Remnant Population has the unlikeliest of science fiction book heroines: an elderly woman.

Sera Ofelia has lived much of her adult life on the company-town planet where she and her remaining family work. When the Company decides to shut down their town, everyone goes into cryo-sleep for a multi-decade space journey to a new placement—but Sera Ofelia slips away into the woods and hides until everyone’s gone.

She’s finally free to do exactly as she pleases.And she does, until a series of events bring both more humans and a group of aliens to her doorstep. She winds up being an at first unwilling and ultimately unlikely bridge between the two groups.

The frustration that Ofelia felt at having her peace and quiet interrupted was so viscerally understandable. I, too, would be annoyed if I’d finally achieved time to do my craft projects quietly in retirement and suddenly I had both extremely curious aliens and bossy corporate types breathing down my neck.

I started off listening to the audiobook and finished the story in print. I normally don’t care for audiobooks, but highly recommend it for this one. There are many sections of dialogue where Ofelia and the Aliens are sounding out each others' language and it’s much easier to follow in the audio than the print book.

I did find the ending to be a bit trite, but all in all,the delight of an elderly lady heroine and the great story crafted with this world and the aliens made it one of the best sci-fi novels I’ve read in some time.

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