From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
The Best Books of 2019 (So Far)
Staff Pick
Picture a faraway space station, one with the most exclusive and imaginative restaurant in the universe. Mix together a flamboyant impresario and a starving young philosopher about to give up on life, and then give them the task of making the most exotic soup imaginable. Space Soup! I love a novel that makes me hungry. Recommended By Tracey T., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The Sol Majestic is a big-hearted and delightful intergalactic hopepunk adventure for fans of Becky Chambers and The Good Place
Kenna, an aspirational teen guru, wanders destitute across the stars as he tries to achieve his parents' ambition to advise the celestial elite.
Everything changes when Kenna wins a free dinner at The Sol Majestic, the galaxy's most renowned restaurant, giving him access to the cosmos's one-percent. His dream is jeopardized, however, when he learns his highly-publicized "free meal" risks putting The Sol Majestic into financial ruin. Kenna and a motley gang of newfound friends — including a teleporting celebrity chef, a trust-fund adrenaline junkie, an inept apprentice, and a brilliant mistress of disguise — must concoct an extravagant scheme to save everything they cherish. In doing so, Kenna may sacrifice his ideals — or learn even greater lessons about wisdom, friendship, and love.
Utterly charming and out of this world, Ferrett Steinmetz's The Sol Majestic will satisfy the appetites of sci-fi aficionados and newcomers alike.
Review
“The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz is not a love letter: it's a love asterisk, a love starburst, radiating out in so many contradictory directions that it shouldn't possibly work, and yet somehow, gloriously, does. It is a feast of a book!” New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire
Review
"Steinmetz’s culinary space opera is....a complex, chaotic, and mystifying coming-of-age story of a young man becoming a lover, an aesthete, and an activist....Steinmetz [crafts] a memorable love letter to the nourishment of body and soul as well as the dignity of work and service.” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“Dizzying, beautiful worldbuilding with characters that make you ache. Damn this book is good.” Hugo Award finalist Mur Lafferty, author of Six Wakes
About the Author
Ferrett Steinmetz is a graduate of both the Clarion Writers' Workshop and Viable Paradise, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2012, for his novelette Sauerkraut Station. He is the author of the 'Mancer trilogy, The Uploaded, and he has written for Asimov's Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Ferret lives in Cleveland with his very clever wife, a small black dog of indeterminate origin, and a friendly ghost.