The Javelin Program

Time to Orbit: Unknown #1

by Derin Edala

When Dr Aspen Greaves signed up for the Javelin Program, humanity's first foray into colonising deep space, they expected to wake up to life in a thriving colony on a distant planet. Instead, they find themself five years away from their destination on a broken spaceship full of complex mysteries, dead astronauts, and a very unhelpful AI.

Aspen wasn't trained for any of this. But if they can't keep themselves alive, get the ship in working order, and find out what went wrong by unravelling a chain of mysteries leading all the way back to distant Earth, then neither Aspen nor the five thousand sleeping passengers in their care will ever see a planet again.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space, Adult, Mystery, Queer, Science Fiction Fantasy

582 pages, Paperback

Published September 6, 2024

Reviews

[Gohnar23 (hiatus but still reading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

5️⃣🌟, shook....speechless....this is so underrated wtf...

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

#️⃣7️⃣2️⃣1️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🧊🏔️
Date Read: Saturday, December 20, 2025 ☃️🌨️
51th read in "Its TIMEEEE!!!!! (to read more books)" December ❄️⛄

(Thanks fam for the buddy read, You know who you are ❣️❣️❣️)

This book is genuinely one of the most complex and most action packed sci-fi books I have ever read!!!!!!! (⁠ ⁠≧⁠Д⁠≦⁠)

This book is an example of a sci-fi book that does everything correctly. It has the perfect amount of world building and not that much to the point where sometimes it gets a little bit confusing to read.

There is a mystery aspect which is basically just 'What the hell is this situation are we even in' and That is like —THE BEST WAY to introduce and expand your story with. It also sets up your world building perfectly, with slow unfolding moments that little by little, explains the situation that they are in. I loveee that. The setting and also how they express the scenery is just so vivid and extremely immersiveeeeeeee, it's like you're actually with Aspen! So amazingggggg

And speaking about Aspen,.,.,.,., HE'S LITERALLY THE BEST SCI FI PROTAGONIST OUT THERE 🥹🥹🥹, with the perfect amount of knowledge not crossing the line of being just a massive nerd and also having the relatability aspect and the emotionsss?????? His issues and his problems being explored and resolve the perfectly? AND HIS CHARACTER ARC?!??!??!? GORGEOUSSSSSSSSS. With the most unique and extremely innovative ways to improvise and lead and manage when dealing with unknown situation (much like how he is in this novel) he just handles it all perfectly 😭😭😭😭. Perfectly imperfect!

AND THE FACT THAT WE LITERALLY JUST STARTED WITH ONE CHARACTER AND THEN OVER TIME, WE GET INTRODUCED TO NEW AND NEW MORE CHARACTERS ONE BY ONE LIKE LITERALLY JUST ONE BY ONE SLOWLY BUT SURELY CREATING THIS ATMOSPHERE AND THIS WHILE CAST OF CHARACTERS THAT JUST STARTED FROM *ONE* IS LIKE SO COOOOOOOOOOL. IT'S LIKE AN ENTIRE CREW IS UNFOLDING BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES.

Spice Level 🌶️: 0️⃣
Vibe ☘️: Weird space shi
Who'd Like This ❓👥: Sci-fi lovers THIS IS SO GUD WTFFFF

[Eric Herboso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always been fascinated by sociology in science fiction. Whether they're Belters from Corey's The Expanse, or various individuals in Banks' The Culture, seeing the sociological ramifications of various sci-fi premises is always something that scratches my rationalist itch.

I also love a good mystery in science fiction; these are somewhat more rare, usually showing up with unfair deus ex machina, but occasionally something like Clement's Mission of Gravity will present a hard sci-fi mystery that the reader can technically figure out from context, but which is difficult enough that you'll usually fail to do so. Good mysteries will always reward a second reread, like Palahniuk's Fight Club. Good mysteries in the hard sci-fi genre are almost nonexistent.

So consider my surprise when I come across Derin Edala's Time to Orbit: Unknown series. This is rational science fiction (my favorite kind!) focusing on a series of entirely fair mysteries (so rare!) about sociology of all things! This is a rarity of rarities, and it does not disappoint.

The main character of the two books in this series, The Javelin Program & The Antarctica Conspiracy, is the sociologist Dr. Aspen Greaves. They are, without a doubt, one of the best protagonists in a rational sci-fi mystery that I'm, aware of. (Part of this might be because the great hard sci-fi mystery writers are generally only good at _natural science_ mysteries, not mysteries of motivations or sociology. (Clement in particular is *terrible* at dialogue, to the same extent as he is utterly amazing at setting.)) Aspen, despite originating from a society that is foreign to me, proves to be an excellent reader surrogate. I'm not sure how exactly Edala was able to accomplish this, but it is easy to imagine myself in Aspen's shoes, even as they evaluate the various cultures of those around them.

I haven't even spoken to the plot of the Time to Orbit: Unknown series, but, honestly, I don't think I need to. The fact that the setting is a deep space colonization ship; that the characters are all from various cultures in the Sol system far enough in the future that everything is not quite what you'd expect; and that the mysteries are all entirely fair, predictable if you spend enough time thinking about them, but difficult enough that you'll never figure them out before reaching the point in the text where they are resolved — these are all superfluous to the fact that I just plain enjoyed this series.

If any of this would also appeal to you, then I heartily recommend Derin Edala's two books in the Time to Orbit: Unknown series: The Javelin Program & The Antarctica Conspiracy. I fully endorse this story as a rationalist sci-fi sociological mystery. Well done, Edala.

[Rachel Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book entirely without realising, as I was reading the online version. It's hard to view this as a book separate from its second part, but I'll try my best.

So far: it expands on our current world in a very believable way and is yet still firmly tethered to modern culture. Characters acknowledge things like 'marriage is a weird thing people used to do', which makes it a commentary on things we take for granted as normal, in regards to sexuality, gender, race and taboo. I think it feels much more intelligent and realistic than similar Sci-fi worlds like Star Trek where modern values are assumed to carry on and result in unproblematic collectivist space travel.

