An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Also available on e-book via the Indiana Digital Library.

If you’re looking for out-of-the-box science fiction with excellent worldbuilding and characters you can’t help but love, pick up An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Aster is a scientist living on the starship Matilda, a generation ship organized much like the antebellum South. Relegated to one of the ship’s lower decks, dark-skinned Aster is forced to work at manual labor and abused by guards. Aster’s mother died when she was an infant, leaving behind only journals that don’t make any sense. But as a strange sickness rears its ugly head on the ship, Aster finds out that her mother’s journals were written in code and point to a disturbing link between her death and the recent illness of the ship’s sovereign. Can Aster break the code in time to steer the ship to a better life?

I was immediately drawn in by Aster’s strong personality and her deep desire to help her shipmates, even as she struggles to relate to them. The world-building is superb. It’s a unique take on a generation ship and just as I had questions about how parts of the world worked, the author answered them in the story. This was a book that kept me riveted as twists and turns in the plot revealed more about the corrupt society on the ship. And Aster’s friendship and sexual tension with a ship physician who has trained her to help the people on the lower decks added to my enjoyment.

Check out this book if you enjoy gender-bending science fiction or books like: