Hi Amber, thank you for your review! It's great to get your feedback - I went back and forth myself on breezing through the crew introductions or trying to build the characters up more. I decided on the latter because I felt it made the journey and twist more impactful, though I certainly understand your feelings.
My focus on life back on Earth was to suggest that you don't become a different person just because you're in a different environment - all the same underlying factors remain - and 'showing' you the state someone lives in is a more subtle way of 'telling' you their personality and why they perhaps would want to leave their Earth life behind for good. I can see that didn't land for you, so that's great feedback for me to have moving forwards!
As for the logs, my idea was that as an established astronaut, he'd developed a familiarity and rappaport with people that allowed him to be more formal. Plus, space travel was deprioritized as other ventures, like war, shifted into focus.
Finally, as he was creating the log to send back home, he'd never face any blowback for it and he could really behave in any way he wanted to, hence the excessive language and relaxed nature of the messaging. Clearly I didn't make that obvious enough (and maybe if I had, it still wouldn't have been enjoyable! Who knows?)
As for solar-powered spaceships and their functionality, I hope to dive into that more in other stories set in the same world, as well as a sort of parallel story to this one titled "USS PRIMIS: Take 2" that I'm working on now.
I appreciate you reading my book, leaving a review, providing me with helpful feedback, and also reading this very long comment :)
If you have a moment, would you mind posting the same review to Amazon? The book is linked on the left side of this page, underneath 'Read'. Thank you!
My focus on life back on Earth was to suggest that you don't become a different person just because you're in a different environment - all the same underlying factors remain - and 'showing' you the state someone lives in is a more subtle way of 'telling' you their personality and why they perhaps would want to leave their Earth life behind for good. I can see that didn't land for you, so that's great feedback for me to have moving forwards!
As for the logs, my idea was that as an established astronaut, he'd developed a familiarity and rappaport with people that allowed him to be more formal. Plus, space travel was deprioritized as other ventures, like war, shifted into focus.
Finally, as he was creating the log to send back home, he'd never face any blowback for it and he could really behave in any way he wanted to, hence the excessive language and relaxed nature of the messaging. Clearly I didn't make that obvious enough (and maybe if I had, it still wouldn't have been enjoyable! Who knows?)
As for solar-powered spaceships and their functionality, I hope to dive into that more in other stories set in the same world, as well as a sort of parallel story to this one titled "USS PRIMIS: Take 2" that I'm working on now.
I appreciate you reading my book, leaving a review, providing me with helpful feedback, and also reading this very long comment :)
If you have a moment, would you mind posting the same review to Amazon? The book is linked on the left side of this page, underneath 'Read'. Thank you!