The characters are just wonderful. They're written vibrantly and you can feel the characters becoming friends as they learn more about each other and overcome adversity together. The frustrating aspects of characters are well done, purposeful, and realistic.

The mysteries are obviously the best part. I still have no fucking clue what's going on and I don't think I will until I've read the remaining 100 chapters. It's structured almost like a TV show (in a good way)--problems and mysteries are constantly arising, building upon eachother, partially resolving and explaining loose ends from ages ago.

I've never really read a book like this one so it's somehow very hard to compare to others, but quite simply I think it's great.

[Bryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

exactly what i want sci fi to be, a challenge to who we are and a warning about what we may become.

[Red · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. The journey through the darkness of space when mysteries and problems keep occuring calls the ethics and morality of the whole situation and everyone involved into question. It's captivating! Aspen is a great protagonist who has been unexpectedly thrown into leadership, a situation that they're not prepared for in the slightest, and has to make the tough decision that noone would ever want. All while trying to save the lives of their ragtag crew and the thousands of sleeping colonists onboard.

This story looks at friendship and loss, trying to keep your identity and values while having to question everything around you. It's a captivating read and the joke within the community of fully loosing track of time while reading is very accurate, I couldn't put it down and then suddenly it was 3am

Please read about this perfectly normal spaceship and it's amazing crew

[Alphie · Rating 5 out of 5]

a normal story about a normal spaceship

[Nico · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded down in the sense that I think book 2 has room to grow/intensify from here and I'm very excited for that possibility. incredibly enjoyable read with a refreshing amount of queerness and my style of humour

[Cornelia Johansson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explaining how I feel about Time to Orbit: Unknown is hard, because it is, somehow, simultaneously, incredibly good and also kind of shit. I can talk about how incredibly frustrating and poorly thought through I found its plot structure and handling of mystery, but then I'll feel bad because it's also INCREDIBLY suspenseful and tense and pretty much the only book that I've been unable to tear my eyeballs from since I was a tween voraciously reading like my life depended on it. Now being an adult who gets distracted after five minutes of reading (thank good for audiobooks), finding something that actually genuinely hooks me is incredibly rare. I want to shake Edala's hand for returning some of that feeling to me.

The world-building is also incredibly cool. It's that particular flavor of sci-fi where everything is so deeply removed from our idea of normal that you basically have to rethink everything, while drip-feeding you information about how this new world works without overwhelming you. The science of the spaceship is handled similarly deftly, with the information never feeling boring or clunky but rather heightening the tension by little by little allowing the reader to understand the intricacies of spaceflight and the way even the smallest decision can have huge consequences.

But okay, let's talk grievances. This is a story that builds very heavily on mystery. What is happening on this spaceship and why is it so fucked up? Every reveal makes things weirder and me the reader more invested, and that combined with the threat of the spaceship being basically a death trap is, I think, what makes the story so un-put-downable (which I'm sure is a word that exists). The first half or so is a genuine masterpiece of tension. BUT. The more things build up, the more it suffers from not only refusing the reader any answers, but from having the characters not caring about finding said answers. And I get it, it's a survival situation, detective work isn't their first priority, but as a reader it IS my first priority. So time and time again having characters go 'this sure is an intriguing mystery, but I can't be bothered to solve it because there's air filtration to fix and a spaceship to run' is INCREDIBLY frustrating, and not in a good way. You can't base so much of the tension on a mystery and then have the characters be entirely disinterested in it, it makes for an intense lack of satisfaction and resolution.

My second grievance is that the plot suffers from similar lack of resolution. There is, time and again, chapter after chapter spent dedicated to some huge problem, investing both the characters and me the reader in finding a solution, only to then dismiss the whole thing in a split moment decision, thus making all that work and all that investment feel wasted. I'd be okay with it happening once, because sometimes lack of resolution or the realization that some things can't be fixed IS the point, but when it keeps happening it starts to feel like the story was set up with a bunch of problems the author had no idea how to solve, and now they're scrambling and throwing the whole thing out the window before moving on to the next problem.

The main character spends the first section of the novel endangering themselves and going through a huge hassle to fix the spaceship without killing a huge portion of the sleeping passengers? Never mind, they were just jettisoned to save one (1) guy and you could never help them anyway, all that work was for nothing and could've been circumvented by the push of a button that they ended up doing anyway.

There's some kind of freaky AI that is maybe aware and maybe not, raising questions about how it works? Never mind, that also just got jettisoned, the AI no longer matters in the slightest despite having been incredibly central as both a mystery and a potential threat.

There are questions raised about culpability for past crimes with the main character repeatedly refusing to engage by purposefully avoiding finding out what the crimes are and stressing that they no longer matter, but oh shit someone just committed a new crime, how will they handle this, should this make them not trust the person even though they deeply trust others who've done worse because they're buddies and feel sorry about how they've been mistreated? How will they handle this test of character and morality, and what does it say about the nature of crime and punishment and the way society dehumanizes criminals? Oh wait, never mind, the culprit just died and they no longer have to make a decision or grow as a person, crisis averted, nothing meaningful said!

See what I mean? The build-up is what made me invested in the first place, but in refusing satisfying resolutions the overall feeling, despite enjoying the reading experience, is one of frustration.

I do very much plan on reading the second part, and I do have hope that finally getting the answers for the mysteries will alleviate some of my grievances. Again, this is an incredibly engaging story and I really, REALLY hope it sets the landing even if it stumbled a bit betting there.

[Twirlsquirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book, and the most fun I've had with a new scifi author in a while.

This is, more or less, hard scifi, with some splashes of scifi horror and found-family character drama thrown in. The underlying plot is mildly compelling until it somewhat falls off the rails near the end, and the wordbuilding is mostly unconvincing despite several interesting ideas that are returned to periodically. So this is outside my usual preferences wherein the plot and worldbuilding would be my central interests.

Most of the charm I found in this book comes from other, somewhat unexpected things. I'll describe them below, with minimal spoilers, but honestly if you're considering reading this book you should just dive in without reading anything else that I or anyone else has to say about it. Your journey will be best that way.

