The Last Gifts of the Universe

Subgenres come and go and one that I have recently been enjoying is ‘Cosy Fantasy,’ what does that mean? Basically, fantasy with some of the trepidation taken out, a chance to get to know the characters and enjoy a fantasy setting in peace. Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe opens my world to ‘Cosy Science Fiction,’ a space-based equivalent. Siblings bickering in space with a cat in a space suit. Sounds cosy enough to me, but the book is also a treatise on grief, so not that cosy. 

Scout and their brother Kieran are archivists, underfunded and underpaid space explorers. Their mission, to go where no other archivists have gone before, with their pet cat Pumpkin. Out in deep space the trio explore dead worlds looking for the reason every society apart from humans seem to have just vapourised. Former colonised planets often contain a cache of information left by their peoples, Scout and Kieran’s job is to get that information back to Earth and a lack of funding is not their only problem. There is the deadly remnant creatures sometimes left behind or the selfish corporations who would put the information to save Earth behind a paywall. 

I am interested in the way that Last Gifts has been positioned in the marketplace, mainly with a cat front and centre. Set aside the fact that I do not think a cat would make a good space pet, Pumpkin is cute and does give the book a quirk. The relationship between the siblings and their cat is best described as cosy. They have their little family working just about right, but as the book progresses you start to see that there is an underlying sadness to their predicament. 

Space is vast. Space is lonely. It is a place that you can use to remember, but also to forget. Scout and Kieran have signed up for this long-term mission for a reason and the reader is given a drip feed of why this is. Parallel to this story is one of long dead scientists. Scout reads their story through a series of discovered diary entries. The tale of these two scientists chimes with Scout. It is a story of love found and love lost. 

These two stories of grief play out in a wider science fiction story. The archivists are in a race against a shadowy corporation to be the first to discover a cache that could save the Earth. There is a meta-story here about the survival of the species. Why continue as a species if our destruction is inevitable? The concept being that live while you are alive and fight as long as you can. These are big, brain teasing ideas. Last Gifts is told in a cosy manner but does not deal with cosy subjects. I understand that some readers find comfort in exploring the feeling of family and grief, there is a warmth in remembering those lost, but also a sadness. It all depends on what you consider to be cosy. 

I enjoyed Last Gifts mixture of light science fiction and larger concepts. There is a strong focus on relationships in the book, both between the siblings, but also the logs of the two scientists. Despite it dealing with the near destruction of all known life, there is a sense of hope in the book, a lesson that will chime with many. Make the most of what you have, whilst you still have it.