Rare Earth

by Kurt Allan

A lost mining crew, 400 million miles from Earth. A retired miner journeys to find out why.

“There’s something out there…”

Waldo Packwood has had a rough time of things lately. He’s lost his job, his friends, and finally his family. At 50 years old, he’s living alone in a small apartment wondering what’s happened to his life. He’s unexpectedly asked to travel to Hector 1, a lone asteroid in the Jupiter Trojans, to investigate the missing crew. 

“That’s just it, Waldo,” sighed the director, “we don’t know what happened.”

His trip is a struggle from the beginning, as he discovers more about those around him and what they’re willing to do to keep Hector 1 to themselves.  Instead of answers, he’s cast into the fight of his life as he struggles to uncover the secrets and lies that have been built around this distant world.

Rare Earth is a gritty, science-fiction thriller and debut novel about an unconventional hero and second chances.

“It’s going to be that kind of story, so buckle up”

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

314 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 5, 2019

Reviews

[Trike · Rating 2 out of 5]

“All this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man”
— Rocketman, Elton John

Looking for a competent, problem-solving, can-do astronaut like Mark Watney in The Martian? Keep lookin’, ‘cause Waldo ain’t that guy. No idea why they let this knucklehead out of Minnesota, let alone on a billion dollar spaceship. The dude Mr. Magoos his way through one emergency after another, like Wile E. Coyote on Apollo 13.

And can we talk about the ridiculous number of sabotage events that occur in this book? Any one of them would’ve caused a shooting war between superpowers, but instead they end up cooperating in order to stop each other from destroying tens of billions of dollars of spaceships and cold-bloodedly murdering dozens of highly-trained astronauts.

Maybe that’s why Waldo is out there: all the good spacemen have been blown up, and all the smart people crunched the numbers and said, “Yeah, screw that noise. I’m going to hand-feed great white sharks instead. Much safer.”

It’s no surprise then that this doesn’t really have an ending. I mean, lots and lots and lots of people have been murdered and the GDP of a medium-sized country has been wasted because... well, that would be a spoiler, but holy shit at least James Bond movies at least *show* you what happens to the villain. Imagine if Goldfinger ends not with explosions and a justice-infused comeuppance but instead with a shot of the titular supervillain’s house for sale on Zillow. That’s pretty much what happens here. “Anticlimactic” is a bit of an understatement.

[Karl M Yuhas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurt Allan is the Jules Verne of asteroid mining

I'm an avid reader of several genres and don't bother writing reviews unless I'm really impressed. This book reminds me of how visionary Jules Verne was about submarines (and other things). If you want to see the future of asteroid prospecting - then this is a book you will love. Can't wait to read Kurt Allen's next book. My wish is that he will be as prolific a novelist as Verne.

[Roger Ball · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good short story. Lousy book.

This might have made a good short story but felt like the author was just doing everything he could to stretch it out to make a book. Found myself skimming whole pages to skip details that felt like fillers.

[john r. reeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnboy

On praise jesus,,, finally an author that can write a really GREAT book about outer space that is not aliens attacking earth. Thank God not a single dam alien in the entire book. There there was intrieqe devious sinister fractures evil plots, and plan even murder, also greed. All of the things that make up humankind. Very interesting characters that were as real as your friends and coworkers. Every page had a new, and interesting turn. If you ever worked hazardous jobs, you must read. Very realistic situations. Sorry for the long review, but a really good syfy story.

[Paul Swiech · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one turned out to be better than I expected. When I started it, I thought, "Oh great, yet another asteroid mining adventure...", but it turned out to be much more. I won't say more about that as I don't wan't to spoil anything.

I enjoyed the narrative style the author used when the protagonist explained the way things worked. It was like I have sitting in a bar having a beer with the guy.

I'd recommend it.

