The Wanderers Is the Literary Sci-Fi Novel of the Year

Veteran astronauts Helen Kane, Yoshi Tanaka, and Sergei Kuznetsov have been selected by Prime Space—a private company recalling the real world SpaceX, complete with its own Elon Musk—for a secretive manned mission to Mars, the first of its kind. Before any rockets ascend to the heavens, however, the hand-picked trio must complete Eidolon, a real-time simulation of their trip that will test their intellectual, emotional, and psychological limits.
Like Andy Weir’s blockbuster debut The Martian, Howrey’s novel is a complex, intimate consideration of how humans respond to the challenges of interplanetary space exploration. That’s where the comparisons end, though—where The Martian delights assailing its protagonist with the environmental and technological dangers of surviving on the Red Planet, The Wanderers is more interested in the social and psychological impact of humanity’s first manned mission to Mars. Howey trades in Weir’s chemistry and physics degrees for sociology and psychology, and the result is nuanced, delicate, and fascinating in all its facets.

The Wanderers is framed like a traditional science fiction narrative, but is anything but traditional in its execution. It’s the story of humanity’s first mission to Mars, but it’s not really about going to Mars at all—it’s about the people who are going to Mars. It’s like one-third of a Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy, with the hard science replaced by emotional complexity.
In addition to each of the spacefarers, The Wanderers recognizes the challenges faced by their family members remaining on earth, and weaves them into the novel in a way that feels natural, deepening the greater narrative. Helen’s daughter Mireille is everything her mother is not: bold, emotional, and charismatic. Where Helene is stoic, Mireille is flighty and unsure. Yin and Yang. Sergei, for all his loneliness, is separated from his eldest son Dmitri, whose loneliness mirrors his father’s; his voyage is a coming-of-age exploration of sexuality and the way we cage ourselves. Yoshi’s wife Madoka feels more affection for the robots she works with in her high-paying job than she does her loving husband, but she masks it well. These nuanced character portraits add increase the drama of the central conceit of the narrative to heartbreaking levels; they all, in their own ways, feel abandoned by their loved ones, who have chosen not only to leave their planet behind, but their lives there, too. Despite jumping between so many richly-defined voices, The Wanderers remains compulsive and engrossing—like a sinuous ouroboros, it’s endlessly compelling.
This book is “not science fiction” in the same way that Margaret Atwood’s seminal dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale, is “not science fiction.” Both books are marketed towards a “literary” audience; they are both built around science fiction tropes, but that’s only one part of their identity, and they’re not weighted down by expectations of their framing genres. They’re science fiction, but they are also feminist examinations of modern society, and melancholy cries for help from people trapped by forces outside of their control. They are clever dissections of the things people will do when they are desperate. Offred is desperate to escape Gilead. Helen Kane is desperate to escape Earth. They are stories about people. Science fiction is one label, but it’s not the only label.

In this way, I’m also reminded of Emily St. James Mandel’s Station Eleven, which shares The Wanderers‘ fascination with studying its rich characters during tumultuous situations. It values exploration of their personal challenges more than searching for answers about why the future played out the way it did. But where Station Eleven is nostalgic for a dead world, The Wanderers grieves for a dying one.
There is a beautiful ambiguity to the ending, which begs the reader to question the relationship between the journey and the destination. As we search for something more, is it more important that we eventually get there, or that we discover new experiences along the way? Howrey teases us with answers to some of the novel’s more puzzling questions, but pulls back at just the right moment, leaving us (and the astronauts) to thoughtfully consider the truth behind the events that occur during the training mission. The ambiguity is intrinsically linked to the way the protagonists—so sure of who they are in the beginning, but each looking for something new, whether escape, adventure, or purpose—question aspects of their lives, but never quite find the answers they seek. Space does not provide them with answers, and Howrey doesn’t hand them to the reader.
With this novel, Meg Howrey has woven an impressive tapestry of emotional tenderness, science fictional speculation, and familial drama. It reminds me of so many other books, yet is undeniably its own creation. Like a night spent in isolation, contemplating the immensity of the starry sky, The Wanderers is compulsive, melancholy brilliance.
The Wanderers is available now.