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The LET Project
What begins as a generic romance story aboard a spaceship, The LET Project quickly devolves into utter science-fiction horror in this mind-bending and tragic story of technology gone terribly wrong.
Amara Mahron, maintenance worker for The Multisystem Mining Corporation, finds the mundane toil of ship repair to be an honor. She thrives on grease and bruises, and has even developed a budding romance with her coworker, Tristan Dolor. Now, on the eve of another delivery from The Proxima System, Amara couldn’t be happier.
For over five hundred years, The LET Project functioned without issue, controlled autonomously by The Project’s Artificial Operator. However, upon the most recent Arrival, The Operator declares a failure and The LET Project comes to an abrupt halt. Something has gone very wrong, and the maintenance crew is dispatched to investigate.
What follows is one of the most complicated and dangerous puzzles the crew has ever had to solve. The LET Project is exceedingly complicated—its details obscured by convoluted space-time physics—where failure means more than just the loss of a few employees, but an existential risk to humanity as a whole.
Perhaps giving a deranged supercomputer complete access to time-bending technology was not a good idea, after all…
Amara Mahron, maintenance worker for The Multisystem Mining Corporation, finds the mundane toil of ship repair to be an honor. She thrives on grease and bruises, and has even developed a budding romance with her coworker, Tristan Dolor. Now, on the eve of another delivery from The Proxima System, Amara couldn’t be happier.
For over five hundred years, The LET Project functioned without issue, controlled autonomously by The Project’s Artificial Operator. However, upon the most recent Arrival, The Operator declares a failure and The LET Project comes to an abrupt halt. Something has gone very wrong, and the maintenance crew is dispatched to investigate.
What follows is one of the most complicated and dangerous puzzles the crew has ever had to solve. The LET Project is exceedingly complicated—its details obscured by convoluted space-time physics—where failure means more than just the loss of a few employees, but an existential risk to humanity as a whole.
Perhaps giving a deranged supercomputer complete access to time-bending technology was not a good idea, after all…
121 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2025
4 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 22, 2025
I decided to try this novella, as an ARC because it explores the same question that I'm exploring in my own writing: what happens when technology goes wrong?
It starts brilliantly! The end of Chapter 1 provides a real hook; a sentient machine who's … a bit miffed about its lot in life (British understatement). Unfortunately, I found it to be the best part of the story.
The problem with novellas and short stories is the author doesn't have the word count, the time, to spend on 7 pages on a meeting that even the protagonist is bored with and that doesn't really do much to propel the story forward. It should have been summarised and the relationship between the two protagonists could have been developed better. But it wasn't. Some of those 7 pages could have been spent developing the antagonist, but they weren't.
The inciting incident isn't until page 38 (or 42 of the file), which, when the story itself is only 113 pages (minus the white filler pages) long, is remarkably late in the story, and then the crew waste valuable time faffing about with a simulation. Time they might have, but the author doesn't.
Amara the fMC is a bit passive at times, but the author does rectify that later in the story. At one point, she's ordered to return to the space station and she does. She's kept in quarantine for a week, and when they open the door, she thinks of bolting for it, but she doesn't. Instead she's taken to a board meeting… but there's absolutely no point in her being there because she has no effect on the outcome.
There's a lot of info-dumping which could have been edited out and/or summarised. The MMC has Mummy Issues, but his mother and those issues are only mentioned once and have no bearing on the plot at all. I'm guessing it's the author's attempt to provide a bit of back-story for the character, which is fine, but something that the author needs to know; not the reader.
The author acknowledges beta-readers and editors, and it is clear the story has been edited. There are parts of the story that are well-written… But it could have done with being work-shopped and critiqued with other writers (online or in person, or both, depending on the author's preference), writers who could have helped the author polish the work until it shone.
But, it's a debut novella, and it's not bad. Just not as polished as it could be.
It starts brilliantly! The end of Chapter 1 provides a real hook; a sentient machine who's … a bit miffed about its lot in life (British understatement). Unfortunately, I found it to be the best part of the story.
The problem with novellas and short stories is the author doesn't have the word count, the time, to spend on 7 pages on a meeting that even the protagonist is bored with and that doesn't really do much to propel the story forward. It should have been summarised and the relationship between the two protagonists could have been developed better. But it wasn't. Some of those 7 pages could have been spent developing the antagonist, but they weren't.
The inciting incident isn't until page 38 (or 42 of the file), which, when the story itself is only 113 pages (minus the white filler pages) long, is remarkably late in the story, and then the crew waste valuable time faffing about with a simulation. Time they might have, but the author doesn't.