[Bob Heck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story line. Good characters. Way too many impromptu look backs and filler. In the likeness of, "There I was stuck on the tracks. No way out. The locomotive was less than half a mile away. 200 tons of steel and power, barreling toward me at 70 miles per hour, chewing at the tracks. Funny thing about tracks; the guage was not always uniform you know..." Could have been five stars with the story. But the look backs, action-killing filler, and a rather abrupt and weak ending soured it for me.

[David L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good old-fashioned hard sci-fi

I had almost given up on finding a good science fiction read when I stumbled on this. Very imaginative, but the details are what makes this work shine. Like the construction of space suit zippers. How asteroid mining works. That stuff. My only complaint is that the ending seems weak, but on further reflection, perhaps it is just the springboard into the sequel, for which I’ll be keeping an eye out.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story.

This is an OK read for you science fiction lovers. The story was interesting enough to keep me reading. However, Kurt, put in a lot of detailed description that I found tiresome and soon I was skipping paragraphs here and there. I would try another Kurt Allan book

[Jennifer H. Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tedious

This story is generally good but I skimmed over lots of it due to inconsequential details. I was 85% of the way through and I thought I’d been trapped into reading another book to get the rest of the story. Surprisingly, the pace picked up and everything worked out. The ending felt incomplete.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story but the writing can make for a slow read

At times, the level of detail is just too much. I found myself skipping pages to get to the point. Parts of the storyline were unexplained although you got the outcome. However, it is a good story. Fresh, creative.

[William Pegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good tech, however some of the asides are lengthy. 9

Good not great
Slow plot and character development. Reasonable development of female protagonists. The author created a good ending, however his ending left me mystified rather than curious.

[steve beck · Rating 2 out of 5]

So-so sci-fi novel

This story wasn't altogether bad, but it was clumsily written, with seriously bad English and punctuation errors. There were interesting and even gripping parts, but overall I felt that it was a waste of time to read it.

[Jas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is set in the future, in which we have moved into the solar system and begun to mine the asteroid belt. There has been a development in a lot of technology making it easier to launch things into space (mainly due to the development of 2 space elevators in geo-synchronous orbit tethered to the Earth).
The story mainly follows our (anti-hero?) Waldo Packwood, a 50yr old retired miner (due to disability), who is trying to recover his life, having lost his job, his wife, custody of his child, and basically everything. He is pretty well off due to his career and the disability payout (he lost most of the use of his left arm in an accident on a mining trip), but as a result, he lost his drive, and his wife left, and she won custody of their 14yr old Daughter.
Waldo was known as being one of the best miners in the business (in which you basically work in 2-3person crews, and using small craft, mine large asteroids for ‘rare earth’ materials for corporations, the miners making a percentage). The Rare Earth minerals are literally minerals that are almost impossible to find on Earth, but are in abundance in the Belt. Minders are in short supply due to the dangers, the isolation, and the duration of the mining trip.
Due to the mining boom, the Earth has basically broken into 3 major alliances now – the NA – North American Alliance, the CIA – The Chinese, Indian Alliance and the ERA – The Euro Russian Alliance. The NA and the CIA are pretty equal, but the constant infighting and old arguments keep the ERA at the back of the group, and of the technology.
Waldo is wallowing in his self-pity one day when he is contacted by his former employer to speak with the head of the NA, he has 1hr to get ready and meet her. Obviously he does.
After some discussion, and an NDA in which he is informed that if he breaks it, he will suffer basically a living hell, he finds out that (I am not going to give away spoilers here, so I will keep this limited), that there has been an incident, and, given his previous incredible skills, and his now lack of occupation and thus allegiance to anyone, he makes the perfect person to go and Investigate what has happened and report back to her.
I would like to point out, that as someone who is basically 50, with a severe disability, having recently divorced, and suffers from PTSD, Allan does what I can only describe as one of the most extraordinary, compelling and accurate jobs of writing his character for Waldo. The way he describes him, his daily activities, his thought processes, the struggles, his despair, it is all so totally believable, that at times, I had to stop and take a break from the book.
I am lucky in that I still have contact with both my girls, and I still have my job, but I felt so much affinity with Waldo, and so much compassion for him, I felt like asking Allan for Waldo’s contact details so I could give him a call and have a talk with him, this is how realistic this character is, and just how utterly brilliant the character work is.
Waldo takes the job, expecting it to be difficult, but also not overly complicated, but as the story starts to unfold, this becomes a compelling, and thrilling story, one in which you will become totally engaged, and will not be able to put it down. It is masterfully written, the world building is just so clever, so creative, not only totally believable as Allan has gone to great lengths to make it believable, with good attention to detail.
This is a story that has elements of hard sci-fi (and Allan has made the effort to satisfy the reader, making this aspect of the story really engaging, fun to read, interesting and clever), there is a great mystery and thriller aspect to the story as well, that is gripping, and brilliant, and there is also a LOT of action, that will leave you in awe.
This is a story that has something for everyone, but best of all, it is just a really great story, that at its core, has some exceptional character work, that not only drives the story, but makes it an utter delight to read.
I have to admit, that I was a little unsure about this story when I picked it up, but I was absolutely thrilled with the outcome, and it is in my ‘re-read/re-listen’ pile as I am looking forward to listening to it again.

