HOMEBOUND by Portia Elan

5 stars

WOW! This lyrical, completely original novel poignantly captures how the stories and myths we tell each other binds humanity together across centuries and across the universe.

In 1983, Becks has lost her favorite uncle to illness and turns to a text-based computer game he started writing for her as comfort against deep teenage angst and loneliness. Becks works at a Cincinnati music store, hates her mom, loves her female best friend a bit too much, helps care for her Bubbe, and struggles to find her place in the world. She immerses herself in completing the game her adored uncle left for her, named Homebound.

There’s also the game world of Homebound where a female Lieutenant California is sent out from Earth to find out why a spaceship carrying humans in stasis searching for a new habitable planet has gone unresponsive to communications. She finally docks with the spaceship to find all systems functioning, all the humans in stasis fine, but all the humans assigned to be awake to manage the ship having gone down on shuttles to a nearby planet. She must bravely determine what to do and solve complex puzzles to save the humans on board the ship.

Tamar, a scientist working on next generation AI robots has embedded her complex, data-heavy ecological systems analysis to help determine how to keep ecosystems balanced and functioning. The AI’s combine biological parts with quantum computing, and Tamar realizes in her work that one of the AI’s, named Chaya, is particularly sentient, and very likely “alive.” In a moment of bonding over their shared loneliness, she introduces Chaya to the game Homebound.

Centuries later, Chaya is looking after two young Jewish refugees who have come along up North to find Lieutenant Cal when she returns to Earth. Chaya struggles to separate centuries of lost personal memories from those of the AI collective and those experiences with Tamar. Tamar for payment agrees to transport them to the very Northern reaches.

In this quest, all become deeply, touchingly connected, heartbreak merges with optimism, and the game story weaves together both past and future.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Stacy DeBroff

Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central.com and social and digital consultancy, Influence Central, is a social media strategist, attorney, and best-selling parenting author. A sought-after expert for national media, she trend-spots regularly with national brands and speaks frequently to national and international audiences on a wide range of subjects, including influencer marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and consumer trends. A passionate cook, gardener, reader, and tennis player, she adores this new chapter of post-college-age parenting.