The many strengths of this book

No two-dimensional tropes or horror-movie logic

This book is full of intelligent characters. By this I don't mean they're universal genius tropes like so many lazy writers rely on; these are all flawed people, with their own conceptual blindspots and massive areas of ignorance. Rather, what makes them intelligent is that they're all curious not only about what is happening around them but also how and why, and they are sufficiently competent to figure things out as a group, use their available skillsets and tools appropriately, and show a believable level of self-assessment regarding their ability to collectively solve mysteries outside their areas of expertise. You know, like any actual humans who might conceivably be in this scenario.

This is rare in my experience. Typically the cast in a book like this does the stupidest shit possible on page after page, because the author isn't able or willing to think up problems compelling enough to require the combined efforts of several realistically intelligent human beings. Maybe I've just been reading the wrong books, but my point is you will not find any Prometheus bullshit in here. (Fuck you again, Ridley Scott, for so utterly crushing my hopes for modern smart hi-budget scifi horror.)

To give an example: In this book personal protective equipment exists, every character knows what it is and why it's important, and it will always be used appropriately. There are no plot emergencies that hinge on stupid shit like "Will the doctor actually wear a face mask during this autopsy?" or "Will this astronaut remember how gravity works?" This already raises the stakes significantly because instead of following characters whose basic stupidity makes me yearn for their deaths, I'm following characters who've already thought of most of the things I would've thought of, so I'm actually curious what they think of next - because I haven't already thought of it! - and that leaves me rooting for them instead of against them. Most scifi horror authors fail at this badly and I don't know why, but this is a book where it's (for the most part) done right.

Involved, compelling dialogue

Another aspect of this book that stood out to me is the amount of tension it manages to squeeze out of detailed conversations between crew members, not only regarding plot mysteries but also regarding normal social dynamics. For example there's an entire chapter where two characters have a conversation trying to work out an understanding regarding their conflicting leadership styles, and it is honestly riveting. I've never seen anything like it.

Most attempts I've read to do something like this come across as ponderous aristocratic nonsense (most of the classical Western canon) or airbrained cartoonishness (most popular genre fiction). Granted this is a matter of personal taste, and if you actually enjoy Leo Tolstoy or Tom Clancy respectively, more power to you; I'm just saying I can never find anything that fits my dialogic sensibilities. This book is a blast of fresh air in that regard, like stepping onto an untouched mountainside after being stuck in the polluted inversion of a metropolitan valley.

Realistic character development

The main character and a few others also demonstrate believable social growth at multiple points, after blundering into various social situations with misplaced confidence only to be corrected in various ways. That is to say, they feel like real people learning real lessons. This is a nice touch to an already satisfying treatment of cast.

Actually funny humor

As might be expected from the character treatment, the humor and diagetic social commentary are also really smart. We see "dryad" as a reclaimed slur used by members of a forest society that many others denigrate as backwards or primitive. There's a hilarious chapter revolving around future reconstructed cultural anthropology of modern-day media like Dawn of the dead. At a few points the humorous scenes can feel a bit forced or overdone, but it never approaches anything like Marvel levels of inauthentic meme humor, so overall I'm quite happy with it.

I only have a few complaints, which again come with mild spoilers. Once again, best not to read this till after you've read the book, if you're considering reading the book at all.

Bigger flaws

Psychology told but not shown

We are constantly told psychology is crucial, but are shown only the barest hints of psychology and in no situation where it's shown does it actually change anything. Everything else in the narrative that is treated as critical does an excellent job showing us why it's critical, so this stands out as an obvious weak spot. That said, this is simultaneously testament to how well the book shows its themes in nearly every area, rather than simply telling us.

Scientific hand waving for a crucial plot element

How is it that a human civilization barely able to image extrasolar planets managed to create a localized time-slowing effect based on a liquid chemical? The former can be extrapolated from existing technology and uses no new physical concepts, yet the book references its development multiple times to instill a sense of believability. Meanwhile the latter would require entirely new understandings of physics, and technology we can't even coherently hypothesize about, yet the book just treats it as another fact of life requiring no explanation. This led to me thinking it was some kind of biochemical metabolic inhibitor for the first two-thirds of the book, until some more explicit dialogue later on made me stop and reevaluate with disappointment everything that had come before on the topic.

This is the biggest scientific flaw in a book that otherwise goes out of its way to depict believable scientific processes and visions of technology that could conceivably be extrapolated from modern knowledge. Though again, I suppose the fact that there's only one such technomagical maguffin in here is pretty solid endorsement of this book's quality compared to the average scifi that has anywhere from five to fifty of the things.

Typography and character voices

The book also could have used a solid round of professional editing. First, to clean up typographical errors, which are rampant: Everything from improper or doubled punctuation, to misused words, to individual letters randomly missing from or added to the text. Second, for differentiation of character voice, which is nearly nonexistent - a serious problem in a book so heavily focused on dialogue. (The character Nish has a distinct accent and verbal mannerisms from all the others, and the two 'friends' have their own unique usage of nouns and pronouns, but beyond these three characters, if you gave me several lines of dialogue from this book without telling me who spoke them and without bringing up a given character's technical specialties or pet peeves, I could not even guess who was supposed to be speaking.)

Smaller flaws

Scientific misconceptions - intentional or not?

There are some minor scientific flaws that make me think Edala could have done a bit more research before publishing. For example after discovering a gene product marked by a fluorescent protein, the character with the most relevant scientific knowledge says they've never heard of such a use for fluorescent proteins before. In real life this is possibly the primary technological use of such proteins, so that's a jarringly confusing statement to make.

It's possible Edala was trying to make a point here about present scientific knowledge and techniques being lost in the far future, considering they do that in multiple other locations throughout the book, but if that's so, it would've been nice to indicate that somehow. A simple line of dialogue could have cleared this up like in those other instances.

There are also a few similarly silly moments revolving around discussions of human genetics vs microbial genetics and so on, which would have benefited from brief review by a relevant scientist. (As someone with formal relevant training I can confirm that scientists exist who can absolutely tell you in detail about both kinds of genetics, for example.) But considering the earnest and thoughtful treatment of various branches of science throughout the narrative, especially in conjunction with relevant character skillsets, these are minor nitpicks relative to the sheer amount of visceral scifi satisfaction this book gave me.

