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Bones Burnt Black
A serial killer--brilliant, methodical and suicidal--sabotages a large commercial spacecraft's engines to set it on an eight-day trajectory to burn up in the sun, then remains aboard ship to murder and torment its passengers and crew. With no other ships near enough to reach them, rescue is impossible, and the few survivors fight their unknown enemy while trying to invent a way to survive the growing heat of the sun.
- GenresScience Fiction
284 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2004
4 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Euin Cobb
24 books14 followersStephen Euin Cobb is an author, novelist, magazine writer, futurist, award-winning podcaster, and host of The Interstellar Research Group's video series “From Here to the Stars,” for which he won the Iridani Award in 2021.
For over ten years, he produced a weekly podcast, "The Future And You," which explored, through interviews, panel discussions, and commentary, all the ways the future will be different from today. For that, he won the Parsec Award in 2006.
His science fiction novels include two about Leather — Leather & the 40 Corpsicles in the Cafe Freezer and Leather: A Runaway Girl Across Three Worlds. And three others without Leather, but in her universe’s historical timeline — Plague at Redhook, Bones Burnt Black, and One Small Theft for Man: One Giant Siege for Mankind.
A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor to Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen’s Universe Magazine.
An artist, essayist, game designer, and transhumanist, he is also on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.
He has interviewed over 500 people and written over 100 magazine articles.
His nonfiction books include: Naked Space Theory: A Radical New Theory of Everything which Flips Physics on Its Head, as well as A Brief History of Predicting the Future, and Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
Recently, he created a series of Sudoku and Cryptogram puzzle books under the short version of his name: Steve Cobb.
For over ten years, he produced a weekly podcast, "The Future And You," which explored, through interviews, panel discussions, and commentary, all the ways the future will be different from today. For that, he won the Parsec Award in 2006.
His science fiction novels include two about Leather — Leather & the 40 Corpsicles in the Cafe Freezer and Leather: A Runaway Girl Across Three Worlds. And three others without Leather, but in her universe’s historical timeline — Plague at Redhook, Bones Burnt Black, and One Small Theft for Man: One Giant Siege for Mankind.
A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor to Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen’s Universe Magazine.
An artist, essayist, game designer, and transhumanist, he is also on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.
He has interviewed over 500 people and written over 100 magazine articles.
His nonfiction books include: Naked Space Theory: A Radical New Theory of Everything which Flips Physics on Its Head, as well as A Brief History of Predicting the Future, and Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.
Recently, he created a series of Sudoku and Cryptogram puzzle books under the short version of his name: Steve Cobb.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2013
I listened to the free audiobook at podiobooks.com.
Too make it simple IT IS as cool as the summary suggests.A very good Scifi/Thriller.
For the audiobook
The audioquality and narration are good but the voiceacting is a bit lacking in emotion. But thats only a minor issue.
Too make it simple IT IS as cool as the summary suggests.A very good Scifi/Thriller.
For the audiobook
The audioquality and narration are good but the voiceacting is a bit lacking in emotion. But thats only a minor issue.
April 8, 2025
The same person who recommended Quarter Share Trader's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper also recommended Bones Burnt Black.
Quarter Share is excellent. So excellent I wish I could find the book.
Bones Burnt Black is also a good story, but the narration (also by the author) is no where near as good. It makes a HUGE difference.
But the story is good. A ship spinning out of control, a crewmen drifting off into space in her spacesuit. A beautiful and mysterious passenger. The captain trying to save the ship before he dies of his injuries.
It starts with a bang and stays intriguing. Kind of a Poseidon Adventure vibe if that isn’t too ancient a reference (there HAS to have been something comparable since then, but damned if I can think of it. They just don’t make cheese like they used to).
The spaceship is already spinning out of control and the G forces are getting stronger and stronger as the captain, waking up from unconsciousness strapped in the captains chair is trying to figure out what happened.
Outside the ship - far outside an astronaut wakes up not sure how she got there or where she is.
There is a murderer on board the ship that has planted explosives and crippled the ship.
The survivors try to figure out who it is while more people on the ship get killed.
