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Orbem Novis
Three centuries after the Orbem Novis colonists told off-Earth financiers who backed their voyage to stay away from their new home on a distant planet or face death, the Farside Corporation receives an unusual request. Two top-drawer agents are hired to locate the last descendants on Earth of the colonists’ leader and bring them to Orbem Novis. The mission, however, keeps changing as the agents travel 50 light-years to a new world teeming with strange life forms. When civil war breaks out among the colonists, the agents learn they are pawns not of the Farside Corporation but a more powerful force – an artificial intelligence that links their universe to another and the long lost mining ship Anaconda.
406 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 2, 2023
Disclaimer - I read this as a judge for SPSFC3, my opinions and ratings are my own. Other Judge's opinions will vary.
I read 100% of this book and I had fun reading it. It starts off on a relatively serious note - two secret agents from Earth accompany relations of the "King" who rules on the far away planet of Orbem Novis but when they get there the story turns into a thinly veiled political satire of Donald Trump, his family and his time as American President and the storming of Capitol Hill. This book may insult MAGAs or some republicans but as I'm not an American and I agree Trump was a dangerous buffoon just as "King" in this story, I got quite a giggle.
There's some interesting worldbuilding here with different flora and fauna and the way they have adapted to different oxygen levels. The politics away from the main city is diverse and intriguing and I spent a lot of time championing some of the characters. Unfortunately we didn't get a well formatted manuscript sent to us which was slightly annoying and whilst it didn't make it hard to read it would likely be axed in the next phase. Hopefully the author will enter it again next year with a properly formatted ebook complete with cover.
I read 100% of this book and I had fun reading it. It starts off on a relatively serious note - two secret agents from Earth accompany relations of the "King" who rules on the far away planet of Orbem Novis but when they get there the story turns into a thinly veiled political satire of Donald Trump, his family and his time as American President and the storming of Capitol Hill. This book may insult MAGAs or some republicans but as I'm not an American and I agree Trump was a dangerous buffoon just as "King" in this story, I got quite a giggle.
There's some interesting worldbuilding here with different flora and fauna and the way they have adapted to different oxygen levels. The politics away from the main city is diverse and intriguing and I spent a lot of time championing some of the characters. Unfortunately we didn't get a well formatted manuscript sent to us which was slightly annoying and whilst it didn't make it hard to read it would likely be axed in the next phase. Hopefully the author will enter it again next year with a properly formatted ebook complete with cover.
Read
October 28, 2023I am one of the judges of team Space Girls for the SPSFC3 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, it is still in the running for the contest, pending any official team announcements.
Status: Cut
Read: 33%
In all instances, I do believe this book had an intriguing plot and there are plenty of good things going for it. Most of the story focuses on a special Ops spy named Marcus Rand who is assigned to work with a famous French agent he has never met before named Vallonee (whose name I keep on thinking is Vannellope from that Disney movie).
Both agents are assigned to locate the remaining living 6 family members of a famous celebrity named King Mullan. The aformentioned man departed the Earth 300 years ago to found a new planet named Orbem Novis, but both planets lost contact and the story keeps the truth about this guy and the cryptic message to retrieve his family a secret. Up to the first third of the novel, we know a few generalities about these 6 humans that act like rednecks from the Ozarks. But most of the book's mysteries are still unresolved. In fact, the real conflict of the book doesn't seem to have even started yet. Everyone is still kind of waiting for their departure.
I liked agent Rand and would have wanted to get to learn a bit more about him. His little fling with Vallonee so far has felt very flat for me. I felt rather bored with a fade to black romancing scene between them. Even the allure of being in outer space with space stations and zero gravity didn't suffice to make me grow truly attached to the characters at this stage of the novel.
Perhaps it is the prose style that isn't working with me. The few scenes in the book where there is true danger, the sentences continue to be pretty long. I just feel like pushing the fast forward button and reaching the next chapter in the story to finally discover what the great big secret is. While the author takes good care describing the ultra low gravity of the Moon stations, other scenes of the book barely get much of a blip of notice. In fact, the entire chapter that happens in Milwaukee could be skipped, and the reader will not really have missed anything plotwise. The things that happen in that city are so trivial in the overall story that I guess it helps we never got to find out what the city looks like from the inside.
