The Last Gifts of the Universe: A Novel

AN OCTOBER 2026 BARNES & NOBLE SPECULATIVE FICTION PICK!
An Audible Best of the Year Pick for 2024!
A Waterstones August Book of the Month Pick!

"A quietly profound story about grief, purpose, and our place in the universe...Come for the cat, stay for the story."—Sunyi Dean, internationally bestselling author of The Book Eaters

A dying universe. A search for answers. An adventure at the end of a trillion lifetimes.

When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilisations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left – and whatever came for the others will one day come for them.

Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals – anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.

Now Scout, their brother and their sometimes-fearless, space-faring cat, Pumpkin, must race to save what matters most.

"The Last Gifts of the Universe is a meditation on grief and meaning disguised in the spacesuit of a thrilling, beam-me-up galactic treasure hunt. Riley August has written a quietly wonderful, hopeful novel that heals the parts of you that you didn't know were hurt." —Julie Leong, author of The Teller of Small Fortunes

For readers who love:

• Cozy sci-fi by T.J. Klune and Becky Chambers
• Hope-core space stories such as Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary
• LGBTQ+ representation
• Healing stories about grief and second chances
• Cats in space

Riley August is a speculative fiction writer, animal lover, nature walker, and all around nerd. When they aren’t writing stories about lonely voyages through space, you can find them playing video games, the guitar, or a myriad of TTRPGs. They live in woodsy New England with their cat and husband. The Last Gifts of the Universe is their debut novel.