Captain Lydia Zarro and her crew spend most of their days living on and operating the Demeter. But when they land on a backwater planet to make a cargo delivery, they find their knowledge and experience tested by the Demeter's unusual science--and by an unexpected event.
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About the author--from the author: I have an academic background in engineering and science, and a degree in space science in part. For years I worked as a scientific copy editor for a nonfiction publishing house, but now I spend my days--and too many late nights--trying to solve fictional "what if" problems. I've been writing for over 22 years.
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Notes about "Backflow": This hard sci-fi novella contains some swearing. I like to call this story "engineering fiction." It is part of my Diamond Universe, but "Backflow" is a stand-alone story of around 23,900 words. The following three books are also part of my Diamond Universe:
1) "Diamond On Your Radar"
2) "A Nickel For Your Cosmic Thoughts (because life has become more expensive)"--which is now inside "The Light In That Night" on Amazon
Four PERILOUS Stars. “Backflow” is Book One of a series of Sci-Fi short stories by talented author F. P. Adriani who has also published “Captain's Choice”. This tale is related to the space freighter ‘Demeter” and the crew under the command of Captain Lydia Zarro. The plot is about an unusual occurrence the “Demeter” crew experiences on the planet Genteran. Written from the female point of view of Captain Zarro, this is a very technical “engineering" discourse, as author Adriani relates in his foreword, with respect to the operation of her ship and the construct of that universe. The reader may benefit by glossing over the physics and technical talk to get to the meat of the tension-filled story, a thorny problem, the ingenuity displayed, and the interaction of the crew members. Very Definitely Recommended. Four DETERMINED Stars. Kindle, 69 pages.
Good story, good plot and just long enough but too clicheish; otherwise, I would have given it a perfect score, had it not been so full of this century typical human nuisance but anyway 4 stars for good effort.
Very odd this crew, and the comedy of this short trip to the planet were they lost the ship's core to maybe a ghost or new species. Nice short story, let's see what the next book does.