[D. Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second read is just as good.

I remembered the story, though not the order of some events, about three pages into the story. I even remembered who the "black hats" were, but who cares. This story is about the evolution of one person : Waldo Packwood. Just the name makes you want to read the story. His name is not John or Adrian or any of the typical hero names that appear in sci-fi books.
No. Waldo is a retired asteroid miner, bitter and self pitying because his retirement is the result of an accident that ruined one arm. His disability also ruined his marriage. The only bright spot left him was his 14 year old daughter with whom he communicated every day.
Into his depression filled life came an offer to act as an investigator of an accident on an asteroid in the Jupiter asteroid belt called Hectoe1. It's a lucrative offer and he had nothing else to do so why not. His life went from dull and predictable to events unpredictable and full of fear inducing events.
As Waldo struggles to survive with the one remaining miner, he learns the secret behind the "accidents" and finds a new sense of self and purpose.
There are several typographical errors in the book that make the careful reader pause and groan, but the story is so good that I overlooked the lack of literacy of the author and his editing crew. It's a good read and worth reading twice.

[Jak60 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rare Earth, for being a debut novel, is surprisingly good, even more so considering that it is a near future sci-fi book - normally more difficult to handle than far future stories.
The writing is quite solid, not showing any of the typical juvenile flaws of debut books; there’s some good science in it, plus it offers quite an original setting and world-building in support to its plot, with enough details to make it very plausible.
Actually, this is also the flip-side of the book, which at times looses itself in excruciatingly lengthy and detailed descriptions of some marginal actions; or in some personal reflections about life; or in various anecdotes about asteroids mining; or in extensive descriptions of technical aspects of spacecrafts and their accessories.....and so on. As a matter of fact, every event in the present time brings with it at least one, much longer anecdote about similar events of the past.
With some better editing (and I am not speaking of typos here but of some major work of skimming off lots of useless pages) the book would have been a real big thing.
Still, if you manage to bear with it, you’ll see that Rare Earth hides a few gems under a mound of dust...

[Curt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an entertaining and fast read. The plot was compelling and I could describe the book as a "page-turner". The bulk of the story is told in the first-person from Waldo's perspective but there are a few chapters where Allan uses a third person to describe situations that are outside of Waldo's perspective.

What was unconventional about the book is the long and detailed narrative about the characters' past and current situations and thinking, with less dialog than is normal. For example, some authors will provide character background through dialog with another character. But in this book, Allan provides (sometimes exhaustive) detail about the character, the situation, or the science. While it was interesting content, I did find myself skimming past some of the longer narratives in order to progress the story.

