Europa Journal
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The history of humanity is about to change forever…
On 5 December 1945, five TBM Avenger bombers embarked on a training mission off the coast of Florida and mysteriously vanish without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.
A PBY search and rescue plane with thirteen crewmen aboard sets out to find the Avengers . . . and never returns.
In 2168, a mysterious five-sided pyramid is discovered on the ocean floor of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
Commander Mac O’Bryant and her team of astronauts are among the first to enter the pyramid’s central chamber. They find the body of a missing World War II pilot, whose hands clutch a journal detailing what happened to him after he and his crew were abducted by aliens and taken to a place with no recognizable stars. As the pyramid walls begin to collapse around Mac and her team, their names mysteriously appear within its pages and they find themselves lost on an alien world.
Stranded with no way home, Mac decides to retrace the pilot’s steps. She never expects to find the man alive. And if the man has yet to die, what does that mean for her and the rest of her crew?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Castle's debut couples an ambitious premise with deliberately humorous prose. In 2168, the Earth colony on the Jovian moon Europa is rocked by an apparent explanation of one of the 20th century's unsolved mysteries. In 1945, five American military planes disappeared in the notorious Bermuda Triangle, as did another plane sent in search of them. Dr. Joan Bort accesses an underwater pyramid on Europa and discovers the corpse of one of the missing pilots, along with a journal describing the pilot's encounters with intelligent aliens. The over-the-top story is leavened with self-awareness: "Larry had seen little grey men inside a giant spaceship, crash-landed on an alien planet, and had his hand cut off by a giant samurai-like mountain gorilla. Why couldn't this vision before him be an angel?" There is also some amusing world-building, as when the discovery of orca-size life in Europa's oceans leads to merchandising plush toys. Unfortunately, the story's payoff isn't a match for Castle's creativity.