I kind of liked Susana Mullan, but the scenes of the women doing arts and crafts could have had more oomph in it. Everyone speaks with a strong 'murican accent, so I sometimes got distracted thinking in a fake southern drawl and would miss things happening in the text. Rand and the other agent use special translator devices. But this is one of those writing situations where you either bore your audience from having everyone use ultra modern speech patterns, or use a strong accent and make the dialogue harder to read. By itself, the accents would have been ok with me, but the prose tended to make me sleepy for some odd reason.
It seems like this is a sequel book in a long series. Fortunately, it reads like a standalone so the other books are optional. But I always had this itch in my mind that there is so much hidden worldbuilding that we don't get to see while everyone prefers talking about artificial city beer. The lack of connection to the story and characters made it harder for me to enjoy what otherwise seems like a book with an interesting space colonization mystery plot. And so, while I believe the book has plenty of merits, I feel like there are plenty of other books in the group that are much stronger contenders for semifinalist status. And so, this book is a cut for me.
Status: Cut
Read: 33%
In all instances, I do believe this book had an intriguing plot and there are plenty of good things going for it. Most of the story focuses on a special Ops spy named Marcus Rand who is assigned to work with a famous French agent he has never met before named Vallonee (whose name I keep on thinking is Vannellope from that Disney movie).
Both agents are assigned to locate the remaining living 6 family members of a famous celebrity named King Mullan. The aformentioned man departed the Earth 300 years ago to found a new planet named Orbem Novis, but both planets lost contact and the story keeps the truth about this guy and the cryptic message to retrieve his family a secret. Up to the first third of the novel, we know a few generalities about these 6 humans that act like rednecks from the Ozarks. But most of the book's mysteries are still unresolved. In fact, the real conflict of the book doesn't seem to have even started yet. Everyone is still kind of waiting for their departure.
I liked agent Rand and would have wanted to get to learn a bit more about him. His little fling with Vallonee so far has felt very flat for me. I felt rather bored with a fade to black romancing scene between them. Even the allure of being in outer space with space stations and zero gravity didn't suffice to make me grow truly attached to the characters at this stage of the novel.
Perhaps it is the prose style that isn't working with me. The few scenes in the book where there is true danger, the sentences continue to be pretty long. I just feel like pushing the fast forward button and reaching the next chapter in the story to finally discover what the great big secret is. While the author takes good care describing the ultra low gravity of the Moon stations, other scenes of the book barely get much of a blip of notice. In fact, the entire chapter that happens in Milwaukee could be skipped, and the reader will not really have missed anything plotwise. The things that happen in that city are so trivial in the overall story that I guess it helps we never got to find out what the city looks like from the inside.
I kind of liked Susana Mullan, but the scenes of the women doing arts and crafts could have had more oomph in it. Everyone speaks with a strong 'murican accent, so I sometimes got distracted thinking in a fake southern drawl and would miss things happening in the text. Rand and the other agent use special translator devices. But this is one of those writing situations where you either bore your audience from having everyone use ultra modern speech patterns, or use a strong accent and make the dialogue harder to read. By itself, the accents would have been ok with me, but the prose tended to make me sleepy for some odd reason.
It seems like this is a sequel book in a long series. Fortunately, it reads like a standalone so the other books are optional. But I always had this itch in my mind that there is so much hidden worldbuilding that we don't get to see while everyone prefers talking about artificial city beer. The lack of connection to the story and characters made it harder for me to enjoy what otherwise seems like a book with an interesting space colonization mystery plot. And so, while I believe the book has plenty of merits, I feel like there are plenty of other books in the group that are much stronger contenders for semifinalist status. And so, this book is a cut for me.
December 27, 2021
Not a sequel
Was expecting a a sequel to the first six books which I loved, not at all, the end has a mild tie in. totally different story, world and characters. Don't pay for this if you want to find out what happened in the first six books.
Was expecting a a sequel to the first six books which I loved, not at all, the end has a mild tie in. totally different story, world and characters. Don't pay for this if you want to find out what happened in the first six books.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews