‘The Deep Sky’ (St Martin’s Press, £25.99, ISBN 9781250875334) is the debut novel from Brooklyn-based author Yume Kitasei. In the near future, Earth is reaching complete climate collapse – mass extinctions, refugee crises, crackling geopolitical tensions – so 80 young people are selected from a competitive programme to travel to a remote habitable planet and establish a new home for humanity. During the journey, a deliberate explosion kills three members of the crew and knocks the spaceship off course. Asuka, who witnessed the explosion, sets out to find the saboteur.

‘The Deep Sky’ presents some fascinating potential conflicts. All 80 members of the crew are expected to bear a child during the mission for the purpose of populating the distant planet, so the crew is female dominated with a third of them pregnant at any one time. War breaks out on Earth between the US and China, with leadership of this international mission at stake, and the crew (always...