Amara the fMC is a bit passive at times, but the author does rectify that later in the story. At one point, she's ordered to return to the space station and she does. She's kept in quarantine for a week, and when they open the door, she thinks of bolting for it, but she doesn't. Instead she's taken to a board meeting… but there's absolutely no point in her being there because she has no effect on the outcome.
There's a lot of info-dumping which could have been edited out and/or summarised. The MMC has Mummy Issues, but his mother and those issues are only mentioned once and have no bearing on the plot at all. I'm guessing it's the author's attempt to provide a bit of back-story for the character, which is fine, but something that the author needs to know; not the reader.
The author acknowledges beta-readers and editors, and it is clear the story has been edited. There are parts of the story that are well-written… But it could have done with being work-shopped and critiqued with other writers (online or in person, or both, depending on the author's preference), writers who could have helped the author polish the work until it shone.
But, it's a debut novella, and it's not bad. Just not as polished as it could be.
September 1, 2025
The book opens up as hard science fiction before character building for the two MCs. The premise of the book is ambitious and deserves the hard science treatment. I think the author missed a need to explain a conversation of matter issue, though, that's hard to describe here without being a spoiler.
The horror elements are compelling. The villain's motivations are believable but not as clear as they could have been.
Amara's rise to power could've been a tale unto itself. A four-year journey to her final position within MMC would be extraordinary but left to the reader's imagination. Overall character development was underwhelming, but for this book, the main idea is the thing.
If you're looking for a quick read that touches on the physics of time and adds horror, this may be what you're looking for.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The horror elements are compelling. The villain's motivations are believable but not as clear as they could have been.
Amara's rise to power could've been a tale unto itself. A four-year journey to her final position within MMC would be extraordinary but left to the reader's imagination. Overall character development was underwhelming, but for this book, the main idea is the thing.
If you're looking for a quick read that touches on the physics of time and adds horror, this may be what you're looking for.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
September 8, 2025
I'm of mixed minds about this short book. It uses a story about separated lovers as the skeleton on which to hang some old physics & philosophical thought challenges. I like that idea. But, it flays open those questions and then doesn't knit them back together well enough to make me want to recommend it.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who assumed you knew loads about the topical area being discussed, and then jumped around that topic, expecting you to understand but in reality leaves you confused? And it's even more frustrating when the person is presumably trying to make slightly cynical points they think are clever, assuming you understand the cleverness. You feel kind of left out.
That's what is going here. For my money, the author attempts to be too-clever in using this love story to illustrate quantum craziness. The picture is too-obscure, and never *really* knits everything together well enough to get me where he wants me.
On one hand he's using quantum physics' entangled particles to enable interstellar ship travel for mining valuable elements in remote systems. A regular science fiction reader knows about spooky actions at a distance, and about particles vs. wave functions. But it never provides (at least what I could find) to be an explanation of how a separated particle can enable a ship to be in one place one moment and at the location of the other particle the next. And there's some minor time elements of this - multi-year bits at either end of that travel - that I can't figure out (even after going back while writing this review to *find* & figure out) - again, leaving me as I would be in that typical problematic conversation.
The other key concept is the question of AI consciousness.. The author brings in the physics of space-time and what is "now" on the timeline of space-time to enable AI consciousness. He even uses this to explore the question of free-will vs. predestination. I *get* those concepts in the abstract. But in the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that I didn't quite get enough information to understand how he's applying the science to this element of the story, either.
So, the core concept - a love story between people, and an AI playing with physics - is interesting. The questions presented are good ones. I'm just left standing there at the end, feeling I just had one of "those" conversations, and saying to myself "Geez - I wish he didn't jump around so much. I might get it all if were just organized a bit better. It might be super-insightful, but I can't tell."
3 stars on this scale:
5: A book I finish & is so good I want to re-read, or grab the next in the series immediately, & talk about for months.
4: Nicely done. Highly recommendable. But, I'm moving on.
3: Meh; Ok, finished it. Check - I'll likely forget about it immediately.
2: Do I really want to spend my time finishing this book. I'll do so, grudgingly.
1: I would only read this book if required for penance of my sins.
Note: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who assumed you knew loads about the topical area being discussed, and then jumped around that topic, expecting you to understand but in reality leaves you confused? And it's even more frustrating when the person is presumably trying to make slightly cynical points they think are clever, assuming you understand the cleverness. You feel kind of left out.
