A Closed and Common Orbit

Content Ratings

Mild Romance

Pepper's established relationship with her partner Blue is warm and affectionate; Sidra's (Lovelace's) emerging sense of self includes beginning to understand physical and emotional attachment; romantic content is gentle and LGBTQIA+ inclusive.

Moderate Themes

The novel explores the trauma of a childhood in forced labor, what it means to construct an identity from scratch, the ethics of constraining an AI to a human form, and the slow process of healing from a damaged past.

Mild Violence

Pepper's childhood flashbacks depict the brutal conditions of an enslaved child labor factory; violence is emotionally devastating in context but not graphically detailed.

Synopsis

The AI Lovelace from the first Wayfarer novel has been downloaded into a human body kit and must learn to be a person, with the help of a tattooist named Pepper whose own childhood escape from a factory of enslaved child laborers is told in parallel flashbacks. A quiet, profound novel about identity, embodiment, and what it means to become oneself. Deeply compassionate and emotionally rich.