Eliot Schrefer’s The Brightness Between Us is a thrilling sequel to his debut novel, The Darkness Outside Us (2021). It manages to capture not only vast temporal and spatial discrepancies but also those of gender and class, following four unique perspectives written in impressively distinct voices.

We fluctuate between two timelines and two dyads. One is a pair of young men in the near future, Ambrose and Kodiak; the other is a pair of teenage siblings in the far future, Owl and Yarrow. All are linked first through an incidentally extinctionist scheme to end human life on earth and secondly an exocolony. The book grapples with the existential dread of self-definition while the world (literally) explodes around us and yet is full of tender moments. From the dangers of 3D-printed guns and deepfakes, to the potential harms of AI and genetic manipulation, the book is also full of contemporary issues. But what I find most fascinating is Schrefer’s case for a pro-human future: It is full of love despite immense suffering. It is a celebration and affirmation of life’s value in the face of its fragility and ephemerality.

Schrefer’s message to the reader at the beginning of the novel expresses its central question and conclusion: “How does humankind survive itself—and should we? I think the answer to the second part of that question is yes … and it’s hard to imagine a version of that answer that doesn’t have intimacy and family and love threaded all the way through it.” Regarding the first part of that question, Schrefer sets at humanity’s feet near insurmountable challenges. His vision of twenty-fifth-century Earth is a mock-up of the twentieth-century Cold War between the United States and USSR: While in our world, the US and USSR utilized proxies, here these approximations have formed outright empires, down to the point of only two countries existing, Federation and Dimokratia. The impasse between these two governments is so severe they are on the brink of nuclear war.

Besides the threat of human-borne planetary extinction, the predicted effects of climate change have come to fruition. The planet’s temperature has risen and many species are either extinct or endangered. Early on, we meet another Ambrose and Kodiak in the far future of this ravaged Earth, about to set foot on a fresh planet. Ambrose and his ex, Sri, pass notes between each other written on “real life vintage paper and pencil.” At one point during their exchange, Sri writes: “Look out at this planet. The mass extinction, the storms, the human misery. The mission for the glory of your family name. After one planet, what’s next but more?” Near the end of the book, Ambrose echoes this sentiment:

Now that our countries are fully at war, which could finally be the end stage of human civilization that the pundits have so long predicted, now that we’ve seen the extinction of virtually all vertebrate sea life and the misery of the animals that remain on land … maybe humanity is a scourge and ought to be stopped, which means Sagittarion Bb should fail. We should fail. We should stanch human ‘progress’ every way we can.

Social restructuring and nuclear disarmament (the two best-case scenarios, in my opinion, if one hopes to save Earth) are massive demands to make of any government, let alone a pair of them with competing interests and a hatred for each other. The most bleak aspect of Schrefer’s twenty-fifth-century Earth, then, is that humanity has not moved beyond petty politics in an effort to stop climate change, a  shared threat to all terrestrial life. Readers of The Darkness Outside Us will know, ultimately, that human civilization on Earth does end through nuclear armageddon. Ambrose and Kodiak’s relationship, amidst war, amidst extinction, provides cold comfort in this backdrop.

In the far future and another solar system, life continues for humanity, for a different Ambrose and Kodiak, and for their children, Owl and Yarrow. Far removed from Earth’s political upheavals and ecological crises, Schrefer’s atypical family ekes out a living. An older Kodiak plays the role of “strict” Father, Ambrose plays the more “lenient” Dad; both the children are wilful, but never boundary-crossing. They eat moss, print clothing and tools out of the materials they have, and watch “reels” of a show named Pink Lagoon on the corpse of their ship. Yet, the planet, named Minerva, is not without its familiarities. The planet has climate issues and a similar pattern of human appropriation of resources occurs. Owl explains that, over the last two decades, Minerva’s temperatures have been rising. Additionally, Yarrow explains, in a rare instance of violence, the family kills and eats a slaughtered animal known as a Malvor, and begins digging into Minerva to find metal, both of which cause him discomfort. While Minerva’s rising temperature and metal acquisition are not linked, it does raise alarm, as constant resource extraction, far more sophisticated now than ever before, was the primary factor that led to Earth’s climate change. However, this is a world where human survival does not necessitate over-appropriation of natural resources. The colonists only acquire what they need and they do not waste it.

This monotony makes life on Minerva endearing. Yet, that monotony will soon face its own upheaval. As it turns out, the colonists have been sabotaged on a genetic level—or rather, their protozygotes have. Their genetic code has been altered with a virus that makes gestating young die before birth. This was the case for many of Ambrose and Kodiak’s children. Should these children survive gestation, they will become more aggressive due to a swelling in the amygdala around their sixteenth birthday. Yarrow begins having intrusive thoughts about murdering his family on his sixteenth birthday. After Yarrow acts on his thoughts (with no casualties) he exiles himself and hides from his family.

Eliot Schrefer has never shied away from killing off characters, which is why the last act of this novel is particularly touching. The family, sans Yarrow, are hiding in a bunker to protect themselves from an incoming natural disaster. Owl runs back to their settlement to save a fetus gestating inside a machine. On the way back, she encounters her brother. He looks terrible: “He’s got blisters all over his skin, his lips are cracked and bloody, his hair matted and singed. He must not have had water for days, and this heat—barely tolerable for me in the space suit—is baking him alive.” Yarrow and Owl argue back and forth, with Yarrow urging Owl to take the gestation unit and leave him behind, fearing he might hurt his family again. Owl, mercifully, ignores him. She leaves the gestation unit and carries an injured brother—who nearly killed her and the rest of their family—to safety. It’s a touching act of forgiveness and love. The book ends with the family reunited and Owl watching a reel on the Coordinated Endeavor, the vessel that brought her parents to Minerva in the first place.

Readers of YA SF will love The Brightness Between Us. It’s an excellent novel that presents the brutal realities of climate change and war in an approachable way; further, it presents atypical families and youths in not only a positive light but a normative one, which is deeply needed when political operatives are attempting to strip these families of their rights. Schrefer’s characters and thematic messaging in this book are phenomenal. At the same time, the novel’s ending leaves the family’s fate open to interpretation. I hope Schrefer finds a third plotline for this bastion of humanity on the edge of the Milky Way.