Ending felt rushed

The final few chapters showcased the worldbuilding a bit more, which I think is a specific flaw in this book that should not be focused on. And the ending in particular left me unsatisfied, but this is more of a frustration I feel toward cliffhangers generally and my inability to understand the main character's confounding final actions specifically.

Final thoughts

This book was extremely refreshing and should be required reading for the authors of many other scifi novels I've trashed in my reviews here. Right up until the final few chapters I was debating whether to give this book a perfect score despite its other flaws. For now it gets four stars, but that may go up retroactively with some time for reflection and depending on how I feel about the sequel, which I'll certainly be reading because I enjoyed this one so much.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable sci-fi mystery thriller! Sociological elements that I loved. Beats of genuinely funny repartee. A few moments of beautiful prose. Compassionate but flawed protagonist. Good critiques of modern society (which I think is mandatory for any good sci-fi). Satisfyingly accurate portrayal of the sciences I’m familiar with. (An accurate depiction of evodevo and genetics? In MY sci-fi? It’s more likely than you think.) Compelled me in a way nothing else has in the last six months.

On the downside: needs an editor. It was self-published, and you can tell, purely based on the number of typos (at least in the ebook version). You can also tell it was originally published online in installments because (1) almost every chapter ends with a one-line hook/teaser for the next and (2) there’s a fair amount of recapping of the mystery so far. (There’s literally a chapter at the halfway point titled “Recap,” and it’s exactly what it says on the tin.) Sometimes it’s helpful, but sometimes it feels long-winded and unnecessary. An editor could tighten up the dialogue and make this feel more polished.

That being said, it’s thoroughly enjoyable as is! It deserves five stars for sheer ingenuity and how compelling the mystery is to read. Excited to read the second/final book.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Javelin Program is a deeply engaging work with a few flaws that keep me from giving it a five-star rating.

This is a difficult book to review. I absolutely adored so much of this book! The first half of the book is fantastic. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. Every new reveal and new mystery just kept dragging me further and further into the story. I could hardly put it down! The book does an incredible job of building a sense of mystery and keeping you questioning what is really going on. The worldbuilding is also fantastic and the characters are all interesting. However, I think that the second half of the book began to suffer a bit under the weight of its own mystery.

I’ve never read a book with pacing quite like this one had. I think most of it is an artifact of it once being a web serial released chapter-by-chapter. The mystery and the tension just built and built without much payoff. Most chapters ended with a cliffhanger, which was interesting in the beginning but began to drag a bit by the end. Things were paradoxically rather quick-paced and then lagged. The ending of the first book, because of it, felt rather unsatisfying: so many things were left unresolved that it felt a bit frustrating. There were also many bizarre scenes where all the characters just stood around and recapped everything that happened within the story… which might have been useful in the original web serial but were extremely odd in the printed volume.

Honestly, I think that this is a fantastic book that suffers a bit too much from some “first draft syndrome.” It has some amazing bones… but could have benefited from a few good editors to sand off a few of the flaws and tighten up the narrative. The latter half of the book would probably stand much stronger with some significant re-writes. However, it is still a fantastic read as-is and I would certainly recommend that anyone interested give it a try. And, if Derin Edala ever decides to re-work these books and re-release them, I’d be first in line to check them out!

I do want to emphasize just how much I did enjoy reading this book. If any other book had these flaws, I would have probably ranked it three stars at most. However, this story was so engaging and so interesting that it managed to make up for it all, bringing it up to four stars!


Now, here’s for some more specific notes about the book (which might contain some spoilers). It’s a bit rambley and disorganized, but here are a few of my thoughts!

The worldbuilding in this book was incredible! It did a fantastic job of walking the line between “not telling us enough to truly visualize how different their world is from ours” and “exposition dumping.” We got enough hints to keep us curious but not enough to overwhelm us. It also kept us firmly rooted into our protagonists perspective: Aspen Graves had no reason to really consider any of it! The whole note on the fingernails of all things being different was fascinating. Every time it was mentioned, I just wanted to know what in the world these people’s fingernails actually looked like!

One of the major issues that I had with the book is a lack of attachment to any of the characters in the crew. I was fond of a few—Denish was absolutely fantastic and I quite liked the Doctor Friend. However, as Aspen didn’t really become “close” to any characters, we weren’t given too many opportunites to see them grow or develop within the narrative, leaving them all one-note and precluding the reader from forming any emotional attachment to any of them. I didn’t really feel like we had a moment of true bonding between any of the characters until the latter half of the book, where Aspen and Captain Sands sat down and had a heart-to-heart about joining the Javelin Program. In the beginning of the book, the lack of closeness between Aspen and the crew seems reasonable. They don’t quite trust each other yet and are functionally strangers. I rather liked the reveal of the entire crew being convicts and their relevant mistrust of Aspen. However, while their bond appeared to grow closer after this moment, what we are able to see seems superficial. Because we never got to actually feel any of their relationships, many of the characters felt rather flat and uninteresting. The inclusion of the movie nights could have been a good method to further some relationships but actually disrupted the flow of the narrative. I actually found myself rather frustrated with Aspen after Captain Sands took the captaincy. While they would say that the convict’s previous crimes didn’t matter to them, they didn’t spend much time actually defending them from the very real persecution that they were going through. When Tinera and Heli fought, Aspen noted that Tinera probably had a reason and was hiding things from Captain Sands… but didn’t follow up themself. They didn’t go and talk to her or any of the convict crew to ask what was going on. It felt like a profound betrayal of the previous crew—one that was left completely unaddressed in this book. I will note that I have NOT read the second volume, where this might come more into play. I would like there to be actual consequences for this betrayal of trust. This might be another issue with how this story was partitioned into two parts, as we don’t get to see a full character arc from Aspen within that time and are left feeling rather unsatisfied.

