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Published April 16, 2024 by Tor Publishing Group.
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked "upstairs" and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship's university alongside the elite. Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as "the professor," a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn. Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a deeply dark yet eventually hopeful look at the continuation of current societal structures into space.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a lyrical science fiction parable whose strength is in the development of its titular metaphors through its characters and worldbuilding.
The book follows an unnamed boy released from physical labor in the hold of a starship into the care of a woman professor, as part of an uplift university program. We get to see her world through his eyes, as he copes with unwanted changes to his life and as she learns to trust him. It turns out that she too her own set of different chains.
There's a lot of details I really enjoyed: names as a class distinguisher, interrogation of university politics, some horrifying about-face character and worldbuilding reveals, and also just the strength of the chain metaphor to show that what binds us also connects us.
