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.

June 1, 2022

Scherm's (Unbecoming) gripping novel is set in a nightmarishly plausible near-future. Just over a decade from now, global warming has made death by natural disaster a constant risk, with evacuation warnings transmitted through Sensus phones, stranding offline extremists to their fate by fire, hurricane, or heat wave. The aural implants provide constant connection at the cost of privacy. As total ecological collapse looms, Sensus founders Katherine and Rachel Son stand to profit from two new endeavors: their space station Paralaxis, a billionaire escape route currently staffed by environmental scientists tasked with creating sustainable luxury habitats; and Views, behind-the-eyes streaming video of the scientists' every action, filmed by their nextgen phones. When Katherine recruits coding genius Tess to train history's most sophisticated predictive algorithm on Views, Tess becomes an invisible, increasingly obsessed witness to unwitting subjects. She sees, then joins, the acceleration toward confrontation aboard Paralaxis and a new global paradigm. Xe Sands skillfully commands pace and pathos for a cinematic listening experience, slipping between voices as distinct and believable as the tragically flawed characters Scherm has created. VERDICT Superb speculative fiction anchored by human drama, informed by genuine threats, and compellingly narrated.--Lauren Kage

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