In deep space, an astronaut seeks a silent sister ship, the only waking member of a frozen crew whose fate is in her hands. On bloated seas, a ship’s captain in deep debt agrees to take on two passengers and their strangely organic android. That self-same android seeks to understand the difference between memories and stories as time and the loneliness of immortality blur the lines of reality. A professor of integrative biology writes emails – some sent, some unsent – held back by the NDA she only signed because the work needed doing. In the 1980s, a lonely teen reaches out to her recently departed uncle through the video game he made just for her.

Homebound, each character journeys between both a self and a world they think they know, and towards a true understanding of home within community and identity. Woven throughout the interlocking timelines is a core of Judaism – a refreshing take on a genre which so often blends traditions into featureless soup or does not consider that humanity might exist beyond Christian cultural hegemony. Instead, Portia Elan’s world in the year 2500 features Aramaic prayers, spoken by a future diaspora who have lost so much yet still hold fast to their identity.

Elan’s debut novel tries to do almost too much: it’s a five-timeline epic across five centuries, tackling queer identity, climate change, technology, video games, the Jewish diaspora, the power of music and the fine line between memory and storytelling. But for all its expansiveness and ambition, world-building and complex characters, Homebound is a deep, universal story about community and integrity. Reminiscent of some of the greats of science-fiction short stories, this deftly woven novel is still absolutely approachable for readers less (uni)versed in the genre.