Aspen also isn’t my favorite protagonist. They are is a deeply uncurious protagonist. On one hand, it does make them rather realistic as a person. I also would find it rather awkward to poke into all of my crewmates personal business! However, it does make his perspective rather unsatisfying to follow as the story goes on. In fact, I think that the narrative suffers when they resigns from the captaincy (although it was an interesting character choice that did fit with their personality), as they no longer has an actual reason to be involved in what all of the other crewmates are doing. Increasingly, it felt like the actual mysteries were being solved out of our eyesight, and we were just told the conclusion of what was going on. This was particularly striking in all of the issues with the ships AI. In the beginning of the story, the AI is mysterious and interesting to interact with. After we found out it was untrustworthy, I was really interested in seeing more interactions with it… and we never did. The only person interacting actively with the AI seemed to be Tal and we never got to see their perspective. This became increasingly frustrating as a reader as the book went on. The AI was so interesting, but we were only told about how interesting it was and never got to actually see it in action.

(Also, personally, on the topic of Aspen being a rather uncurious protagonist: I’ve never met a social scientist that wasn’t extremely nosy and extremely interested in digging into the reasoning behind any social phenomena they come across, so that did feel a bit odd. But, to be fair, I haven’t interacted with too many historical sociologist(?)s. Though, it does make one wonder why Aspen Greaves, who reportedly researched historical “preneek” horror… also wrote books on the Exodus Phenomenon? Seems like a rather odd specialization switch.)

The mysteries, while fascinating, did occasionally get undercut a bit and were left feeling underwhelming. Moments that were meant to be significant, like Aspen falling off the ladder, passed by really quickly. I would have enjoyed seeing more of Aspen's paranoia. However, the one that REALLY stuck with me was the lack of emotional consequences for jettisoning a whole portion of the colonists that Aspen had previously expended a large amount of energy to save. While it came up a few times again, we never really got to see Aspen DEAL with what they did. It didn't seem to have any consequences on their relationships either. They never sat and thought about it and it didn't seem to have a major impact on their later decisions. Such a terrible decision should have had major consequences in the narrative... and maybe it will in the second book! But as it stands, I was rather disappointed in how moments like that were handled.

I think this story also suffers from having a bit too large of a cast. By the end, many of the characters seemed one-note or irrelevant. In fact, in the big mysterious reveal at the end of the book of the murder of two crewmates, my first reaction was: “oh… I suppose they were introduced just so they could die.” It would have been more satisfying to have had Aspen interact more with them before they were dead so their death could have a bit more narrative weight. I think a few of these characters could have been combined.

While it’s really easy to list the flaws that this book has, it is much more difficult to lay out what it does well—but what it does well, it does amazingly. Despite all of these issues, I stayed interested and engaged the entire story. I enjoyed many of the plot reveals and the investigation process. I am looking forward to seeing how things are resolved in the second book in the series!

[Mac McMullan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so excited to read this book, having seen it positively compared to the Locked Tomb series. I picked up the first book on amazon, and read it in about 1.5 days. It was almost hard to put down to go to sleep, but unfortunately the second half drags, so it wasn't that hard. That being said, you should DEFINITELY read this book.

I initially thought this book was a little derivative, entirely unfairly, based on the first quarter or so of the book, because of its similarity to the premise of the film "Passengers", but perhaps told more in the style of the Martian. This is not the case: the book slowly reveals itself to be an extremely creative, widely-inspired story, much more similar in style to something like "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet", but also definitely its own thing. This is a book I would love to recommend to any and all sci-fi fans, and I can definitely recommend the first... half of the book. Fundamentally, this is a self-published book, based on an online story written in small chapters, and as a result, some of its flaws are a lot more obvious outside that episodic format. It needs a proper editor, and it needs one badly in the second half of the book. Significant editing, in my opinion, would turn this book into a modern sci-fi masterpiece.

It's a good book, I absolutely enjoyed it, but it could have been so much better, which is what makes this frustrating. The ending is especially poor, in my opinion, because the solutions to some of the mysteries the whole book are about are found, then there is a period where not much really happens, and then the book ends on yet another mystery, also including the main character making a frankly baffling decision for, I assume, plot reasons? The ending honestly makes me unsure about reading the rest of the series, because it made me feel so cheated. The story arcs didn't really get resolved, the character arcs didn't get resolved either, and it just ended. Now I understand that these books are not "books" in the strictest sense, but rather an episodic story structure that has been cut up into books where the most natural end points are, so this makes sense. It doesn't excuse it though.

My advice is that you should read this book, if you're reading this review, and decide for yourself. This book is full of such engaging and interesting worldbuilding, as well as some individual parts that made me gasp and think "oh wow, this book is a masterpiece". The author is clearly extremely talented, they just desperately need a real editor, and the will to re-do entire parts of their story in ways that depart from the original episodic version. I haven't read many self-published books, but this is certainly the best self-published piece of fiction I've ever read. Maybe the author isn't particularly bothered by this, and just wanted to publish their story in a way that means their fans can buy it and give it to people. I understand that. It's still a good book, and you should read it, but do not listen to it being compared to any traditionally published books and expect that, because the quality is like that of a well-polished first draft, not of a final product.

Anyway spoilers from this point on (this is just a list of my hot takes):











The AI using brains twist was amazing and creative, the worldbuilding of Earth was amazing and creative. The beginning of the book when Aspen was alone felt extremely tense. The set-ups for all the mysteries are incredibly intriguing, like when finding out how the previous crew died from the AI, or that the journey has taken twice as long as it should have.

The movie night and other more "cozy" chapters were unnecessary and broke immersion. I understand their inclusion now because of the way the book was written, but they could be easily edited out and they should be. Many of the characters are not strongly characterised, in ways that make me think several characters should be done away with, or merged together. The second PUF to be introduced is literally pointless, like they don't do anything, and then they die. Oh god, the PUF's made me quite uncomfortable as a Quaker myself, but I guess that's kind-of the point? It's just weird and uncomfortable to see "Quaker Extremism" portrayed, just because it effectively doesn't exist in real life. Major story points, like Aspen falling from the ladder, do not hit hard enough. I don't know how to fix this, but the same is also true of the reveals of lots of major mysteries in the book, like the mystery of the journey length. I feel bad about reviewing this and having problems with the mystery reveals because I haven't finished the series! It could be that there are deeper mysteries that are better revealed later! But no. I do not think it's acceptable to be writing a mystery-based book and have the reveals lack so much panache, even if they're fake-outs. Half the mysteries seem to be solved off-page by secondary characters, or just straight-up revealed by other characters once they trust the main character enough. The exception is maybe the one where all the other crew are convicts, but that mystery (which is that the crew are hiding something from Aspen) is set up very quickly, so the reveal feels more proportionate.

