"We Inherit Eden"

Less than half a century from now interstellar travel is necessary if humanity is to survive. Orion Space Industries has established a colony on Proxima Centauri b, a little more than four light years from earth, and now has employed a pilot, the only human on board, to deliver some kind of cargo to the planet. It will be a long and lonely journey, full of strange dreams and assurances by the ship's Artificial Intelligence that the pilot is not really alone after all.

Mostly narrated by the pilot, unnamed until the very end, "We Inherit Eden" ($9.99 in paperback from CreateSpace) is a science-fictional exploration of the engineering needed to achieve 5% light speed, but also, and more importantly, a singular meditation on what human science has birthed--the A.I. that guides the Orthrus mission.

Written by Paradise High School grad Ryan Montoya, who went on to pursue an engineering degree (and a mountain climbing avocation), this mesmerizing novel hurtles the reader into deep space and the horrific consequences of a life-threatening accident. 

The Orthrus sports two huge "sails" cabled to the ship, one in front and one in back, and uses "nuclear pulse propulsion" behind each sail to provide deceleration from the rear or acceleration from the front. 

But that kind of engineering is easy compared to the challenge of delivering a human alive to his destination. The solution is the stasis chamber with drug-induced sleep. "I knew, when I awoke, that my body would have experienced a solar month and my mind a solar day. But for the ship, an epoch would pass." It takes a long time to go 24 trillion miles, but what is more important than saving humankind?

When catastrophe strikes, it's unclear that the mission can be completed. The ship's A.I. talks to the pilot not only through a voice but as the "pale man" in his dreams. "I don't want to be afraid," the pilot cries out, and the answer is terrifying: "Fear not for humanity, for it is doomed. Fear not for your own life, for its time is numbered."

There is an alternative to fear, the ship says. And it all depends on Eden.