I wanted so much to like this book.

Unfortunately, we are asked to accept the following inanities: There are multiple secret organizations capable of carrying out government-level projects. Humans, and all life, are the product of Intelligent Design by a space-faring species called the Guardians, who were created by the Elders, who were created by God. And just as intelligent design claims, evolution happens only within phyla; new phyla cannot arise by evolution. For the last sixty or so years, the President has been in regular communication with Earth's own Guardian, via holographic projection chamber at Roswell. Faced with a threat to the existence of the planet, the sensible thing to do is to hand the project off to a consortium of those aforementioned private groups, and not even inquire exactly what it is they're going to do. When a new president is elected, it's evidence that he's power-hungry and untrustworthy, when he wants to know exactly what all these black ops taxpayer billions are being spent on.


Oh, and a for me totally unaccustomed Morals Complaint: One of the women in the inner circle, in fact one of the early discoverers of the black hole threat, decides she wants to seduce her now-married ex-boyfriend who is also one of the early players. Not because they are overcome by the realization that they still have feelings for each other; just because she's lonely and bored and decides it will be a neat challenge to take another woman's man. For the heck of it. Because he's married. I was disgusted, and I can't imagine that anyone who is more actively concerned than I am about extra-marital sex in books and wants their stories "clean," will be other than extremely unhappy with this. It's not morally defensible, and it's completely unnecessary to the plot. These aren't the Bad Guys; it doesn't create plot complications later. It's the very definition of "gratuitous."

Anyway, there is a story here. A Canadian geologist notices anomalies in seismic data and contacts an old flame with the US geological service, to ask her for more data to examine. They find something alarming, and call other contacts, including the head of one of those Secret Groups mentioned, forming a small group that determines there's a black hole hurtling towards Earth, which will completely destroy the planet. They contact the President, who already knows some of this through the Guardian, the alien who watches over Earth.

Meanwhile, another of those Secret Groups is mounting an expedition to the Antarctic to locate a geologically stable location for a self-contained habitat to save a sufficient number for human families to ensure the survival of the human race in a disaster. (Hint: Antarctica is not actually a good place, geological-stability-wise, for such a habitat). Instead they find the Guardian and his fortress.

One group contacts the other, and they realize these two projects need to be united. The Guardian, the Ecosthat group, and the organization that formed around the geologists start working together and persuade the President, the Secretary of State, and the Fed Chairman to write very large blank checks with no real explanation beyond, "You know Earth is in Danger. We can save Earth!" It's nutty and unbelievable.

The writing is also not very smooth. There's a lot of Tell ratherNetGalley than Show. There are several long infodumps, one of them on the terribly, terribly abstruse and fascinating subject of fuel cells. Seriously. Many of the crises along the way had a distinct air of "insert Crisis A here."

Despite all this, in the last third of the book, I started to care what was happening to these characters and the planet. There is some nifty, clever stuff here, like the space foam. I'm left with the feeling that this would be an exciting story for a pre-teen/young teen reader who is undemanding (not for the more advanced and demanding readers), but the completely gratuitous adulterous affair early on makes it unsuitable.

Not recommended. ( )

Great science fiction read with an intriguing plot and characters that linger long after you have finished the book.

The lead-in to Goodbye Milky Way was a little slow and somewhat confusing for me. I didn't quite get why, Tom Calvano, after almost dying, ended up in another incident which left him in the hospital again. But after the second chapter of the book things smoothly and slowly picked up speed and it all started to make sense. Although this book is rather lengthy, I did enjoy the adventure as an elite team with the help of a sentient computer named Aieda tackled finding a solution for the black hole that was racing toward Earth's solar system. A black hole that would totally destroy the earth if not for this dedicated team, their planning, and implementing of solutions for saving the planet. Keeping their efforts and planning secretive from society, this team avoided a worldwide panic and some things were not even known by the government itself. Their research and implementation was not without setbacks as a group of fundamentalists worked toward stopping and destroying the group from going forward with the task. I found the author Dan Makaon to have quite a vivid imagination and his background in science and engineering made this story quite a unique reading experience. I have always been a science fiction buff but am turned off by some authors if they get too technical in their book, not so with Makaon. In fact I found the ending of the book really intriguing and suspenseful and it was quite interesting once the group was back together. Usually you don't get that at the end of a book and I really didn't want the story to end at that point. Maybe Makaon will be writing a sequal. In the meantime I believe Makaon's writing career is just beginning for him. If he can just shorten his books a hundred pages or so as Goodbye Milky Way is 435 pages, he will definitely appease the science fiction audience for many years to come. ( )

Author's FoodFic guest post at my blog:
http://bookfare.blogspot.com/2011/05/please-welcome-guest-blogger-dan-makaon.htm...

An earthquake has caused the Earth to shift off its axis. Now, not only is all life on Earth in danger, but the entire planet may disappear from the Galaxy.

Luckily, a group of intelligent scientists from different fields of study join together to find a solution to save the planet, with the help of a highly sophisticated sentient computer and an alien.

Even though the population was not informed of the forthcoming destruction for fear of mass hysteria and panic, there are those who don’t think anyone should interrupt what God had intended with the end of the Earth.

Even though I had a hard time putting the book down, I was a little disappointed, but surprised by the ending. I would recommend this book to everyone. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read. ( )