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Chilling story of a lost astronaut on an alien artefact from Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky. My name is Gary Rendell. I’m an astronaut. When they asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “astronaut, please!” I dreamed astronaut, I worked astronaut, I studied astronaut. I got lucky; when a probe sent out to explore the Oort Cloud found a strange alien rock and an international team of scientists was put together to go and look at it, I made the draw. I got even luckier. When disaster hit and our team was split up, scattered through the endless cold tunnels, I somehow survived. Now I’m lost, and alone, and scared, and there’s something horrible in here. Lucky me. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
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ARC provided by Rebellion via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Summary
This follows Gary, an astronaut who is lost, wandering The Crypts - an alien artifact located just beyond Pluto. As Gary wanders in the dark, he talks to himself, relaying everything that has happened to get him to where he is.
Overview
This is a short, 140ish page novel, told in an internal monologue format - Gary tells his story to the reader as if they were there.
This is high science fiction! The aliens, science, setting, are nothing similar to Earth or humans. Which can make picturing the creatures or scene a little tricky. This is definitely not a sci-fi beginner book.
What I Liked
1. I NEEDED to know what was going on! This opens up and you have no idea how Gary got here, what the Crypts are, or anything. And I was completely sucked in by all the open questions.
2. Both the setting and aliens were so unique and descriptive. Nothing was humanoid which I really appreciated. The Crypts were so creepy and atmospheric.
3. I loved the bits of humor that were thrown in. This story overall is bleak and depressing, so the bits of humor gave it a perfect balance.
4. I really liked the style of the story telling. I thought it was a really unique style choice to have the main character talking to the reader as an internal monologue. And it worked perfectly considering the characters mental state. It was just such a perfect choice.
5. The twist ending. Oh man, so good.
What I Didn't Like
1. For about 3/4 of this book I kept questioning if this story had a point. It was very meandering and slow (it took me 4 days to read 140 pages). And with all the heavy description for world and alien creatures, I felt a little bogged down.
Overall, this is one of the strangest stories I've ever read (in a good way!). And it has a really great sci-fi twist! If you're a science fiction reader, I definitely recommend checking this out!
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