Arrival

Written by Ryk Brown

Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer

The Eden Project was a dream.
To start the first extra-solar colony . . .
To avoid the mistakes of our past . . .
To start anew.

Three generations, born and raised on a starship hurtling through space.
To never know an open sky . . .
To never feel the wind on their face . . .
To never witness the sun rise or set.

It is up to the advance team to set foot on each of these worlds, conduct their surveys, and send their findings back to the colony ship. Everything must go as planned, for the welfare of all the colonists depends on them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781977366221

Reviews for Arrival

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Pulp grade sci-fi. I can suspend my disbelief as much as anyone else but the author doesn't even try. Antimatter drive - fine, 40% light-speed - sure, I don't mind. There is a line however between implausible for lack of current scientific knowledge and just straight up crazy stupid. They arrive on some random planet that happens to have breathable atmosphere, edible vegetation, recognisable animals complete with viruses (with magical side-effects) that affect humans. The military personnel behave like a bunch of 10yo boyscouts on a hiking trip. I read sci-fi pulp from several decades ago with better science.

The writing itself is overly verbose with the author laboriously describing every handle turned and button pressed like it mattered. The plot is wholly unoriginal from start to finish (maybe except the virus, but that's the dumbest part of the book) and characters are easily recognisable stereotypes. Generational ship, hijacking a ship to set out to colonise a planet, a landing gone wrong, stranded on an alien planet trying to find the rest of your team, the wacky one, the born leader, the quiet one who dies, the complete-opposites couple (who would've thought?!) etc. - if you're playing cliche bingo you must've won by now. Not worth it.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I like a good sci-fi yarn and can easily suspend disbelief, but the science in this book left me scratching my head... the rules, if there were any, didn't make sense. Also the characters were too one dimensional for me to get emotionally attached to any of them, so basically the story didn't work for me.