Better World
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3.1 • 14 Ratings
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Publisher Description
The last humans spent centuries searching for a new Earth. Now they face extinction.
For three hundred years, arks have carried the last remnants of humanity through dark space. The ships are old, failing, and every colonist must do their duty to ensure the fleet's survival.
Maeve is a metalworker, toiling in the blistering sublevels of the London. She's lost friends and family to the hazardous work conditions and fears every job she's assigned could be her last. All she wants is a little control over her life, but the oppressive sublevel enforcers ensure that’s not an option.
Now, after decades of traveling, the ships have finally reached their destination: Soren, a toxic planet that may have the resources they desperately need. But mining a planet comes at a price, and Maeve and the other workers will be expected to pay it with their lives.
If a better world awaits, Maeve's sure to be dead long before the fleet finds it… unless she finds a way to control her destiny and change it.
"Addictive sci-fi series. I haven't been this hooked on an author since Anne McCaffery's Killashandra series." ~ Marie Hall, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author
Customer Reviews
Mr
Highly recommended! I am now going to read Legacy Code.
Iffy
I'll be blunt: this is not a novel, nor a short story. It is the first third of a promising novel that simply...stops. The ending (which, in truth, barely qualifies as such) is dissatisfying and predictable.
That said, there are some highlights. The protagonist is distinct and personable, and the reader is engaged fully in her plight which is both well portrayed and highly relevant. Other characters are more simplistic but functional. The setting is similarly interesting; there are shades of Battlestar Galactica in the language, which makes sense in context and works well to convey how different these humans are. The author takes a realist approach to space travel: habitable planets are insanely rare, with no convenient FTL or magic tech, and extreme resource conservation is prevalent. This is all very good, but unfortunately the lack of a human touch makes the Fleet (and even this name is conjecture, as it goes nameless) uninteresting. We hear about other ships, but not their histories or reputations. We see other characters, but there is no commumity; we see organisation and order, but no society. There are tidbits here and there, from a brief mention religion to the peer pressure to "pair", but this falls far short of what is necessary. The Fleet is not engaging or interesting; it's just the background.
In short; it's only one third of a book and will leave you dissatisfied. Some good elements and the functional use of prose make it readable, but not good. Avoid if feasible, but if you do read it, be prepared for a highly predictable and dissatisfying climax.
A chapter, not a book
Useless! 99 pages and a cliffhanger. What a waste of effort. Book starts ok, good setup of characters and conflict, but why it ends where it does is beyond me.