Dislocations

Kon-Tiki Quartet #1

by Eric Brown, Keith Brooke, Ben Baldwin (Illustrator)

SYNOPSIS Project Kon-tiki, the world s first extra-solar colony expedition, is just weeks away from departure, and tension is mounting at Lakenheath Base. Psychologist Kat Manning is one of the eighteen specialist whose clone will be sent to the stars, and her job is to work with the original specialists, the left behind , to monitor and support them through their dislocation . . . But when Kat is kidnapped by the Allianz, a faction opposed to the colonisation program, more than just her safety is at stake. The entire mission is in jeopardy. In Dislocations, the first volume of the Kon-tiki Quartet, Brown and Brooke tell the story of humankind s last-gasp efforts to reach the stars, set against the backdrop of an Earth torn apart by looming environmental disaster.

Genres: Science Fiction

104 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2018

About the author

Eric Brown was a British science fiction author and Guardian critic.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

With Eric Brown’s new book “Dislocations” he has really let me down. Mr. Brown has always been an author I could go to for entertainment and good adventure on the ‘thinking’ side of reading. It saddens me to have read this latest offering from him. The book reads like BAD soap opera and typical high school angst.

What the story was touted to be about is in the near future, cloning of humans has been accomplished, the world is an extrapolation of today’s failing environment, increased pollution, and the scarcity of ‘real’’ food. The world’s greatest scientists have been brought together to send a spaceship ‘manned’ by clones to find a new home for humanity.

The starship Kon-tiki would travel at sub-light speed for a hundred years prior to arriving at it’s destination, the earth norm world of Newhaven, 19 Draconis II. By then the clones were to be aroused from cold sleep in orbit around the new world, The humans that created the project and had their memories implanted into the clones, would be long dead.

What we get in the story is endless banter by high level scientists discussing which of the project leaders was the “hottest” and did they have a chance to ‘score’ with them in the immediate future. There is also discussion on the virtues of driverless cars and the gratification of being able to drink while traveling.

And of course there are the shadowy antagonists here called the ‘Allianz’ who’s plans are to subvert the mission. This group is ill-defined and its members cardboard cutouts of real people.

The book was a total failure and a waste of time. It truly saddens me that Mr. Brown and Mr. Brooke (the co-author) created such a shoddy work. This is the first volume of a reported series of four.


This special numbered hardcover edition is copy 41 of 100 produced, and is signed by both authors Eric Brown and Keith Brooke.

The cover art is by Ben Baldwin.

[Les · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmm, not quite sure how I feel about this one. On one hand it’s got the promise of adventure in space and faraway planets (which is typical Eric Brown) and on the other we’ve got a rather lame and juvenile feeling boy-girl infused “mystery” story surrounding the mission to colonise another planet. This is just the first of four novella length stories so hopefully things will make a definite turn for the better in the next one.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kon-Tiki is an interstellar colony ship weeks from lift-off with its cargo of cloned humans, soon to be imprinted with their originals’ personalities, originals whose expertise is held to be too valuable to send away from Earth themselves. Our two viewpoint characters Travis Denholme and Kat Manning are part of the crew readying the mission. In this eco-catastrophe-threatened world a group called the Allianz, vehemently opposed to this use of resources which it sees as a waste, pickets the base’s entrance while its foreign associates perpetrate worse actions.

Denholme is attracted to Manning but her affections lean more towards his friend and fellow worker Daniel DeVries. In the eyes of the authorities a past relationship with Ute, now an Allianz activist, hovers over Denholme’s reliability.

Anyone familiar with the work of co-author Brown will recognise aspects of this. There is a certain style to it which bears his stamp. This is not to deny fellow writer Brooke’s input. I could not say for sure which parts were written by Brown and which by Brooke as it reads seamlessly. It is possible they undertook alternate chapters.

After the onset of the imprinting Manning is kidnapped, seemingly by the Allianz. Denholme is questioned about his association with Ute but his lack of involvement is accepted grudgingly. He and DeVries are instrumental in discovering her whereabouts and also what is the real threat to the mission.

The immediate story is satisfactorily resolved within the book's 100 pages leaving us to wonder what is to come in the succeeding volumes of this quartet.

[Lee Pfahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good novella by the late Eric Brown and his close friend Keith Brooke, the first in the Kon-Tiki Quartet. Humanity is going to the stars to begin colonizing a world but there are people who are against that venture, both outside and inside the powers leading the mission. Who will succeed?