On a Sunbeam worked best for me when it kept it personal between Grace and Mia. I found myself begrudging the author anytime we’d shift back to the present because I wanted to see more of the two of them growing close. Maybe it was because the science fiction aspects didn’t quite work for me, and the present was ridden with them. Maybe I just didn’t connect to any of the members of the ship the same way I did to Mia and Grace. If you gave me a lineup of the characters from the ship and asked me to name each of them, or pick them out based on a provided name, or offer up character beats based on a name, I’d probably struggle. They just sorta blended together into one homogonous blob I thought of simply as “the crew,” and their interpersonal relationships and squabbles didn’t affect me much at all.
However, seeing the unlikely bond that Mia and Grace form, with Grace starting out completely spurning any attempt Mia makes at befriending her, I couldn’t help but grow attached, as well as wonder where she’d disappeared to, since Mia was now without her in this present day storyline. Once Mia’s storyline converges with hers again towards the end, it kindled at least some interest in the story of the others, but only insofar as it affected Mia. The revelations about everyone else, as well as the dire situations they each wound up in, didn’t affect me all that much because I had no dog in those fights. They were simply pawns there to sacrifice themselves so the queen, Mia, could get to her goal. At least in my eyes. All in all, it was a cute enough story, but much of it felt superfluous and the science-fiction aspects didn’t really work for me.