It was refreshing to see that Allan portrays the female characters as a smart and capable partner to the male lead. In fact, Aldo's ass would be grass had not been for Liu and Carmon.

The resolution to the crisis at the end of the book was somewhat abrupt and a little anticlimactic but it still worked. Overall I really enjoyed the book even with the minor quibbles.

[Angie Boyter]

I did not persist long enough to rate this book; I was too disappointed in the author's ability to envision a credible 2103 to want to get into the details of the main theme. A central requirement of good SF is the ability to envision a credible tomorrow. If I had not read the copyright date of 2019 I would have thought it was written in the 1960s or earlier. For example, the main character, a divorced man, says that "almost all recently divorced men, especially those over forty, are completely helpless" because their wives did everything and describes how lost he was when his wife went away overnight and he ordered pizza for himself and his daughter, which they ate off paper plates. He could not even cope with the dishwasher. This sounds like the 1950s; it sure ain't the world of 2022, and I certainly would not expect it in the year 2103. Similarly, everyone in that future uses devices called "portables", which sound like today's mobile phones, on which they get an excess of "emails". Given the direction of emails versus texts, etc., I would be very surprised if the "portables" of the future use "emails" as their main communication channel.
I am certainly glad that, thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I did not pay for this one.

[Charl · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. The story was original, and most of the characters were interesting, but I've got some technical issues:

Warning: major spoilers in here:

The Space Elevator makes the trip from ground to orbit (22,000 miles up) in 1 HOUR?! And passengers aren't flattened against the floor when it starts, or against the ceiling when it decelerates?

The surface gravity of Hector 1 is so low it's effectively 0G. So Waldo and Carmen can't just pull themselves along the surface like they do along the hull of ship? I find it hard to believe it'd be as difficult as Allan describes.

When Waldo and Carmen meet on the surface, his radio's out, so it's impossible for them to communicate? They can't just put their helmets together and shout? It's practically a cliche of Sci-Fi!



Other than that, it was actually fairly good, but those brought it down to two stars for me.

[Brendan Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't Wait to Get to Book Each Night

Enjoyed book thoroughly. The surprises kept me in suspense waiting in suspense for the next sudden turn of events. The science fiction aspect intrigued me from the concept of the space elevator, to mining the asteroids far beyond the kyber belt, and to nuclear power used to achieve vast speeds to travel immense distances.

The character development was excellent especially with the main protagonist, Waldo, though I found his frequent musings back to his daughter distracting and unhelpful to the plot development.

Was also disappointed at the end to what seemed to me unresolved justice issues for the Director and Dale. But, by and large would recommend for good escape science fiction reading .

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intense, yet Slow to Start

While listed as sci-fi, this story is primarily concerned with the human experience and emotional connections. The science tech mostly serves as a backdrop to an intense psychological drama.

It starts slowly, and I was well into the book (chapters 28-29) before developing a desire to see it through to the end. In the beginning there is too much exposition of science tech and space travel issues. Very wordy, providing background, and not all that interesting, actually. If the reader can manage to continue there is an decent drama which develops. The ending is defined but for me was not all that satisfying. The reader leaves assuming they understand the ending, not assured.

[Stephen Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be honest

As much as I read, I often have a tough time understanding what authors write without going back a sentence or two, even an entire paragraph, to follow them. Kurt Allan writes clearly. Very clearly. His descriptions of spaceships, control systems, weightlessness and asteroid scenery do not leave the reader with missing context. Easy reading, even if you're not versed in outer space science fiction. Pure pleasure.

As protagonist, Waldo learns by the end of this tale of the future that most people are really bastards.

I recommend this book to anyone of teen age on up. Some coarse words are spoken, but this is what happens when people are frustrated. Or think they're going to die.

