The Next Planet Over

by Dennis Burns

It was a magnificent May morning, crystal clear skies, temperatures in the mid-seventies and no humidity. Terry and I stood on our balcony, mugs of coffee in hand, staring up at the gorgeous rocky mountains in all their glory. It was hard to believe what the news vids and feeds were saying. I turned on my iEye with a tap on my earbud, and instantly my favorite vid feed appeared in front of me. Terry, my wife of twenty-five years, and I had chosen the contact lens version of the iEye although several friends had said they were glad they had chosen the implanted version. Technological advancement is incredible. It was just 38 years ago that we were getting all our information from tablets and handheld communication devices. Some of the older folks could still be seen carrying them around. The same company that designed some of those devices had also designed the iEye. Some said it stood for “Intelligent Eye,”but I thought the company meant “Information Eye” for that was what it truly did-give us all our news, entertainment, communications, and announcements on one device linked to our eyes. My “all news” vid feed was again talking about the government’s morning announcements. We were being told the same thing on all the feeds. To be sure I looked up to the right corner of my screen and it opened a list of all my favorite feeds. By looking at the name of one feed for more than two-seconds it changed to that feed. Friends called me old fashion because I preferred the live commentators to the digitally rendered ones.

Genres: Science Fiction

155 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 6, 2012

About the author

After a stint in the US Navy and two years as a paid EMT with a local ambulance squad his parents asked if he would help open a local book store. Flash forward thirty- two years and several stories in between and you have the author you see now. Crazy, stupid and off his rocker, but committed to providing you with the same thing he did in 1980, great quality books at great prices.

Dennis lives in Picturesque Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, two children and three pets. He is a long time reader and 20 year veteran of a family owned book store (ODAT Book Shoppe).

Look for his new sci-fi book The Next Planet Over

Dennis can be reached at: Email, dennisburns1@me.com

Pinterest.com/dennisburns,

LinkedIn, linkedin.com/pub/dennis-burns/54/ba7/462

Goodreads.com/DennisJBurns

Facebook personal page, facebook.com/dennisjburns.author

Facebook company page, facebook.com/burnsclanmedia

Reviews

[Rick Bylina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Next Planet Over" by Dennis Burns is a futuristic novella that taps into some of the fears, actions, and reactions surrounding the rebirth then eventual decay of human existence on this rock, rendering it uninhabitable. These people must move on. Bottom line: the story needed to be extended. The fine characters needed more depth, especially given their situation. While I do get the punch line at the end (which would be a big spoiler if mentioned here), there were several points that weren't wrapped up satisfactorily for me, especially the climax. Others might be okay with it--the end justifying the means by which we got there.

The story telling is fine and the writing adequate (like most self-pubbed stories, there are some grammatical issues, but nothing horrible). Some geo-political touches and environmental points made in the story are surface thin. Is the author trying to be sincere, ironic, or sarcastic with them? I could not put a pulse on the intent. It causes the story to lose some traction as a tense science fiction drama occasionally.

Still, it's a nice rainy afternoon or bedtime read with a lot of nifty futuristic gadgets and gizmos that the point-of-view character explains, sometimes a bit more than necessary, slowing the story a bit. The world-building is solid, and I never felt like I was being beaten up by the prose. For me, this is a three. Except for the ending "shocker," it's an average read with a few surprises and twists as you would expect, but only minimal characterization. But, this is a story for sci-fi buffs. For them, I can bump it up to a tepid "4".

[Michael Brookes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Next Planet Over is an interesting science fiction story that takes into a near future where mankind lives in a near technological utopia. This happy place is shattered by the discovery that the planet cannot support life for much longer.

While I enjoyed the basic story there were a few issues that prevented it from really standing out. The first relatively minor issue was that the text had more than a few errors, mostly missing punctuation and incorrect synonyms, another edit pass would have worked wonders. The more serious issue was that despite the major events there was very little peril for the characters involved. This was also accentuated by the fact that everyone in the story was perfect, way too clean cut.

Then when some peril did finally occur the book skips it and then tells you to read book two, I have to say I felt a bit cheated at that point. I can fully understand the desire to hook into the next story, but at least provide some satisfaction for the storyline I've followed.

That being said I liked the premise and the author does write well with a casual style. It's a fun read, but with more polish it could have been an excellent one.

