The Final Six by Alexandra Monir (review)

In the near future, Rome is flooded, El Niño has made Los Angeles unrecognizable, and global climate change is no longer merely a topic of academic discussion but rather a war being fought by international space agencies set on establishing a new home for humanity on Jupiter’s moon Europa. For this bullish yet precarious mission to succeed, Earth’s greatest minds assemble twenty-four exceptional candidates—aged sixteen to nineteen, physically fit, intelligent, and proficient in English—to train and compete for the opportunity to be one of only six selected to terraform humanity’s new home. Monir begins this new sci-fi series with a dual narrative that shifts between the voices of two of these teenaged candidates: Leo, a world-class swimmer, who has lost everything to the rising waters but is excited to be part of something potentially meaningful, and Naomi, an unmatched scientific mind, who fears this mission may be a death sentence for all involved. As they progress through high-stakes space camp, an unsurprising romance emerges between the two protagonists, which, with very little offered to differentiate their narrative perspectives, makes the contrivance of going back and forth more of a chore than an effective story vehicle. Still, even with an underdeveloped call to action and some stilted canoodling for Leo and Naomi, the novel adeptly presents its bleak future in the context of contemporary climate concerns; the focus on biopolitical inequity and environmental responsibility may remind readers of Smith’s Orleans (BCCB 3/13).