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Notes from Star to Star
Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist
Jessica Hamilton awakens from suspension in a vast spaceship, her memories gone, the crew missing. Where is she headed? Why is she alone? How did she get here? Join Hamilton as she unravels the mystery behind her mission's purpose and its origins in a story that explores the outer bounds of communications and the nature of life in the universe.
Jessica Hamilton awakens from suspension in a vast spaceship, her memories gone, the crew missing. Where is she headed? Why is she alone? How did she get here? Join Hamilton as she unravels the mystery behind her mission's purpose and its origins in a story that explores the outer bounds of communications and the nature of life in the universe.
- GenresScience Fiction
109 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 6, 2024
12 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Brian J. Dolan
1 book5 followersBrian J. Dolan has written for Business Insider, the Boston Globe, and numerous trade publications. Notes from Star to Star is his first novella.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 16, 2025
A journey worth the hundred-year wait! 4.75/5 from Beyond the Curtain of Reality Book Reviews
Today, I am reviewing the debut science-fiction novella Notes from Star to Star by Brian Dolan. In this story, our protagonist, last name Hamilton, finds herself awakening from a century-long induced stasis as her ship nears Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, over 4.2 light years away…and the site of possible signals from an extraterrestrial civilization The only person aboard the ship, she has to discover why she’s there, how she came to be the only crew member onboard for such an important mission…and pierce through the coma-induced amnesia to remember who she is.
I give this book a 4.75/5. Here is my breakdown.
Characters: 5/5. We only interface with one main character, Hamilton, and her perspective colors everything. The true draw of the novella is that we’re experiencing everything as she does, putting the pieces together at the same time and making discoveries alongside her. Dolan does a fantastic job of crafting a realistic character in such an isolating scenario; she deals9with self-doubt, worry, and pushes through with practiced routines to keep herself engaged. We feel her triumphs and her frustrations, which culminate with a critical discovery at the end, and a lovely epilogue that brought a tear to my eye.
Plot/Storyline: 4.5/5. Narratively, this novella felt smooth and easy to understand. The plot, streamlined as a novella should be, focused on two main issues: who is Hamilton, and what is sending the signals? Everything else was peripheral to that, atmospheric or tension-building, and this story doesn’t suffer from narrative bloat or overexplanation. The story hooked me in immediately and kept me paging through to discover what happened next. Another big plus.
Flow: 4.5/5. As I mentioned, smooth and easy. Time gaps are dealt with masterfully and the pacing is excellent. Dolan introduced a useful story-telling device in the computer system of the ship, allowing Hamilton to have someone to interact with and bounce ideas off of to move the story forward. Well done.
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5. Toward the last half of the book, I noted a slight increase in typos and grammar errors. This distracted a little bit just as the tension rose and the story started running toward its conclusion, so I’d recommend a quick editing pass to find these nagging problems.
Overall: 4.75/5. Notes from Star to Star is a wonderful, introspective, hopeful piece of (overall) hard science fiction that makes excellent use of character study and interesting story-telling to craft a compelling narrative. I blew through this novella in about half an hour and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take a quick trip through the stars without being shot at, blown up, or exploded (much).
If you liked this review, check out my review blog at https://curtainofreality.blogspot.com/
As always, thanks for everything, and keep reading!
Today, I am reviewing the debut science-fiction novella Notes from Star to Star by Brian Dolan. In this story, our protagonist, last name Hamilton, finds herself awakening from a century-long induced stasis as her ship nears Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, over 4.2 light years away…and the site of possible signals from an extraterrestrial civilization The only person aboard the ship, she has to discover why she’s there, how she came to be the only crew member onboard for such an important mission…and pierce through the coma-induced amnesia to remember who she is.
I give this book a 4.75/5. Here is my breakdown.
Characters: 5/5. We only interface with one main character, Hamilton, and her perspective colors everything. The true draw of the novella is that we’re experiencing everything as she does, putting the pieces together at the same time and making discoveries alongside her. Dolan does a fantastic job of crafting a realistic character in such an isolating scenario; she deals9with self-doubt, worry, and pushes through with practiced routines to keep herself engaged. We feel her triumphs and her frustrations, which culminate with a critical discovery at the end, and a lovely epilogue that brought a tear to my eye.
Plot/Storyline: 4.5/5. Narratively, this novella felt smooth and easy to understand. The plot, streamlined as a novella should be, focused on two main issues: who is Hamilton, and what is sending the signals? Everything else was peripheral to that, atmospheric or tension-building, and this story doesn’t suffer from narrative bloat or overexplanation. The story hooked me in immediately and kept me paging through to discover what happened next. Another big plus.
Flow: 4.5/5. As I mentioned, smooth and easy. Time gaps are dealt with masterfully and the pacing is excellent. Dolan introduced a useful story-telling device in the computer system of the ship, allowing Hamilton to have someone to interact with and bounce ideas off of to move the story forward. Well done.
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5. Toward the last half of the book, I noted a slight increase in typos and grammar errors. This distracted a little bit just as the tension rose and the story started running toward its conclusion, so I’d recommend a quick editing pass to find these nagging problems.
Overall: 4.75/5. Notes from Star to Star is a wonderful, introspective, hopeful piece of (overall) hard science fiction that makes excellent use of character study and interesting story-telling to craft a compelling narrative. I blew through this novella in about half an hour and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take a quick trip through the stars without being shot at, blown up, or exploded (much).
If you liked this review, check out my review blog at https://curtainofreality.blogspot.com/
As always, thanks for everything, and keep reading!