[Charles Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author Denis Burns told a fascinating story full of high tech devices and futuristic scenes. This book is a lot science fiction and a little bit mystery all rolled into one fabulous story. It is an awesome read. I truly loved it and can't wait for the next book in the series.
Charles Johnson Author of
Love Poems and More From the Heart and Soul of Man

[Gaston Prereth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm afraid to say that this book fell far short of what I had hoped. Unfortunately it suffered from a few fatal flaws.
Firstly the tense keeps shifting from paragraph to paragraph (sometimes from sentence to sentence) and this kills any flow in the narrative. The bulk is written in present tense and laced with present participles which I can't help feeling was the wrong choice as it felt very awkward.
Also, for a novella the pace felt very slow, and most of the time is spent explaining the situation to us. This meant that there was virtually no pay off at the end because emotional investment was near to zero.
Finally, there were some serious questions that don't seem to get considered, let alone mentioned. Is it moral for a group of people to decide who should carry on the human race? Is it still the human race if it is divorced from all of its culture and history? Don't the general population have a right to know they are all going to die and no one is planning on saving them?
The book would have been far more interesting if it had shown us these conflicts, through dialogue preferably, and asked the reader to make up their own mind about them.

A small note too, this needs to be proof read again. There are a number of typo's and a fair few 'to's when it should be 'too' and other such errors. Also, the punctuation needs a second look as there are quite a lot of misplaced commas and (this is a personal opinion) way too many exclamation marks.

[Larry B Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Next Planet Over by Dennis Burns is an excellent adventure dealing with a possible end of life on Earth scenario. It will keep you glued to the pages and wondering what is going to happen next.

The author did a great job of creating an easy to follow storyline. By building on each previous chapter, the story became more and more believable. Since it related to current day issues it was easy to put yourself into the story, making it seem real.

The characters where well developed and easy to identify with. Dennis Burns did an excellent job of creating characters that seemed like people you may know, but at the same time fit into the overall storyline.

I really enjoyed The Next Planet Over by Dennis Burns and I highly recommend it to all readers.


[Please note: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.]

[F. Davis James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Next Planet Over is a well imagined, well written look at the future? Great characters in a suspenseful race against time and an unknown enemy The Next Planet Over is a great, well paced read that makes it quite engaging. Dennis Burns has interplayed with the future to bring technology that I would love to be able to use today. These itmes are free flowing and seem so close to us now. The characters are herioc yet humble in extraordinary situations.

I read this book in two settings, which is not easy to do in my, like yours is I'm sure hectic life, but I was compelled to keep going.

Oh and by the way....the ending will give you one of those aha moments that makes reading the entire story that much more satisfying.

Great work by Mr. Burns. Please do yourself a favor. Read this book!

[Angela Mortimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting concepts, worth a read.
Persuasive book, don't give up on it, the beginning needs a bit of tightening of the prose, too much note- form and then description in places, but keep reading. As our world strains under the pressures we have placed on it, we often mention the next planet over, which in our area of space is Mars. If we manage the next hundred years or so better than we have the last, we might actually get there. However, this isn't about Mars.
In spite of the plain English at times this is an interesting and well thought out mesh of interrelating ideas . The logistics of the move are interesting as are those who will be left behind. It's well worth a read, just a shame that those who need to read it won't, sad that those who take 2+2 and come up with anything but 4 wouldn't dream of it. Ironic.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the technology in this book so delightful, and quite frankly I wish we had it now, that I could overlook where I thought the plot was weak. Although an interesting premise, it's fortunate the main character, his family, and close friends happened to be in the crowd that got an explanation. I'm just trying to picture this set up with the 'have nots' that will be left to their own devices. I enjoyed this although I will warn the reader that this ends abruptly with the purpose of explaining what happens to be addressed in another book. Since I wasn't too involved in that part of the story, I don't think I'm missing much. It's the other stuff that was more interesting and even though I personally didn't like the solution, it made me think.

[Laurie Kazmierczak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the concepts presented of the near future, but was distracted by all the misuse of homonyms such as your/you're and there/their/they're, past/passed, to/too. The ending felt a bit unfinished; I would have liked to see more details of how the bad guys were overcome. A bit more editing and an expansion of the end scenes would make it a better book. Dennis has a nice style of writing and I hope to see more from him.

[Julie Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this science-fictional read, and liked the idea of the gadgetry. It did make me smile now and then with things like 'tube music' - when you read it you'll understand.

I will not give spoilers, but it has a reasonable plot with a nice twist and it's certainly worth a look.

[Pauline Forrester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, believable concept.

[Jan]

The author acknowledged two editors who allegedly read this book. Were they drinking at the time, or did he simply choose to ignore their suggestions?