Finalist for the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year

An Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year

A novel about raising young robots

in a turbulent solar system.

***

“Utterly brilliant...Sunward is a fascinating case study in how avoiding the most-trodden paths can lead to greater rewards.”

- Charlie Jane Anders, author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, for the Washington Post

“Now this is a very, very good book...It’s also a brilliant example of how you can write better about human nature when you have something to contrast it with.”

- Jo Walton, author of Among Others, for Reactor Magazine

“I loved this book! I’m a sucker for brilliant space operas—for heroic bots, ethical assassins, jealous siblings, and renegade daughters. The story/plot revolves around delicious, inspired technology. The human and nonhuman characters surprise and delight. They stumble and overreach. They risk everything, who they are, have been, and might become, to wrangle their own truth from a deadly deluge of data. We could all drown in the data stream. William Alexander's Sunward is the book to take you to stars.”

- Andrea Hairston, author of Archangels of Funk

“You know those books you tear right through, fiercely craving the pleasure you’re getting from every new page--until you suddenly realize you’re almost at the end, at which point you sloww wayyyyy down because you don’t want it to end? Sunward is one of those. I only hope Will Alexander will have mercy and give us more stories about this world and its people. Oh, and theater. More intergalactic theater, please.”

- Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint

“Do you want highly intelligent intelligences in training? A Moon Queen? Intrigue and Murder? All packaged up and delivered to you by secret interstellar courier? YES yes you do. This book is a delight and brings so much joy into the universe.”

- Fran Wilde, author of Updraft

"Readers who loved Aimee Ogden’s Emergent Properties, Silvia Park’s Luminous, and Aliette de Bodard’s Navigational Entanglements will find this to be a delightful combination of similar elements."

– Library Journal, starred review

"An award-winning children's author transitions to adult novels with this sf thriller...[that] will delight fans of Robin Sloan’s Moonbound."

– Booklist, starred review

“Sunward manages to broach some of the thornier questions about the nature of personhood while also cozily insisting on the importance of good coffee to human comfort, now and forever.”

- Margo Harrison, author of The Library of Fates, for Seven Days

“The dark, intense cold of space is warmed by the emotional connections in this novel and by Lindsey Dorcus's expert narration.”

- AudioFile Magazine

“Short, sweet, and sparkling, Sunward is the kind of sci-if you hug while running for your life.”

- One Minute Book Review