The author/narrator is fine. I’d love to hear this read by a professional narrator though.
The story moves quickly and similar to Quarter Share there is a lot of detail given to the procedures in space and the science involved. I didn’t find this pedantic or boring though. It actually cranked up the tension.
There’s something of a 10 Little Indians thing going on with people getting killed one by one and no one (except the reader) too sure of who the murderer could be.
It plays out slowly before the last remaining hero(s) discover who the killer is and they still have to avoid falling into the sun.
The level of scientific detail makes this extra fun and by ‘scientific’ I don’t mean dry fact, so much as answers to questions, like ‘what would be the safety protocol for an action on a spacecraft?’ It makes it all the more believable and fun to listen to.
I’m giving this 5 stars. It’s a good tight story that’s a lot of fun to listen to while exercising.
Quarter Share is excellent. So excellent I wish I could find the book.
Bones Burnt Black is also a good story, but the narration (also by the author) is no where near as good. It makes a HUGE difference.
But the story is good. A ship spinning out of control, a crewmen drifting off into space in her spacesuit. A beautiful and mysterious passenger. The captain trying to save the ship before he dies of his injuries.
It starts with a bang and stays intriguing. Kind of a Poseidon Adventure vibe if that isn’t too ancient a reference (there HAS to have been something comparable since then, but damned if I can think of it. They just don’t make cheese like they used to).
The spaceship is already spinning out of control and the G forces are getting stronger and stronger as the captain, waking up from unconsciousness strapped in the captains chair is trying to figure out what happened.
Outside the ship - far outside an astronaut wakes up not sure how she got there or where she is.
There is a murderer on board the ship that has planted explosives and crippled the ship.
The survivors try to figure out who it is while more people on the ship get killed.
The author/narrator is fine. I’d love to hear this read by a professional narrator though.
The story moves quickly and similar to Quarter Share there is a lot of detail given to the procedures in space and the science involved. I didn’t find this pedantic or boring though. It actually cranked up the tension.
There’s something of a 10 Little Indians thing going on with people getting killed one by one and no one (except the reader) too sure of who the murderer could be.
It plays out slowly before the last remaining hero(s) discover who the killer is and they still have to avoid falling into the sun.
The level of scientific detail makes this extra fun and by ‘scientific’ I don’t mean dry fact, so much as answers to questions, like ‘what would be the safety protocol for an action on a spacecraft?’ It makes it all the more believable and fun to listen to.
I’m giving this 5 stars. It’s a good tight story that’s a lot of fun to listen to while exercising.
April 22, 2017
A science fiction murder mystery of the closed room subgenre - because on a spaceship with only two handfuls of people, you know you are locked in with the killer. One by one people die but the scary countdown is not the killer on the inside of the ship. The void of space is nowhere near as forgiving as a psychopath. Damage during the first murder compromised the ship's navigation and its course will skirt too close to the sun for the environmental controls before aiming out into the freezing forever of the universe. With only days to go, can the main character avoid the killer long enough to save the survivors?
Mr. Cobb wrote a hard sci-fiction story; knowing him from ConCarolina's science track, I bet even the near-pass of the Sun was worked out to the third decimal point. His characterization isn't quite as well done as the science, but the murder mystery plot line keeps things hopping.
If you want more science than fiction in your story, this read is the perfect choice.
Picked up while free on kindle in relation to ConCarolinas 2016.
Editing note: Marked as spoiler simply because most people will not care about this and so don't need to read the details. Only people who do a lot of editing may notice the issue.
Mr. Cobb wrote a hard sci-fiction story; knowing him from ConCarolina's science track, I bet even the near-pass of the Sun was worked out to the third decimal point. His characterization isn't quite as well done as the science, but the murder mystery plot line keeps things hopping.
If you want more science than fiction in your story, this read is the perfect choice.
Picked up while free on kindle in relation to ConCarolinas 2016.
Editing note: Marked as spoiler simply because most people will not care about this and so don't need to read the details. Only people who do a lot of editing may notice the issue.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews