"In a far future, a mostly-human astronaut and her opinionated robot friend travel through the cosmos, battling isolation and the trials of cohabitation, and sifting through pop culture fragments of the long-obliterated Earth. When they mess up an asteroid mining assignment, they decide to go rogue and take off on a zany quest to find the planet Trafik, an idyllic place of myth.
I love this mind-bending little trek across the universe. Thoroughly delightful, poignant, funny, and sweet, like if Italo Calvino wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a series of pointed vignettes. It's the perfect amount of quarantine-relatable loneliness and existential spiraling, combined with escapism and optimism. It's like watching a dream come true."
Publisher Coffee House Press
Publication Date 2021-04-13
Section Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Rachel S.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9781566896061
From the singularly inventive mind of Rikki Ducornet, Trafik is a buoyant voyage through outer space and inner longing, transposing human experiences of passion, loss, and identity into a post-Earth universe.
Quiver, a mostly-human astronaut, takes refuge from the monotony of harvesting minerals on remote asteroids by running through a virtual reality called the Lights, chasing visions of an elusive red-haired beauty. Her high-strung robot partner, Mic, pilots their Wobble and entertains himself exploring his records of the obliterated planet Earth, searching for Al Pacino trivia, unfamiliar recipes, and high fashion trends. But when an accident destroys their cargo, Quiver and Mic go rogue, setting off on a madcap journey through outer space towards an idyllic destination: the planet Trafik.
