I adore the voice and character your have chosen for this, Felix Byrd, the “trashtronaut”. The concept is just amazing, and the way you have gone for in this, Felix addressing the audience, does work really well. You are an exceptionally talented story teller, you have the ideas and the concepts which for most people is the hard part, and you have the commitment and dedication to carry them through, which is where so many others fall down. The exposition is a bit chunky, but the story is so enthralling it carries through. The first person tone in this works so well, it makes it feel like I am a long distance friend or confident of Felix, privy to his thoughts and reflections. I really enjoy how heavily you tie this into culture and history from the off, this isn’t some distant parallel universe, this feels very rooted in our own history, from the very beginning, and as the story unravels, that feeling only grows. I love the terms you’ve worked in, the deathcap and melts, and how you’ve thought of phrases for them, it just adds so much to the realism of it. The story is so immersive, i do just adore it, the idea of this pilot who ships trash into space, slowly cleaning up the planet destroyed generations ago. What really makes it is that finally, humanity has come together, it took this level of self destruction but, finally, humanity has got past racism entirely. The way you put it adds so much power “racism drowned” and works so well as a way to wrap up this story. But i really appreciate that it isn’t just a case where all people are just seen as the same, it isn’t absolute equality, racism has drowned, but race and culture hasn’t been lost, and is respected and revered for its own heritage.

This is such a great balance of serious message, gripping scifi and enthralling fiction, it very much has that feeling of the old speculative fiction that used to forewarn of nuclear dangers, and carries a message just as important. This is just incredible, thank you so very much for the telling <3