The Expanse meets Battlestar Galactica in Serial Box’s first space opera: The Vela

Today, on  March 6th, Serial Box releases The Vela, a space opera combining the visionary setting and tense politics of SFF and Action and Adventure series like The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica. This series will be brought to you by the juggernaut bestselling author team of Becky Chambers, (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Nominee for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction), Yoon Ha Lee (Ninefox Gambit, Locus Award for Best First Novel), Rivers Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts), and SL Huang (Zero Sum Game, Amazon Bestseller).

No stranger to issues of gender, race, religion, and orientation in the midst of superb world building and character development, Chambers most recently gained acclaim from her release of the Wayfarers Series, which were nominated for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, among others, and won the Prix Julia Verlanger in 2017. In The Vela, Chambers, Lee, Solomon, & Huang tackle the complicated issues of the refugee crisis and climate change through the powerful lens of SFF, a vehicle used for hundred of years to change policy, and which has sparked debate on the floor of Congress more than a few times.

Orphan, refugee, and soldier-for-hire Asala Sikou doesn’t think too much about the end of civilization. Her system’s star is dying, and the only person she can afford to look out for is herself. When a ship called The Vela vanishes during what was supposed to be a flashy rescue mission, a reluctant Asala is hired to team up with Niko, the child of a wealthy inner planet’s president, to find it and the outer system refugees on board. But this is no ordinary rescue mission; The Vela holds a secret that places the fate of the universe in the balance, and forces Asala to decide—in a dying world where good and evil are far from black and white, who deserves to survive?

The Vela Creative team:

Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers is the author of the science fiction novels The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, among others. She also writes essays and short stories, which can be found here and there around the internet. In addition to writing, Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and volunteering for her local astronomy club. She lives with her wife in northern California.

Yoon  Ha Lee

A Korean-American sf/f writer who received a B.A. in math from Cornell University and an M.A. in math education from Stanford University, Yoon Ha Lee finds it a source of continual delight that math can be mined for story ideas. Yoon is the author of Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, and Revenant Gun, and Yoon’s fiction has appeared in publications such as F&SF, Tor.com, and Clarkesworld Magazine, as well as several year’s best anthologies.

Rivers Solomon

Rivers Solomon is a dyke, a Trekkie, a wannabe cyborg queen, a trash princex, a communist, a butch, a femme, a feminist, a she-beast, a rootworker, a mother, a daughter, a diabetic, and a refugee of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They write about life in the margins, where they are firmly at home. Rivers’ debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, was pitched as “a science fiction meditation on trans-generational trauma, race, and identity.” Though currently based in Cambridge, UK, where they live with their family, Rivers is originally from the United States. There, they received their BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University in California and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. They grew up in California, Indiana, Texas, and New York but spent much of their childhood wishing the mothership might come save them.

S L Huang

SL Huang is an Amazon-bestselling author who justifies her MIT degree by using it to write eccentric mathematical superhero fiction. Her debut novel, Zero Sum Game, is recently out from Tor, and her short fiction has sold to Analog, Nature, and The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016. She is also a Hollywood stuntwoman and firearms expert, with credits including “Battlestar Galactica” and “Top Shot.” Follow her online at www.slhuang.com or on Twitter as @sl_huang.