Venture: Scifi Journey Across the Solar System and Beyond

by Kate Rauner

A Life Support Specialist's escape from Earth sends him on a deadly journey. Harry Gordon joins an international crew ferrying their commercial space station to a weird anomaly in Mars' orbit. Here our sun touches another star, a lost portal that may be humanity's only route beyond the solar system.Harry joined the mission to escape loneliness on Earth and to indulge his obsession for farming in space. He finds relationships grow like gardens - not always as expected. Tensions flare among the crew, threatening their mission. Along their journey, they mine a dangerous comet and visit the small colony on Mars. Now a gardener must act to save their mission and their lives.If you enjoy stories combining adventure with life aboard a space station, click now and start reading.

339 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 19, 2014

About the author

Kate Rauner is a retired Cold War Warrior. She worked for over twenty years at the Rocky Flats Plant, once part of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. She helped decommission the site, which is now a National Wildlife Refuge.

Kate moved to southwest New Mexico and worked at the copper mines around Silver City, including the historic Santa Rita mine. Santa Rita has been mined since Native Americans collected copper there before the Spaniards entered Mexico.

Today she lives outside Silver City on the edge of the Gila National Forest with her husband and cat. She enjoys hiking and bird-watching, and, as a volunteer firefighter, has fought wildland and home fires. "I'm well on my way to my life's goal," Kate says. "To become an eccentric old woman."

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Venture is the sequel to the first book by Kate Rauner, Glitch, that we are given a snippet of in the book's prologue. I have not read Glitch, but for me, Venture worked very well as a stand alone novel. Hand on heart, I read very little science fiction, so I was a little nervous about reading Venture, not knowing if I would enjoy the story, or indeed understand it. But I did. I think that this was down to the author fully explaining the intricacies of Space travel and the mechanics of working is Space, of which I have absolutely no knowledge. What the author managed to do was to make the storyline very easy to follow, in that I knew why certain procedures needed to be done and what the 'living in Space' experience was like as a human far, far away from home.

Although this is a science fiction novel, for me the novel was based very firmly upon human relationships and emotions. One character in particular, Harry, really fascinated me and I found that I eagerly followed his story. He had been sent on the mission as the Life Support Specialist, meaning that his job was to attend to the gardens onboard, in order to maintain the crew's air and water supplies. So a vital job. We learn that back at home, Harry was a keen gardener, and that one of his reasons for taking part in the mission was to gain friends and to escape his lonely life back on Earth. I loved this character, who for me was plainly on the autistic spectrum. As a mother of a young son with autism, I could clearly read between he lines about tins highly intelligent and perceptive young man, who simply had problems reading faces and communicating with others. I followed him closely, waning the absolute best for him.

I cannot review the actual storyline without giving the plot away, but all I will say is that this book is fast paced with many twists and unexpected happenings. It is also an incredibly easy read because of the simplistic terminology that is used. As a reader, you fully understand the scientific processes and orders that are given, but are not overwhelmed with scientific jargon. This fine balancing act has been mastered beautifully.

For me, the real heart of this science fiction novel, is that of working as a team. We learn the importance of friendships, the boundaries of our understanding and ultimately the lesson of humility. Venture is a fantastic read, even if you are not a science fiction fan.