Riddled Space

Riddled Space #1

by Bill Patterson

The gruesome death of the Moonbase Collins' chief sets the professional UN Astronaut Corps against the United Nations Space Operations Command and its oily Director General when he attempts to sell . It's not quite a mutiny, but the corrupt head of UNSOC is determined to crush any sense of independent action by the willful astronauts, especially the new commander of the UN Space Station Roger B. Chaffee, Lisa Daniels. All of the workers 'upstairs', in orbit and on the Moon, are under the gun--the work is hard, dangerous, and unrelenting. The morale budget is cut to the bone, the only luxuries are the ones that the shuttle pilots can smuggle up, the vendors using the manufacturing space are being squeezed for bribes at every turn.

Then a massive explosion rocks the South Polar region of the Moon, spewing radiation and a huge volume of rock into cis-lunar space. Fifteen minutes after the blast, Moonbase Collins falls silent.

Lisa Daniels and her crew are in incredible danger. Not only have they absorbed radiation equivalent to ten-thousand X-rays, they may be in path of the debris plume blasted off of the Moon. The Director-General, faced with losing the source of his bribe money, has forbidden evacuation of the Chaffee. Besides, he has spent his twenty years of rule squeezing the maximum amount of cash from the Chaffee. Non-essentials, like lifeboats, were never funded.

Lisa has a plan to get everyone to Earth, but to put it in action, she will have to sacrifice everything she has worked so hard for all of her life, as well as drag in everyone else on the ground into her mutiny. The real question is: dare she do it?

Genres: Science Fiction

236 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 28, 2017

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the author. I had the opportunity to review or not.

Riddled Space is a fascinating tale of the workings behind a UN Space Station and the cast of astronauts in the UN Astronaut Corps. With a Moon based manufacturing operation and an orbiting station the Astronaut are stretched thin with orders to produce, produce, produce. Not your expectation of space exploration!!

But Bill Patterson built a thrilling and frightening tale around the premise of corruption at very high levels of management. The greed of manager of the UN Space Operations Command causes extreme danger for both the orbiting station and the moon base and all who live and work there.

Mr Patterson’s characters are interesting and real. I love the dialogue between themselves and their earthbound bosses. His descriptions of the work the astronauts do was intriguing and gave an incredible view of the hardships they would encounter. Although I found some of his descriptive prose overlong, it was a truly fascinating read. I will be reading more of his books.

[Mandy Walkden-Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable first of series.

As much as I enjoy space opera and its pure escapist shenanigans, it's always refreshing to sink one's teeth into a well written, compelling hard science fiction story where the science and especially the physics, is actually correct.

I enjoyed the political machinations, the obstructive, recalcitrant bureaucrats and the astronauts' ability to think on the fly and outmanoeuvre them. There's some great characters, well developed, full of depth and very likeable and even the obnoxious individuals were enjoyable to loathe.

An intriguing, action and suspense filled story, the Riddled Space Universe is well worth investigating!

[Vesa Ylitolva · Rating 4 out of 5]

How are you supposed to write a hard scifi novel and put everything in it? You don't. Instead you plan ahead and create a series of novels that together make a plot alive. That's what Bill Patterson has done.

Riddled Space is a beginning of microgravity industry and the story continues in follow-up titles. Book is full of adventure, corrupt politics, heroic engineers, criminals and ordinary people. Some of the characters are quite exaggerated but it just brings life to the story. Riddled Space series excels in that you can read the books in any order.

As the novel begins the series it contains a bit too much details, thus I can give only 4 stars of 5.

[Nancy Phy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding story

I enjoyed this book so much. It kept me up until the end. I felt like the story should continue. If you like a great space fantasy I recommend you read this book

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book moved slowly. Detailed information on politics and people. Descriptive for some is appreciated and others prefer it be part of the action. The 2nd half of the book brought forth the action of staying alive, out-thinking the political heavies, and an exciting ride to the end.

Well-written, edited, and some interesting references to the space industry/science fiction worlds.

[William Jerkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

The story sad better than i thought it would be. I enjoyed the way the charictors se brought along into the people That they became. Very good writing..reading the next one.....

[Scott Groff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the type of sci-fi story I can't put down. It just amazed me that an author can write a story with lots of technical stuff that are readily understandable. The last 20% went by with me clenching my toes with the tension. Quite the tutorial on how to evacuate a space station in peril.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

great read!