Radiate (The Lightless Trilogy)

In the follow-up to Lightless and Supernova, C. A. Higgins fuses science fiction, suspense, and drama to tell the story of a most unlikely heroine: Ananke, once a military spacecraft, now a sentient artificial intelligence. Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators.

Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators. Now Ananke is on a quest to find companionship, understanding, and even love. She is accompanied by Althea, the engineer who created her, and whom she sees as her mother. And she is in search of her “father,” Matthew, the programmer whose code gave her the spark of life.

But Matthew is on a strange quest of his own, traveling the galaxy alongside Ivan, with whom he shares a deeply painful history. Ananke and her parents are racing toward an inevitable collision, with consequences as violent as the birth of the solar system itself—and as devastating as the discovery of love.

Praise for Radiate

“Radiate will take you to the corners of space you’ve never even dreamed of going and beyond.”—Bustle

“Gripping . . . This sci-fi universe [is] utterly believable, while metaphor and allegory enrich the characters.”—New York Daily News

“A compelling emotional tale about two people trying to save each other from a disaster of their own making.”—Kirkus Reviews

The Lightless Trilogy is “a perfect sci-fi entry point that matches a rich, character-driven story with fundamental questions about who we are and why we’re here.”—Los Angeles Times

C. A. Higgins is the author of the novels Lightless and Supernova and numerous short stories. She was a runner-up in the 2013 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing and has a B.A. in physics from Cornell University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.