June 30, 2025
This novella starts with the almost over-exploited device of an astronaut finding themselves alone in a starship, with little or no memory of how they came into the situation, where they are going or where the others are. The "discovery" process here is straightforward, consisting mostly of interrogating the ship's AI and perusing the mission documentation (unlike in, say, Weir's Project Hail Mary ). This simple, linear learning of her circumstances in the first half of the novella is perhaps its only major flaw - we hardly feel any tension in it. Only when personal memories start to emerge, sometimes triggered by a familiar smell (no, Mr. Proust has not invented this - the phenomenon even has a technical name), do we (well, I, anyway) become more invested in the protagonist's fate.
The remainder of the work deals with a very original take on inter-species communication in a rather poetic way. The ending feels a bit rushed, if still rather satisfying.
"Hard" SciFi fans will hardly find anything to complain about in the description of the ship, its equipment, procedures, even orbital mechanics. "Softer" souls will find the ending very engaging.
All in all, this is a very good first work by a new author. Although there was enough material for a longer work, I think that the decision to keep to the tight, condensed confines of a novella format was a good one.
As they say, "watch this space".
The remainder of the work deals with a very original take on inter-species communication in a rather poetic way. The ending feels a bit rushed, if still rather satisfying.
"Hard" SciFi fans will hardly find anything to complain about in the description of the ship, its equipment, procedures, even orbital mechanics. "Softer" souls will find the ending very engaging.
All in all, this is a very good first work by a new author. Although there was enough material for a longer work, I think that the decision to keep to the tight, condensed confines of a novella format was a good one.
As they say, "watch this space".
July 11, 2025
This story feels like it was born from a mind that really got into the semi-recent spate of science fiction space exploration movies (Interstellar, The Martian, Gravity etc).
When you enter into a story where you have a single character isolated on a spaceship with no one to talk to except robots, the story is bound to be a little slow. It’s all internal musing and inner reflection.
This hurt the pacing, which dragged initially, despite some clever solutions for giving the reader information without info dumping.
Despite having over 100 pages to get to know our protagonist, Jessica or Hamilton as she tends to go by, I don’t feel I know much about her. She likes tea and wine and working out at the gym. Little else comes to mind when I think of what I learned about her.
The story concept has been done a heap of times, but this story had enough to keep me reading, particularly once the transmissions started.
I’d have liked more answers, but sometimes you don’t get what you want. This isn’t a bad book, but it felt unfinished and in need of more.
If you like space exploration and aliens, this might just be a welcome addition to your TBR list.
A few things I noticed:
52% - …she was tasked to being (bring) back the proof…
56% - …. Not just whoever wanted (to) send her and the ship…
59% - …chimed again as (she) contemplated the behemoth…
72% - …as of (if) the planet itself…
93% - …buffet at (as) it encountered…
**Note: I was provided an electronic copy of the book from the Author.**
When you enter into a story where you have a single character isolated on a spaceship with no one to talk to except robots, the story is bound to be a little slow. It’s all internal musing and inner reflection.
This hurt the pacing, which dragged initially, despite some clever solutions for giving the reader information without info dumping.
Despite having over 100 pages to get to know our protagonist, Jessica or Hamilton as she tends to go by, I don’t feel I know much about her. She likes tea and wine and working out at the gym. Little else comes to mind when I think of what I learned about her.
The story concept has been done a heap of times, but this story had enough to keep me reading, particularly once the transmissions started.
I’d have liked more answers, but sometimes you don’t get what you want. This isn’t a bad book, but it felt unfinished and in need of more.
If you like space exploration and aliens, this might just be a welcome addition to your TBR list.
A few things I noticed:
52% - …she was tasked to being (bring) back the proof…
56% - …. Not just whoever wanted (to) send her and the ship…
59% - …chimed again as (she) contemplated the behemoth…
72% - …as of (if) the planet itself…
93% - …buffet at (as) it encountered…
**Note: I was provided an electronic copy of the book from the Author.**
March 10, 2025
Notes from Star to Star
Sci-Fi
Brian Dolan
⭐️⭐️⭐️
• ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ • ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ • ᴀᴍɴᴇꜱɪᴀ •
This book had an interesting premise but it felt like a lot of filler was used, for example every flavour of tea the FMC was drinking was described in detail, how each ingredient for every meal was created/harvested from the vegetable garden on board the ship etc. It made me skim paragraphs trying to get to the interesting parts.
The pacing was a bit slow for me. I wanted there to be a big revelation or a surprise but it never happened.
I liked the FMC, Hamilton. She was resilient and determined to carry out her mission.
The contact with the alien planet was a little underwhelming and there didn't seem to be much plot progression at all.
Sci-Fi
Brian Dolan
⭐️⭐️⭐️
• ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ • ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ • ᴀᴍɴᴇꜱɪᴀ •
This book had an interesting premise but it felt like a lot of filler was used, for example every flavour of tea the FMC was drinking was described in detail, how each ingredient for every meal was created/harvested from the vegetable garden on board the ship etc. It made me skim paragraphs trying to get to the interesting parts.
The pacing was a bit slow for me. I wanted there to be a big revelation or a surprise but it never happened.
I liked the FMC, Hamilton. She was resilient and determined to carry out her mission.
The contact with the alien planet was a little underwhelming and there didn't seem to be much plot progression at all.
November 7, 2024
I’m realizing that I really REALLY enjoy SciFi/space exploration books
January 6, 2025
Started slow but had a great build. A bit too wordy in places for my taste but thoroughly enjoyable. Great plot idea, felt original and it felt as if I was experiencing these events with the MC.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews