XD05

by David W. Sherwood

Mankind's role in the universe has changed. Created light years away, the immense ship, XD05, is to return to earth for colonization. Staffed with a skeleton crew and passengers who are hitching a ride back to the Solar System, they find themselves adrift when a malfunction renders their engines useless. With no one on board skilled enough to fix the problem, they come to the realization that they will never be found, forever lost. The youngest passenger is ten-year-old Sally Weiss. She must grow into her adulthood forever knowing her fate is to end up alone.

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 14, 2018

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touching story of a life well lived

I found myself enjoying the juxtaposition of the two timelines and the story. And while the ending tied things up nicely, it also left some things unexplained. It is nice to wonder at the mysteries.

[Will Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a good story and immerses you nicely in the concept. The writing can be a bit muddled as it jumps around with some things over explained whilst others are not detailed or totally forgotten about. Definitely worth reading as it has its bittersweet moments and fulfilling world.

[Karl Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Great story, interesting with the social, science, and science fiction.
I especially appreciated the way the author handled the space time relationships.

[Julie Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay

This book is okay to read. If you like science fiction and enjoy well refined charters than this book is for you.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good read but after the emotional ending I was left with questions.

Who reprogrammed the computer?
Who was Mr White and what happened to him?
Who triggered the recorder so long after Sallys last visit?
What was the significance of the locked villa?

Anyone help?

[Hrh George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite a three star rating, I don't regret reading this book. I've been fascinated by the idea of Oneill cylinders as space habitats since I was a young child. That location being the highlight of the book and necessary for the plot made this a quick grab for me. This book does a good job of creating a unique 4D FTL mechanism and has a good story with unique characters. The majority of characters are not deep, but they function as well as they should considering the narrative style.

The story is fairly good, once you get past that this is an amateur author. Just charge ahead and enjoy the story for what it is, rather than it's faults. The faults are glaring
*an egalitarian society but heavy on engineering and military characters, who are exclusively men unless there is a plot reason to make them a woman.
*descriptions of things that contradict each other later. FTL travel has resulted in exploration that has only uncovered mundane and undeveloped systems, but a few paragraphs later, exploration has revealed many wonderous discoveries in space. Ugh.
*some descriptions of technologies which are hundreds of years in our future, are less developed than we have now.
*no screens, no cell phones, at some point a character comes across the future equivalent of an mp3 player like they'd never seen something like that ever.
*the existence or non-existence of any items you'd expect to fix a problem is present based on whether the author wants it in the plot, or not. The in-universe explanation for this can't cover up the constant inconsistency.
*the 4D FTL concept moves through time as well as space, but in a forced way to avoid causality issues. The ending destroys the time travel restriction, and by extension, creates a method of time travel that would destroy the story (and all of history, but let's just leave it there).

The unique concepts and characters make for a good read for a reader into experimental sci-fi, but the writing can be hard to get through by a critical reader.