The ending actually made me kinda mad, because it feels like another one of those "Who did this murder? Keep reading to find out!" things, and since I actually did have a break in the story (the break being the end of the book), it felt more obvious to me that none of the previous mysteries had been resolved in a way I find satisfying, and so this was just yet more plot points the author had set up and probably wasn't going to give me a nice solution to.

Sorry the end of this review is so negative. It just takes a long time to explain all the negative bits, and all the positive bits can be really easily summed up in a few sentences. The feeling of reading this book was overwhelmingly positive! The author is very talented, and I hope one day I get to see their talents applied to a book through traditional publishing with an editor who makes them change large parts of their story, because I think the end product would be fantastic. Also, not really a "contents" thing, but the book cover is so, so good. It perfectly encapsulates the story and the vibe of the first part of the book, while providing slight thematic clues to the reveal of the AI mystery.

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time to Orbit: Unknown is a story that I am incredibly biased about, because it hit so many personal themes in a way I'd never seen reflected in fiction, and will probably never see again for a number of reasons. But personal biases are a difficult thing to start with, because it's so easy to dissolve into incoherence when talking about them. So let's try with the basics first, and then move on to the personal stuff later. Buckle up, this will be long--so if you want a tl;dr, here it is: get on the normal spaceship, nothing bad will happen, you will not regret losing the next few days to a time warp.

Still here? Excellent. Let's dig into it.

To start off, there are three things I want to mention. First of all, this book isn't quite the first half of a duology, not structurally. TTOU is a single story initially written in short installments. It has been published as two books because of practical necessity, and it is in print primarily because people wanted it on their shelves, which is a recommendation in itself.

Second, genre-wise it's a story that evokes the feeling of old sci-fi, the sort those of use who are in their 40s and 50s now cut their teeth on, and written much in the same manner: as an honest philosophical exploration of a possible world. This book takes its time. It allows itself details, sketches, space to grow, and even--terror of terrors!--meanderings and dead ends. To me, like to many readers who grew up on this sort of thing, this isn't a flaw, but a breath of fresh air, an abundance of space as opposed to many science fiction stories that are one tightly plotted knot after the other. You get to live on the normal spaceship and get to know its inhabitants, and that's a rare pleasure these days.

Thirdly, all of the above doesn't mean it's a slow book--in fact, quite the opposite. This is a story that routinely gets its author letters from flabbergasted readers whose main gist is, "I haven't been able to read for long time now--too tired, too busy-- but I started your story, and suddenly I can read again? I remembered how fun reading is? What did you do?" And what can I say? Edala knows their craft. What they do is they put us into the headspace of a deeply compassionate, frazzled sociologist, throw them into problem after problem after problem, and have us watch Dr. Aspen Greaves claw their way out, often hanging on by a thread--or falling. Pretty often, actually. But never, ever failing to get up.

Faults? This book has them, of course. Once or twice Edala shies away from a difficult problem by cutting the Gordian knot they have tied (you'll know it when you see it), trading off philosophical exploration for a mix of brutal realism and plot expediency--a valid choice, to be sure, but maybe not the most interesting one. As mentioned above and by many other reviews, the format this story was written in all but ensures the presence of dead ends and snags, of lines that peter out or exist only in the barest of sketches. For me, this created the feeling of a broader world than we're shown, which is something I always look for in my fiction, but I've seen it be a deal-breaker for people more sensitive to such things.

But to me, none of these things wound up truly mattering. The TTOU duology became one of my favorite books in the world anyway; a book which I'll take with me no matter how far from home I travel. Why?

Because reading about the kind of colleague you want to cross paths with at a conference is almost impossibly rare. Aspen turned out to be the sort of person you want to take by the shoulders and shake a little as you listen to their paper, then hug them with one hand and drag them to have drinks and talk about craft. This is especially impressive because the author isn't a sociologist--but Edala lets their protagonist be an academic and a scholar in a non-superficial way, as something etched into Aspen's history even despite their complicated and very fraught relationship with their discipline. To mention just one detail, at one point Aspen misses some self-assigned fieldwork because they're just too damn tired. If you just winced reading that, that's how I know you've done fieldwork.

By the middle of the book, I found myself routinely arguing with Aspen the way I'd argue with a colleague's article--yelling at them for misusing a fraught term in my own subfield, pacing around the room as I wondered how I'd approach the problem they were solving, wincing in sympathy when some of their non-expert friends go "well, I think your books are wrong" and others go "your books were incredible, they literally changed my life" (which is worse? I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader), yelling at them to do this obvious thing while knowing that no, of course they won't, that's nowhere close to their subfield and no one can be an expert on everything; cheering for them as they blunder their way through situations they are deeply unprepared for with the same mix of near-prescient acuity and total blindness so characteristic of people in our profession. It was an experience I'd never gotten from a book before, and I've come to treasure it.

So: if you're anywhere in the social sciences and are into sci-fi--go meet Dr. Greaves. Maybe you'll like them less than I do. But I definitely think they're worth knowing. Just don't read Aspen's books if you can avoid it, especially the fourth one. The author says it's rubbish, and considering their publishing and touring schedule at the point where they wrote it? I believe them.

[Charley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this for my birthday in early December, ended up holding off on starting it until Christmas because I knew I'd get sucked in and my Uni work would suffer- and boy was I right. I've been having a hard time being able to really get 'into' books in the last few years, especially new books, especially long books, but I absolutely devoured this one. I was reading it on my breaks, in bed, when I was supposed to be revising for my very important exams... any time I could get. As devastated as I am by the fact that I can't start the second book till I'm back in my own flat, I'm also some what relieved that it gives me time to focus on Important Life Stuff, lol.

