A House Between Earth and the Moon

December 20, 2021
Thriller author Scherm (Unbecoming) pivots to literary science fiction in this polished but hollow big data parable centered on exposure, privacy, and lies in a near-future Earth plagued by climate disaster and frequent pandemics where smartphones are directly wired into people’s brains and data privacy is only for the rich. Michigan scientist Alex Welch-Peters’s life’s work—bioengineering carbon-capturing algae to slow global warming—succeeded only once. Now he’s on contract to replicate the discovery on the unfinished private luxury space station Parallaxis, a haven-to-be for 10 billionaires 220 miles above Earth. Meanwhile, socially inept researcher Tess is hired to train a behavior-prediction algorithm—with the Parallaxis team as test subjects. As the algorithm becomes increasingly coercive and drags in all those aboard Parallaxis, the researchers and their families get caught in a web of conflict and lies. Scherm’s crisp prose smooths over complex interpersonal machinations and tends to overexplain its own allegories, leaving character motivations and themes feeling obvious. The broad range of issues, meanwhile, all get the same scant treatment; rape culture, for example, becomes mere window dressing. Fans of Emily St. John Mandel or Liz Harmer will appreciate Scherm’s burning world, but miss the emotional intelligence. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House.

February 1, 2022
Scherm (Unbecoming, 2015) gives this speculative-fiction saga a dark and addictive plot. A future Earth is being ravaged by wildfires, floods, and megastorms that have made climate refugees of most humans living in the Southern Hemisphere. Here and now, "living in the normal world is like learning to eat fifty toxic things in the exact combination that won't kill you." The unfolding, fast-paced narrative alternates between those who believe that the space station Parallaxis was being built as a lab to combat climate change, and those who know the truth. Scherm's character-driven sf story centers on individuals working against the clock to find a solution to climate change. Unfortunately for them, there are others using science as a cover for amassing great wealth and controlling society, using algorithms built into implanted cellphones. Scherm beautifully captures emotion in her writing as she shows how important connection is to our shared humanity.

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February 15, 2022
Near-future Earth is in deep trouble. The humanity-saving space station isn't looking so good either. Scherm's second novel, after Unbecoming (2015), is a high-concept domestic novel that merges science fiction and eco-fiction tropes while braiding a host of characters and subplots. The main one involves Alex, a beleaguered scientist who has long been hoping to create a species of algae that can consume enough carbon dioxide to stem global warming. That crisis is racing out of control by 2033, when the novel is largely set, from constant wildfires to Midwestern heat waves that kill tens of thousands at a time. Alex has been recruited by Sensus, a Google/Apple-ish megacorp, to do his research on Parallaxis I, a space station orbiting Earth that's designed partly for research, partly as an escape hatch for billionaires looking to get away from the chaos down below. Alex's thoughts are earthbound, though: He's recently separated from his wife, and his teenage daughter, Mary Agnes, is suffering rounds of cyberbullying and deepfake revenge porn facilitated by Sensus products. Added into this drama are Tess, a researcher hired to perfect an algorithm monitoring the behavior of Alex and Parallaxis' other occupants, and the two sisters who run Sensus, often in a contentious relationship. And more: other scientists, family members, and billionaire occupants grumpy over delays and cost overruns. It's all a lot--too much, really, for a novel that works the familiar theme that a change of scenery won't erase our flaws. But credit Scherm for striving to give the climate change novel a wider yet still realistic scope and for creating some nuanced characters in Alex and Mary Agnes, who are both eager to do the right thing but undone by humanity, its fickle nature, and its allegedly liberating but often self-imprisoning technologies. An ambitious, sometimes cumbersome dystopian tale.

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