[michael waks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb and believable with an intriguing care worn space miner at the center of the story. A splendid mix of adventure in the solar system with interpersonal intrigue, transnational corporate interests, and believable technology. The first person narrative by the quirky protagonist is the secret sauce on this sci fi treasure

I haven’t read a more humorous and self contained sci fi tale in years. The mystery at the heart of the plot adds a detective element to the mix which along with the dangers inherent in space had me reading non stop. Let’s all pray the author does more with this character !!!

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving it a high five for middling sci fi people who aren't into sci fi. This has no grand world building here, no annoying complex names, different planets or anything like that. High space drama with a dash of mystery and thriller. First person pov and it's not my usual style (I never liked Andy Weir novels) but Waldo is a relatable chap who is ordinary yet street smart. A lot of high points that will keep you glued. The conclusion or the story that builds up the conclusion is a bit weak but I'm here for Waldo and space. I hope there would be more. This novel deserves to be read for its thriller and investigative aspects.

[Victoria Nuzzolillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much Description!

Not a bad mystery but I’d guess only about 20% of this book is dialogue - the rest is description and “telling”. There were so many good opportunities to show what was happening. For example, when Waldo is rescuing Lui, we could have been shown what was going on in the Juno, instead we’re reading pages of description about the blackness of space, spiraling search patterns and Waldo’s feelings. So little real action in a story that could have been all about the action.

[Carlos I Badilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slowed down by excessive comments and personal insights

The story wasn't too bad, but the book is written in first person with long and repetitive personal insights that I didn't care about. Even when the world is crashing down around him and he needs to act urgently, there would be half a page about his daughter or some memories. Few scientific faux pass, some like the heaviest objects having a tendency to falling first in the vacuum and and at the end you were left with the lingering dust of course. The grammar and language were eassy to follow.

[Waxmodel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really scifi

Substitute space for an average earth terrain and replace the spaceship with say a train or a plane and swap the 'portable' with a smartphone. There is nothing scifi about this story. Even the plot is so run of the mill like a soap opera version that it does not fail to disappoint. The other reviewers were right to moan about the unnecessary explanations and tangents by the author, which was only to fill the pages and put the reader to sleep. We are the losers for paying money to read this hack.

[Thibaldo Manrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome deep space adventure yarn

This is a pleasure to read.

The characters feel real, the settings are exotic, and the whole book has a great feel to it.

I enjoyed it very much. For me, it was a page turner. The intrigue, the danger, the betrayal, it was all very good and well crafted.

There were a couple (I only saw 2) editing mistakes that in no way take away from enjoying the book.

If you are thinking about reading it, if you enjoy deep space adventure, the experience of the loneliness of space, heart pounding life threatening adventure, this book is for you.

[Eric Tredder · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent adventure, very engaging

An interesting, flawed protagonist is hired to resolve a really engaging mystery involving an asteroid promising untold wealth. But of course, things aren't that straight-forward. A strangly mismatched crew is sent to a distant asteroid to find the truth about unexplained deaths when others were sent to take stock in the promise of riches barely comprehensible. A breathtaking plot twist explores the murderous venality of the powers that be and the very real dangers facing our naieve hero. A fun engaging, escapist yarn....enjoy

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t often review books I get through Kindle Unlimited but this was a great read. Set in the future when humans are mining the asteroid belt, the story is about an investigation into the disappearance of a mining ship beyond the belt. The investigator is a washed-up former miner who lost an arm in an accident and take a job ferrying rich people on space jaunts.

Felt very Alastair Macleanish in the writing. Tight dialogue, a good plot and a slow build-up. I felt the ending was a bit rushed but the author did manage to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

[Bill Rinehart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book!

This is one of those books that once you have read it, you will be glad you took my advice and read it. It is full of adventure, mystery and action. A lot of asteroid miners are killed in a revenge plan covering several decades. The plan was vicious and well hidden It was intended to kill unsuspecting asteroid miners and cause the families of the men and women killed. If you figure out why before the end, you will be a better investigator than most.