight, each of these tendrils are woven together with skill and confidence. Readers are dropped headfirst into a future where starships fly through folded spacetime and your boss might just be a dodecapod (tentacles and all!) I’ll admit to spending the first few pages worried that The Folded Sky might be a bit too smart for me, but rest assured—by the 30% mark, you’ll be nodding along to terms like white space travel, archinformatics, and Baomind tessarae like a pro.
On a scale from Altered Carbon to Solaris or The Three Body Problem, The Folded Sky tends toward action over philosophy, but there are still plenty of theoretical questions to chew on in between attempted m*rders and pirate attacks. I loved Bear’s takes on snarky artificial intelligence, alien communication, and the quantum observer effect, and Dr. Song’s struggle to navigate the difficult (yet so often hilarious) dynamics of life with her alien wife, angsty teenage children, two cats, ex-girlfriend turned academic rival, and reconstructed dinosaur Angie reminded me just how much I enjoy reading from the perspective of older female protagonists.
Though technically the third book in the White Space series, The Folded Sky can be read and enjoyed as a standalone, and is one I’d absolutely recommend to anyone looking for a punchy sci-fi adventure that will stretch your brain without breaking it!
My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (4.5 stars)
Thanks so much to the author and Saga Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!
Information doesn’t want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace—and in less than a year, that’s exactly what will happen to the Baomind, an ancient AI orbiting a star nearing supernova. Dr. Sunya Song is on a mission to save it, but with enemies at every turn, can she protect the Baomind—and her own family—from destruction?
The Folded Sky is truly immense. It’s a murder mystery, an action-packed space opera, a first contact story, a philosophical debate, and a family drama all at once—and much to my delight, each of these tendrils are woven together with skill and confidence. Readers are dropped headfirst into a future where starships fly through folded spacetime and your boss might just be a dodecapod (tentacles and all!) I’ll admit to spending the first few pages worried that The Folded Sky might be a bit too smart for me, but rest assured—by the 30% mark, you’ll be nodding along to terms like white space travel, archinformatics, and Baomind tessarae like a pro.
On a scale from Altered Carbon to Solaris or The Three Body Problem, The Folded Sky tends toward action over philosophy, but there are still plenty of theoretical questions to chew on in between attempted m*rders and pirate attacks. I loved Bear’s takes on snarky artificial intelligence, alien communication, and the quantum observer effect, and Dr. Song’s struggle to navigate the difficult (yet so often hilarious) dynamics of life with her alien wife, angsty teenage children, two cats, ex-girlfriend turned academic rival, and reconstructed dinosaur Angie reminded me just how much I enjoy reading from the perspective of older female protagonists.
Though technically the third book in the White Space series, The Folded Sky can be read and enjoyed as a standalone, and is one I’d absolutely recommend to anyone looking for a punchy sci-fi adventure that will stretch your brain without breaking it!
My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (4.5 stars)
August 11, 2025
Returning to Bear's "White Space" universe, I was very much looking forward to some interesting science fiction and challenging situations, along with more well-rounded characters, and for the most part this volume delivered - but in contrast to the previous novels, this main character, Sunyata, is an academic with a family. This leads to a definite shift away from action and plot development, and like the first novel in the series, we spend a lot of time in the main character's thoughts. Like that first novel, the pacing on this one does suffer slightly, and the thoughts can be a touch navel-gazing as Sunya wanders through her memories, her relationship trauma, her very strong incidence of impostor syndrome, and some heartfelt metaphors. Throughout the course of her adventure, she navigates her recovery from said relationship trauma and her mundanely-fraught relationship with her teenage children (with the aid of her spouse, a not-as-well-developed-character).
While interesting and sympathetic, this doesn't leave room for some of the other characters to be as well-developed, and the events of the overall plot are slightly overshadowed by all of it. I mean, she's at the outer edge of the galaxy, interacting with novel ancient technology, artificial intelligences, and known (and unknown) alien life while pirates are attacking, and the focus is on Sunya's emotional journey, recovery, and growth so much that the "big picture" can seem slightly superfluous.
This was good, and I can see the value of the type of tale Bear wanted to tell hear, but I think there might have been a better balance to find to make this good book a great book.
While interesting and sympathetic, this doesn't leave room for some of the other characters to be as well-developed, and the events of the overall plot are slightly overshadowed by all of it. I mean, she's at the outer edge of the galaxy, interacting with novel ancient technology, artificial intelligences, and known (and unknown) alien life while pirates are attacking, and the focus is on Sunya's emotional journey, recovery, and growth so much that the "big picture" can seem slightly superfluous.
This was good, and I can see the value of the type of tale Bear wanted to tell hear, but I think there might have been a better balance to find to make this good book a great book.
September 6, 2025
The Folded Sky, is the third in Bears White Space space opera, following Ancestral Night and Machine. It takes place roughly in the same time period as Machine, thus some time after Ancestral Night (the actual Ancestral Night ship makes a brief cameo in the novel). If you will recall, these novels revolve around a spacefaring community of aliens, humans among them. If you enjoyed those books this one has everything those have and is just as enjoyable.
"Sunya is a researcher traveling to the edge of the galaxy. She studies information and the collection and interpretation of information, and a cache of ancient alien information is the biggest known. But her arrival there is not easy. Pirates are blockading the system. The star that the cache is orbiting, as well as the space station for the researchers, is probably going to go supernova any time now. And then there are the attempted murders. And just what are those mysterious things Sunya is seeing in the corner of her vision?" - Paul Weimer at Nerds of a Feather
You don't need to have read those two books to enjoy Folded Sky but seriously why wouldn't you they are great. Its a great story a ancient mystery, space pirates, AIs of various levels of snark and did I mention cats.
July 2, 2025
Starting with things I like: the pacing is pleasant and the situation is interesting. The different species are fun and their interactions are enjoyable. I don't love any of the characters, really, aside from perhaps Dr. Nonsense.
All that said, I've been on the fence basically since I started reading. My suspension of disbelief only goes so far and throwing the word "quantum" and "observation" into things tends to put me off when it's used as a means to send non-random information.
Spoilers for late in the book:
I finally decided to write this review because the discussion of "opening the mail" feels so far removed from reality that it kinda' dropped me out. I'm not an expert, but the interaction of a photon with a wave function doesn't destroy as in "remove" all other entangled particles, it just means they will consistently read as the same state. Additionally, the idea of an observer isn't tied to consciousness. It was tolerable when it was just used in passing but the whole conversation about the universe needing observers to collapse the wave function has me disinclined to finish. If I weren't already close to the end I might have called it here.
All that said, I've been on the fence basically since I started reading. My suspension of disbelief only goes so far and throwing the word "quantum" and "observation" into things tends to put me off when it's used as a means to send non-random information.
Spoilers for late in the book:
I finally decided to write this review because the discussion of "opening the mail" feels so far removed from reality that it kinda' dropped me out. I'm not an expert, but the interaction of a photon with a wave function doesn't destroy as in "remove" all other entangled particles, it just means they will consistently read as the same state. Additionally, the idea of an observer isn't tied to consciousness. It was tolerable when it was just used in passing but the whole conversation about the universe needing observers to collapse the wave function has me disinclined to finish. If I weren't already close to the end I might have called it here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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