So unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you are probably aware of the Artemis mission that circled the Moon and successfully splashed down.

Personally, I didn’t think I would ever see us try to return to the Moon or space beyond low Earth orbit in my lifetime. (No, I’m not cynical. Cynical would be an improvement.) I’m t hrilled that we’re trying to rejuvenate our space program.

The Artemis mission brought something that has been at the back of my mind for a while to the forefront.

That’s near future space oriented science fiction. Where is it?

Just to be clear, I am sure there is some out there. I’ve probably missed it a lot of it. I havne’t been reading much science fiction for the last few years. In fact I’ve read less science fiction than I’ve read fantasy, and I’ve not been reading fantasy like I used to. I’ve been reading mysteries, crime novels (which aren’t quite the same as mysteris, although there is a lot of overlap), and thrillers. There are reasons for that. I’ll not get into them except to say that some of the writing workshops I’ve been taking have focused on the here and now rather than the fantastic.

I can remember when it seemed that space oriented science fiction was everywhere. Maybe that was because at that age, in the post Star Wars years, there was a surge in space opera and space focused science fiction in general.

Or maybe it was just that that type of science fiction was what I was interested in.

There was Ben Bova’s Grand Tour books that visited most of the planets in the solar system. The only one he didn’t write about, AFAIK, was Pluto. I think it was on his schedule for the trilogy he was working on when he died, but I’m not sure.

I’m not sure what else was being written that took place in the solar system in the near future.

The problem with near future science fiction is that is gets dated quickly, somethimes between writing and publication.

So, I’m going to throw out the question, where can I go to find near future sciencde fiction with solar system space exploratioin that is fairly recent?