Anyway, the non-spoilery review:

I would 100% recommend this book to anyone- fans of sci-fi especially, but honestly I think anyone could enjoy it. It's definitely a *big* book, but the way it's written makes it feel almost too short. Derin Edala has mastered the art of making books simultaneously easily consumable and densely packed with plot and characters, a line that's often hard to balance for SFF authors.

This book was excellent. There were a few typos in my copy, but honestly the book was so well written outside of that that I barely noticed. The inclusion of non-binary characters (both in our sense, and in the sense that the society in this book has a gender 'tertiary', so to speak) was really well done, and the way neopronouns were treated (as a norm) was both refreshing and all the evidence anyone could need that there's no reason for them to be considered confusing. The way the character's lives differed in their time versus ours, and the way that was addressed, was also fascinating to read. You can definitely pick up on some of the author's opinions on certain topics (especially tech-related ones), which is par for the course in sci-fi, but the characters themselves never feel like their just mouthpieces; there's a variety of opinions by a variety of people coloured realistically by their variety of upbringings.

The characters themselves were fascinating and well developed. The plot was very fun to read- very little gets tied up in the first book (indeed, every time they figure out an answer it opens up more questions), but in all honestly it adds to the 'unputdownable-ness' of the work. The ending is a massive cliff-hanger, one that made me nearly groan out loud as I realised I had (at least) two weeks until I could start the sequel, but I wouldn't have any less. There's quite a few twists and turns, all of which will keep you on the edge of your seat without ever feeling like their unpredictable or came out of nowhere.

And now, for the spoilers (read on at your own risk!)

I love Aspen's character. Love love love them. I was chomping at the bit to figure out what the 'big secret', the reason it's so shocking for them to be on the ship, and it didn't disappoint. I also loved the original crew, and loved side-eyeing the new crew (listen, some of them are growing on me, but some of them... looking at you, Dr 'I'm okay with involuntary brain surgery'). Even as the cast started growing- especially in the second half the book- I found it remarkably easy to tell the character's apart, which is something that normally takes a minute for me to do.

The twist at the end was technically predictable (look, something was going to happen, tensions were clearly boiling over, and also having two friends was getting confusing anyway, lol) but in the way where you know it's inevitable and that's what makes it so good. The specification of it being Adin's favourite knife made me pause- perhaps he did it, and wasn't very smart about the evidence (i'll forgive him, it's okay), or was part of the group that did it (I'll forgive all of them), but I can't help thinking that it points towards yet another twist, of which this book is teeming with them.

I thought the way Amy was handled was great. It feels like a realistic AI, and the notes from Aspen about AI's that are designed to be useful vs conversational felt especially... relevant, lol (but then so did a lot of the conversations around AI in this novel). I thought the twist, that the AI was feeding off their dreams, was absolutely fascinating- it wasn't as much as a surprise to me as it seems to be to others (brain parasites and AI's acting up, especially in tandem, is not super uncommon in scifi) but that didn't make it any impactful. The bigger questions are naturally the why and how, and I for one really want to know the answers.

I also thought the addition of the use of prison slavery- both as a 'cultural' thing (?) in some places and as the foundation for the ship- was a very interesting topic to add. It adds a lot of tension to the relationships, and the discussions about the differences between active participants and bystanders (and how much it matters) were very interesting to read, especially with the addition of the later crew.

I'm going to have to delay starting the second book even once I get home, because God knows I will throw my entire life away again to read it and I cannot afford that (until the end of January, anyway), but I'm positively vibrating to know what's going on- both with the murder, and with the Antartica Conspiracy, and with why Aspen was allowed aboard at all, because I don't think it's as simple as a poor review process... but hey, this isn't the place for my theories. It's the place to say, again, that I 100% recommend this book, and I'm thrilled that I trusted my instincts in asking for it.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars; close-to-realism sci-fi setting, new and bizarrely familiar cultures, AND a twisting mystery on a Totally Normal Spaceship set to colonize a new world? Be still my heart!

This story also properly addresses that, yes, a space colony ship would in fact be just as fraught as any other part of human civilization, if not more so.

[Ned Lauber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know where this one ends and the Antarctica Conspiracy starts, but the perfectly normal spaceship contained a great little story, like Andy Weir in terms of things breaking in space, with enjoyable characters and a great sociological perspective on future society and space conflict.

[Alexis Fresh · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up because the one tiny issue I do have with this story is only an issue in the form that I read it and it doesn't feel worth bringing the average rating down over. That said, there is a certain repetition endemic to serialised fiction, and this is no exception. Now it's usually done really effectively but there are a few exceedingly brief instances about a quarter of the way through that make it pretty obvious that, yes, this was published in parts on a schedule, so it's been written in a way to remind people of things that happened several chapters ago, with the assumption that you might not have read that chapter in a few weeks. It has a different impact when you're reading it all compiled together.
Now with that weirdly long digression about the single miniscule problem this story has out of the way, holy shit this rules. It came highly recommended to me by two very dear friends of mine and oh my god I am going to have to get regular recommendations from them, thank you Mark and Rachel.
This is a story with several elements, being at different times, and sometimes all at once, a psychological horror, a sci-fi adventure, a workplace drama, an amateur detective mystery story, and a stunningly intelligent comedy. There is so much to grab onto in here. The worldbuilding is some of the best I've ever seen, with Derin Edala making none of the assumptions usually rife in high concept sci-fi (to steal an observation from my friend Rachel, Star Trek seems to assume that current human social values are mostly already correct and will never change, and most of what will change is the material situation in which we find ourselves), and being completely willing to ask questions about what we take for granted right now and how that might change. Taboos around nudity, ritual cannibalism, and family and relationship structures are just some of the many things called into question in this story, from the perspective of someone who doesn't share any of these hangups.
The dialogue is fantastic and fluid and strikes that perfect balance between realistic and heightened to make you always want to keep reading, even though you've been home for hours and you told yourself you'd only read your ereader when you were out because the entire reason you got it was so you could read on the go without carrying heavy books around all the time! It can be emotional when it wants to be, as well as completely hilarious, and it can switch on a dime while never feeling out of place.
And on a smaller note, I really like the way it addresses and plays with gender! This story envisions a world with three main gender presentations and no one questions that, and there are several characters whose genders don't seem (or at least aren't specified) to fit into any of those, and that is never considered weird or difficult to understand. In fact, the idea that people in our current time largely seem to only recognise two genders is what is called out as being strange. As a trans woman, fuck yeah. And seeing neopronouns used so casually and embraced so deeply makes me feel significantly more comfortable with my pre-existing plans to add neopronouns in my own book.
TL;DR: this book is so fucking good you'd be doing yourself a HUGE favour if you read it, and it's entirely free on the author's website. Check it out!

