Mike Brotherton

A free ebook (see http://www.mikebrotherton.com/diamonds/?index ) of short sci-fi based around good current astronomy and science facts. It's 'hard' sci-fi by definition. Overall fairly enjoyable, but to me many of the stories ended up a bit stilted. If feels like the authours started with set of facts they wanted to convey, and wrapped a story around them, and in many cases it's the story that suffers. Even with the uneven quality, there are some enjoyable pieces in here, and the facts themselves are interesting reading too, even if presented awkwardly.… (mehr)

I have to give the author his due: It's a real accomplishment to compile a cast of characters in which each one is exactly as unlikable as the other. It's a whole crew of dickheads that he sends on this journey to the strange star system with the strange lifeform, affectionately dubbed "star dragon" by one of the scientists.

As an astronomer, Mike Brotherton has the hard science of deep space travel down - I guess (no way I can check). But also like so many STEMs, it seems he has only a very vague understanding of the softer sciences like psychology or sociology. No space agency today would take psychological and social trainwrecks like his cast only to the moon, and no private space traveling company of the future would either if they wanted their mission to succeed.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that with the captain of the ship, he actually tried to make a "strong female character". Only that this endeavour failed spectacularly.

Captain Lena Fang throws herself into a fling with an overobsessive and reluctant scientist right after liftoff, as if such a journey can only be endured with someone to warm one's bed. And when that overobsessive scientist doesn't tend to her vague insinuations of a childhood trauma as empathetic and sensitive as she'd like him to, she gets a mental breakdown and behaves subsequently like a immature bitch. The rest of the book's tension comes out of the tension between those two, paired with a few technological/scientific hiccups.

This whole constellation is so unsubtle and clichéd that it hurts, and the fact that the plot itself isn't exactly an example of sophistication either doesn't make it better.

Apart from that: too many SPAG errors not to be noticed or mentioned.… (mehr)