Her name is Elif because she is the first of us to live on this world. You will do well to remind her of this name. Elif is just a baby, for now. She is a little pink thing that wriggles and squirms. Often she’ll place her whole fist inside her mouth. It won’t make sense but you just need to keep her safe. There won’t be any set instructions to stop her from crying. You’ll struggle at first, but I know you can figure it out because I am going to help you do it.

So begins the prologue of Madeehah Reza’s Orphan Planet. I had to look up the meaning of the name “Elif”—apparently it is the first letter of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, similar to the Arabic Alif. And indeed, it seemed fitting that the first person to live in a new world would be named after the first letter of the alphabet.

These instructions have been given to VAS-H, an artificial intelligence entity assigned to take care of Elif, a baby who also happens to be the sole inhabitant of the planet Maoira-I. Elif has no contact with another human until she is twelve years old, when she is contacted by Commander Aremu, from the spaceship Polaris. Commander Aremu reveals that Elif is the “warden” of Maoira-I, and her job is to figure out whether the planet is suitable for human inhabitation.

Naturally, this baffles Elif, who has only ever had VAS-H for company, and whose knowledge about other humans comes entirely from screens: “She had seen humans before on films and shows, but they never looked directly at her. They were in their own worlds, not aware of the girl’s existence,” we read, highlighting how unnatural Elif’s life has been. Elif is unfamiliar with very basic ideas about human life and society, with her asking questions like what “dressing professionally” means, and what a family is. When she is addressed as “Warden,” she has to look the word up, and finds out it has two meanings: It can mean someone who is in charge of, cares for, or has custody over persons, animals, or things; or it can refer to the highest executive officer in charge of a prison. While we’d assume the former meaning is what Commander Aremu intends, the latter meaning also makes sense. Maoira-I is, in a sense, a prison for Elif; however, as its only inhabitant, she is also the highest “officer” in charge there.

Elif’s new life as Warden revolves around “assignments,” which mostly involve scouting the terrain in order to check if it is suitable for human inhabitation, as well as growing different types of plants. While she does as she is told, Elif also has much natural curiosity in her, and she constantly looks for answers and tries to find out new things about the situation she is in. But Commander Aremu eventually gets replaced by another commander, named Bishop, who is much sterner with Elif. He says that Elif might soon get another human companion, an idea which discomfits the girl, who continues primarily to associate an artificial intelligence with the idea of company. “It would mean rationing the food, sectioning off the dormitories for them. Sharing her space. A whole other human being living with her, breathing the same air,” she realizes.

Despite her isolation, aside from Elif we also see the story from the perspectives of two other characters. One is Commander Isobel Aremu herself, through whose eyes we find out both about the Interplanetary Mission, which aims to find a new home for humanity, and the Return to Earth Collective, which seeks to return all humans to Earth. Indeed, we also learn about protests against the presence of Elif as an unaccompanied minor on Maoira–I. The other character whose perspective we see is Rokeya, whom we meet years later, when Elif is twenty-one.

In these intervening years, Elif has experienced a change of seasons for the first time, and we see her learn more about the planet, and about herself. But when Rokeya eventually lands on the planet, she becomes the first person whom Elif encounters in real life—and Elif reacts with shock and reluctance. Nevertheless, through Rokeya’s and Isobel Aremu’s points of view, we get to learn more about how Elif came to be in the position she is in.

Rokeya also happens to be the granddaughter of Latif Khan, one of the crew members who originally landed on Maoira-I. During her stay, Rokeya tries to figure out the secrets of the planet, and of Polaris’s actions. She is left particularly aghast by Elif’s presence, and the fact she has been left alone on the planet since she was a young child: “How could a child have taken all this in, have understood any of these complexities; how could a child have understood how to take care of herself,” she wonders. Meanwhile, she also wants to learn more about her grandfather, to whom she refers as Nanabhai.

The dynamic between Elif and Rokeya turns out to be one of the most interesting aspects of the story. Rokeya, is, after all, the first other human Elif meets in person. Elif has become so used to the status quo of being the only inhabitant of a planet that she is resistant to any change in the situation. While Rokeya is naturally shocked at Elif’s plight, it takes Elif time to get adjusted to the change in status quo which the new arrival represents.

The book’s title, Orphan Planet, seems to have two different meanings. It refers to Elif, a literal orphan stuck on a planet, and to the planet Maoira-I itself, which has been abandoned and therefore in a sense orphaned. The story is character-driven, with Elif’s inner world, and her relationship with VAS-H, Aremu, and Rokeya being the highlights of the novella. Indeed, the worldbuilding in this book is fairly standard: While there is quite a bit of attention paid to Maoria-I’s terrain and weather, the characters take centre-stage.

Yet, while the exploration of Elif as a character was interesting, at times she felt a little too well-adjusted for a girl who grew up on a planet alone with only an AI for company. I would have liked a little more psychological depth and exploration when it came to Elif. Some questions I had about her circumstances also remained unanswered. Perhaps those loose ends could have been tied up better if this book were written as a full-length novel instead of a novella. Nevertheless, I really appreciated how this book allowed us to watch Elif grow into her own person amid extraordinary circumstances, and I really enjoyed how the character dynamics were written. The novella as a whole was really engaging, and I am eager to find out what Reza will come up with next.