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! This was a really fascinating look at a sci-fi setting where it felt like people were still people. And I really enjoyed that a sociologist was our MC because that never happens and it offered a unique view of this sort of story. I also really liked the world-building. It was incredibly natural, and I liked that we learned lots of things on the edges or in drips because of how Aspen considers things. Like Aspen noting that, since they're waking up Texans, they're going to have to be more careful to wear clothing because Texans are considered unusually modest. A lovely detail that tells us a lot about other cultures.

And the references to current and historical culture is really interesting, and super well-integrated as well as details, like about 'normal' nails versus 'weird' Martian nails, or the nameless nation. I really liked how Aspen's paranoia to their new crew was paralleled by learning more about the previous captain, and it had a good resolution.

Possibly because of the format (I read it on the author's blog), it did however feel at times weirdly episodic and like every chapter (or entry) ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. And while I felt like Aspen was indeed close to their crew, I couldn't really say why, and it felt like the interpersonal relationships were underdeveloped.

[Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has some reasonable world building and some intriguing plot point. Characterization is also reasonably good, with conflicting believable multifaceted attributes. However there was a lot I didn't like too. The characters act very stupidly in classic ways that make sense from the perspective of writing a book but not of living in the universe, for example they are profoundly uncurious about investigating their environment, its extremely aggravating just how little information our protagonists look for, like the protagonist asks the computer for the current plot-relevant information and nothing else, even though they really really would benefit from knowing much more! They also just have terrible reasoning about the evidence they do have (this is kind of just my preferences as a reader, its fine to have characters behave like this but it is very painful for me to read!). There is also a lot of slogging and bad pacing, and the book relies heavily on cliffhangers between each individual post to keep the reader engaged, it works to some extent but really gets old by the 100th time.

I did not finish the book, I got to chapter 120, other reviews reliably indicate that it only gets worse from there and I already wasn't enjoying it.

I might recommend the first 50 ish chapters for reasonable dramatic scifi mystery.

[Brianna M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Could not put it down. It's a lengthy book and I yet just zipped through it.

All of the characters were just the right amount of likable, including the ones you're meant to hate.

I'm not a scientist, so I cannot say how accurate the science was. What I can say was that it was thoroughly explained, that the characters frequently ran into problems that seemed like a logical consequence of the science they lived in. Putting people into enforced comas for long ship journeys results in complications. Even when these complications don't arise, time is taken to justify why they were lucky, why it was sensible to assume X would not happen.

It was thoroughly explained, and that made it feel realistic.

The worldbuilding also felt lived in. Characters knew about other nations' cultures without the lore being dumped on the audience. Topics got brought up as they were relevant, or were foreshadowed in a way that felt entirely natural.

I very much enjoyed this book.

[The_jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Project Hail Mary but worse in about every way. Same core theme of "man unexpectedly awakens alone on ship". But instead of cool engineering puzzles and exciting sci-fi discoveries, it's mysteries drawn out over the course of the entire book. It's an effective method of keeping the reader engaged, but the payoff for that engagement is reasonable, unexciting explanations. Ends on a cliffhanger that I have no desire to read the sequel for. Suffers heavily from every character having the same voice.

[Elizabeth Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I don't give this 5 stars is because I want to know more about the characters, and I suspect that is what awaits me in the next book.

I loved the universe that Derin built for us. A world that evolves in such interesting ways, while simultaneously staying the same in other ways.

I found myself not wanting to put the book down and lost in the universe after I did. The mystery built in this first book is thrilling and an adventure I can't wait to continue in the next book.

Highly recommend.

[W. R. Monga · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was pretty difficult to follow because it was such an info dump on scientific information but the world building was deeply deeply beautiful and vast and I has very shocked at the ending. Downloaded the second part immediately when I got off the plane and was stupefied when I got to the end so quickly!

[Una · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spraigs, saistošs zinātniskās fantastikas trilleris ar šausmu un detektīvstāsta elementiem. Ļoti patika Reliģiskās draugu biedrības iedvesmotais ārsta tēls bez dzimtes, bez ego un bez noteiktām smadzeņu daļām, kas traucētu būt par draugu visai pasaulei, kā arī paralēles ar Austrālijas un Jaunzēlandes vēstures notikumiem.

[Sara Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this series down. There's something in this book that makes it so addicting to people with ADHD, lol. Everyone should read about the Totally Normal spaceship where only very Normal things happen. The characters and their relationships/development was my absolute favorite part of this series.

[Ro Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series haunted me for one intense night of binge-reading and many months after, getting biweekly chapter updates. Such a fascinating, engaging narrative, and one of my favorite sci-fi works in general.

[Lakmus]

DNF ~50%

Very cool setup, cool writing, but needs a good edit to properly convert it from web-serial and the repetition that's necessary there, to a novel. Somehow the repetition is making it harder to follow when reading through the story faster.

[River · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a few months ago, but am still thinking about it all the time. The characters! The worldbuilding.

God the worldbuilding is incredible.

And the emotional roller coaster, of course. Damn.

[Liz Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly I'm so glad I stumbled upon the author's blog and decided to read this perfectly normal sci-fi story about a perfectly normal spaceship where everything is going totally fine. If you hadn't yet check their other ongoing stories!

[R. K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you see the page count, assume it'll take awhile, and then blow through in two days because you just have to see what happens. A wonderful blend of old sci-fi tropes and modern reinterpretation, delightfully witty narration and fascinating world building.