The earth was doomed. That is what the aliens had warned him a year ago. It wasn't like it was anything new, mankind had always been teetering on the edge of extinction. But when aliens visit, you listened. They gave him and nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine other people a year to prepare before they are transplanted to another world. Mitch didn't even consider going to the media or the government, they would have laughed him right into an asylum. No, Mitch knew he would have to do it the hard way, pull mankind up by the bootstraps.
Note: Fortunately, the author has managed to put this through several proofreading cycles so the grammar problems have been more or less fixed with only a few negligible exceptions (so feel free to disregard the older complaints about grammar)
Now without further ado, lets start the review:
So as the summary says, Mitch Chambers is one of the lucky few who was transplanted from a doomed Earth by aliens to preserve the human race. Fortunately for humanity, Mitch is obscenely rich and brings with him just about everything needed to kick-start human development to this new planet filled with all sorts of dangers. The story involves Mitch's efforts to survive (on a planet with dangerous creatures and harsh climates), build up his settlement, and his interactions with the other humans on this planet.
Although the basic idea of this story is great (then again, I have a soft spot for settlement building stories) there are some extremely large problems. The first one is all of the engineering porn. The first quarter of the story is literally him just setting up all his tools and machines, inserting tab A into slot A, taking care of livestock, etc. without any plot development or human interaction. There is zero plot advancement or character building at all.
The second large problem is its plotholes and the lack of explanation on several very important aspects. For example, the details on what happened before were almost completely untouched. In addition, there are also many questions like why didn't he start actively looking for humans when he set up his basic living camp? If the humans were randomly selected, why were there so many families? Or why didn't the aliens just prevent the meteorite strike? How can humans have already create things like A.I.s, molecular furnaces, nanomachines, etc. but still use current weaponry, mp3 players, normal cars, etc. Why on earth did he bring cheetahs and racoon with him along with his livestock? And so on.
However, if you can stomach the overly detailed engineering descriptions and the plotholes, this story is actually a fairly decent read.
the abysmal copy editing can be forgiven, amazon self pub, these things happen. (though perhaps the author should take advantage of some crowd sourcing opportunities to have a beta group take a pass at it, because it's seriously awful).
Book managed to keep my attention despite the first half feeling like someone was narrating the first few hundred turns of his game of civilization, or simcolony. world building is barely touched on, in favor of minutely detailed instructions for setting up a fortress of solitude, assuming you have access to billions of dollars and some sci-fi robots. Honestly you could blink and miss the sci fi elements. Despite that, it engaged me enough to finish it -2 stars for abysmal proofing -1 star for weak plot and world
A good Dino adventure...I would say for all ages, but the language turned bad in some places. Lots of running and screaming. Character development is good. I actually brought this book years ago and decided to reread it. Glad I did. Starting the second book now.