An entertaining start to an interplanetary adventure with high stakes and complex science, but little depth.
In Miller’s SF novel, Marda Scorch will do whatever it takes to bring her missing husband and two daughters home—but a trip into the “BETWEEN” may be more than she bargained for.
Marda is a longtime resident of the planet Carpes and the warden of the Eastern Quadrant Stellar Bridge. Marda has spent the last six years searching for her family, ever since they were caught in the BETWEEN—the mysterious space connecting the Stellar Bridge to its secret counterpoint in New York City’s Central Park, where locals don’t even know the bridge exists. When three New Yorkers accidentally pass through it and catch a glimpse of the alien planet, it attracts the attention of the ruling Council and, specifically, council member Spellen, who seems intent on destroying the bridge, despite the fact that people may still be trapped within it. The New Yorkers include workaholic stock trader Ben Hendrick, who struggles to accept his elderly parents’ cross-country move to a rest home; recent college graduate Lily Barker, who dreams of escaping her emotionally abusive parents; and HVAC mechanic Tony Scalzi, who’s reeling from the fact that his mother is hospitalized with pancreatic cancer. The blip in reality that they experience changes their lives forever and eventually causes their paths to cross. Miller’s novel spends time on the complicated science that underpins the Stellar Bridges, made by ancient aliens: “whoever created these bridges supposedly used gravitational fields to sync the movements of Earth and Carpes—and depending on that flux, either the eastern or southern portals activated accordingly.” However, what stands out is the compelling strength of its central character, and the emotional turmoil she faces; Marda’s fight to save her family, despite Car Spellen’s schemes, is often affecting. However, Lily, Tony, and Ben lack convincing character arcs—in part, because Marda receives so much more attention. Similarly, the relationships that eventually form between the characters, while sometimes heartwarming, ultimately feels rushed and shallowly developed. Hopefully, a stronger sequel with remedy this.
An entertaining start to an interplanetary adventure with high stakes and complex science, but little depth.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798349275029
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Elegiac and elliptical, this slim novel is a sobering read.
Six astronauts on a space station orbit the planet over the course of a single Earth day.
Two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth, a space station goes round and round. Over the course of 24 hours, the astronauts inside experience sunrise and sunset 16 times. Though they're supposed to keep their schedules in tune with a normal “daily” routine, they exist in a dream-like liminal space, weightless, out of time, captivated and astonished by the “ringing singing lightness” of the globe always in view. “What would it be to lose this?” is the question that spurs Harvey’s nimble swoops and dives into the minds of the six astronauts (as well as a few of the earthbound characters, past and present). There are gentle eddies of plot: The Japanese astronaut, Chie, has just received word that her elderly mother has died; six other astronauts are currently on their way to a moon landing; a “super-typhoon” barrels toward the Philippines; one of the two cosmonauts, Anton, has discovered a lump on his neck. But overall this book is a meditation, zealously lyrical, about the profundity and precarity of our imperiled planet. It’s surely difficult to write a book in which the main character is a giant rock in space—and the book can feel ponderous at times, especially in the middle—but Harvey’s deliberate slowed-down time and repetitions are entirely the point. Like the astronauts, we are forced to meditate on the notion that “not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s…a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre.” Is this a crisis or an opportunity? Harvey treats this question as both a narrative and an existential dilemma.
Elegiac and elliptical, this slim novel is a sobering read.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802161543
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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