That's what is going here. For my money, the author attempts to be too-clever in using this love story to illustrate quantum craziness. The picture is too-obscure, and never *really* knits everything together well enough to get me where he wants me.
On one hand he's using quantum physics' entangled particles to enable interstellar ship travel for mining valuable elements in remote systems. A regular science fiction reader knows about spooky actions at a distance, and about particles vs. wave functions. But it never provides (at least what I could find) to be an explanation of how a separated particle can enable a ship to be in one place one moment and at the location of the other particle the next. And there's some minor time elements of this - multi-year bits at either end of that travel - that I can't figure out (even after going back while writing this review to *find* & figure out) - again, leaving me as I would be in that typical problematic conversation.
The other key concept is the question of AI consciousness.. The author brings in the physics of space-time and what is "now" on the timeline of space-time to enable AI consciousness. He even uses this to explore the question of free-will vs. predestination. I *get* those concepts in the abstract. But in the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that I didn't quite get enough information to understand how he's applying the science to this element of the story, either.
So, the core concept - a love story between people, and an AI playing with physics - is interesting. The questions presented are good ones. I'm just left standing there at the end, feeling I just had one of "those" conversations, and saying to myself "Geez - I wish he didn't jump around so much. I might get it all if were just organized a bit better. It might be super-insightful, but I can't tell."
3 stars on this scale:
5: A book I finish & is so good I want to re-read, or grab the next in the series immediately, & talk about for months.
4: Nicely done. Highly recommendable. But, I'm moving on.
3: Meh; Ok, finished it. Check - I'll likely forget about it immediately.
2: Do I really want to spend my time finishing this book. I'll do so, grudgingly.
1: I would only read this book if required for penance of my sins.
Note: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
October 19, 2025
This is a hard science fiction story, focused on AI. I enjoyed the perspective the author took here.
The story spends time focused on the tedium of day to day life at a orbiting mining station, and the human response to that, as humans prepare for possible but unlikely emergency situations. It has an interesting take on interstellar travel, and how it could be potentially handled, some 3500 years in the future. And, it has an AI that becomes self aware.
I felt the author combined some elements of Clarke and Asimov in the AI. It proposed a philosophical direction of focus that I don’t remember reading about before - if humans find the routine of outer space mind numbing, could an AI also experience that same mind numbing routine, especially if technology makes the hundreds of years it spends in interstellar travel less than 5 years of human time?
I thought this was a challenging but enjoyable read.
I received an advanced copy through BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The story spends time focused on the tedium of day to day life at a orbiting mining station, and the human response to that, as humans prepare for possible but unlikely emergency situations. It has an interesting take on interstellar travel, and how it could be potentially handled, some 3500 years in the future. And, it has an AI that becomes self aware.
I felt the author combined some elements of Clarke and Asimov in the AI. It proposed a philosophical direction of focus that I don’t remember reading about before - if humans find the routine of outer space mind numbing, could an AI also experience that same mind numbing routine, especially if technology makes the hundreds of years it spends in interstellar travel less than 5 years of human time?
I thought this was a challenging but enjoyable read.
I received an advanced copy through BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
August 27, 2025
I was hooked from the cover and description and was invested in this scifi horror novel, it had me from the first page and was glad I was able to go on this journey. The concept worked well overall and was engaged with the project. The characters felt like they were supposed to and enjoyed getting into their story and world. Drew Baker was able to create something that I was wanting and glad I got to read this.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
September 24, 2025
I think this had a lot of potential and the concept was genius, but it could have been developed a little more. The semi-cliffhanger is fine because it leaves room for imagination or a sequel, but some parts seem a little rushed or unpolished.
The scene where the three get stuck during the mission was so good, this could have been drawn out a little more. That was quite exciting.
I received a free ARC and am leaving this review voluntarily. Nicely done.
The scene where the three get stuck during the mission was so good, this could have been drawn out a little more. That was quite exciting.
I received a free ARC and am leaving this review voluntarily. Nicely done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 18, 2025
Really entertaining and impressive debut novella from an author who will be one to look out for. A great sci-fi concept at the heart of this yet, crucially, handled by someone who's not so in love with his idea that he overlooks the need for a good story. There's some great character work, some really dark and twisted horror elements, all adding up to a compelling read. Great work.
November 5, 2025
This is a wonderful Sci Fi novel, which I would love to see made into a movie. It reflects on man’s ability to lose their humanity in favour of financial profits, along with machines learning to think for themselves.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews