Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner is the first in a new series from the authors that brought us the Starbound Trilogy, which started with These Broken Stars. I really enjoyed their first series, but this first book was a bit of a struggle to get through, mainly thanks to some persistent science errors.

When Earth intercepts a message from a long-extinct alien race, it seems like the solution the planet has been waiting for. The Undying's advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and Gaia, their former home planet, is a treasure trove waiting to be uncovered.

For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study ... as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don't loot everything first.

Mia and Jules' different reasons for smuggling themselves onto Gaia put them immediately at odds, but after escaping a dangerous confrontation with other scavvers, they form a fragile alliance. In order to penetrate the Undying temple and reach the tech and information hidden within, the two must decode the ancient race's secrets and survive their traps. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more their presence in the temple seems to be part of a grand design that could spell the end of the human race ...

This book didn't start too badly but I had trouble getting fully immersed. Once the plot really got going it felt a bit too contrived and, quite frankly, like a video game. I suspect it's difficult to write people solving puzzles in an alien temple-thing without it sounding like a video game... but I ended up putting the book aside for several weeks because the game I was playing at the time was better and actually made more sense (Zelda: Breath of the Wild). Why do I bring up sense-making? Well there were some science errors in Unearthed, including one that was so integral to the setting it was mentioned over and over again. It annoyed me and contributed to my putting the book down when I was about half-way through.

Unfortunately, when I picked it up again, the things that had annoyed me about the book hadn't magically disappeared (alas). The persistent science problem was still there, some other science stuff was a bit sloppy (first they're in another galaxy, then they're on the other side of our galaxy, then they're in another galaxy again, all without leaving the planet), and I didn't really connect with the characters. They weren't bad characters, but I found them more interesting individually than as a romantic couple. They're initial interactions were actually the most interesting, since they come from different countries and different socioeconomic statuses, setting up a slightly antagonistic vibe. Their inevitable coupling off was less satisfying. Also, the fact of their survival was a pretty logical assumption since the book is told in alternating first-person chapters, and a lot of the dangerous situations they were in felt less tense for it.

The ending was interesting but flawed. There was a pretty good reveal, but it went along with some things that didn't entirely make sense for sciencey reasons. Having said that, those things might be resolved in a satisfying way in later books when we know more. The thing that bothered me throughout the book doesn't have a chance of this though.

So what was it? The most egregious thing was the way the authors chose to deal with the lower oxygen levels of the planet all the action is set on. There's not zero oxygen and the atmosphere is otherwise breathable and yet... the characters all have breather masks (actual masks that cover their mouths and noses) which they generally sleep with so that they spend eight hours getting the right about of oxygen. What. Firstly, this is not how you deal with not quite enough oxygen in the atmosphere. I have worked in low oxygen environments; at telescopes 5 km above sea level the atmospheric pressure is about half that of sea level and hence there is about half as much oxygen. It's pretty straightforward to separate low-pressure and low-oxygen side effects since the latter goes away once you get some supplementary oxygen in your system. Also, that oxygen is delivered via nasal cannula (basically a tube that touches your nose) through intermittent bursts because you don't need that much pure oxygen to compensate. Using a mask when the atmosphere is perfectly serviceable makes no sense. The characters in Unearthed can't have been breathing pure oxygen for eight hours a day (that causes a lot of other problems) so why the masks? Were they actually carrying tanks of earth air? How hideously inefficient. Not to mention heavy. I have doubts about the weight of their oxygen tanks if they only contain oxygen for the amount of time needed, so let's not make that worse. (But yeah, their breather stuff definitely did not sound heavy enough.) They also kept saying things like "if we don't have our breathers we'll asphyxiate" which is an illogical statement if they're only wearing them at night and also aren't displaying any symptoms of running around in a low-oxygen environment without the breathers. There should have been heart palpitations at innocuous amounts of movement and feeling out of breath more easily before they started to adapt. (At most they got a tiny amount of brain fog.) Also, they should have started to adapt. I'm not saying taking oxygen to that planet is a bad idea overall, but people do adapt to low oxygen environments, given time. Their bodies get better at taking in what oxygen they can. Athletes often train at altitude for that very reason. And the residents of the Andes or the Himalayas don't run around with oxygen tanks all the time (and, for that matter, people have even managed to climb Mt Everest without oxygen — where the lower atmospheric pressure puts the oxygen content at about a third of what it is at sea level — not that I'm suggesting that's a great idea).

The matter of the breathers came up again and again because the characters were always talking about doing their time with the breathers or worrying about losing them and whatnot. So it just kept reminding me to be annoyed at it. It wouldn't have been nearly as annoying if it had just been mentioned once and allowed me to move on. The other that bothered me a little was one part where the characters should have probably gotten frostbite and/or hypothermia but didn't. Given what we were told about the planet they were on, I'm not convinced the main characters had warm enough clothes for where they ended up. But I guess freezing to death would have been an anticlimactic end to the book.

So while Unearthed ended on an interesting note that did make me want to learn what happens next, I probably won't be buying the next book in the series when it comes out. This is disappointing because I enjoyed the other series by these authors, but the characters in this one weren't interesting enough for me to overcome the other flaws of the book. I'm not categorically saying I definitely won't read the sequel, but right now "too many books, too little time" is winning out over completionism. I'm sure other people might not have as many issues with Unearthed as I did, and I suppose I'd recommend it to readers of YA to whom alien mystery dungeon puzzles particularly appeal.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: December 2017, Allen & Unwin
Series: Yes, Unearthed book 1 of ? (I'd guess trilogy)
Format read: Paperback
Source: Purchased at either Target of Kmart, one of those (I'm not proud but at least it was cheap!)

Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner is the third and final volume in the Starbound Trilogy, which started with the multi-award-winning These Broken Stars and continued with This Shattered World. The blurb nicely summarises the plot of the first two books (spoiler warning).

A year ago, Flynn Cormac and Jubilee Chase made the now infamous Avon Broadcast, calling on the galaxy to witness for their planet, and protect them from destruction. Some say Flynn's a madman, others whisper about conspiracies. Nobody knows the truth. A year before that, Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux were rescued from a terrible shipwreck -- now, they live a public life in front of the cameras, and a secret life away from the world's gaze.

Now, in the center of the universe on the planet of Corinth, all four are about to collide with two new players, who will bring the fight against LaRoux Industries to a head. Gideon Marchant is an eighteen-year-old computer hacker - a whiz kid and an urban warrior. He'll climb, abseil and worm his way past the best security measures to pull off onsite hacks that others don't dare touch.

Sofia Quinn has a killer smile, and by the time you're done noticing it, she's got you offering up your wallet, your car, and anything else she desires. She holds LaRoux Industries responsible for the mysterious death of her father and is out for revenge at any cost.

When a LaRoux Industries security breach interrupts Gideon and Sofia's separate attempts to infiltrate their headquarters, they're forced to work together to escape. Each of them has their own reason for wanting to take down LaRoux Industries, and neither trusts the other. But working together might be the best chance they have to expose the secrets LRI is so desperate to hide.

Much like the format of the two earlier books in the series, Their Fractured Light follows two main characters, Sofia and Gideon, who have their own agendas that are not incompatible with saving the world. (The world needing saving due to the events set up in the first two books.) They more or less fall in with each other once they both realise that the world needs saving and they're in a position to do it.

The complications arise from Sofia being a con artist (can Gideon trust her when she plays everyone around her, including him a few times?) and from Gideon being an elite hacker with secrets and mistakes in his recent past. As well as being more or less structured like a YA novel with teenagers saving the world, it's also structured like a romance novel (with minimal erotic detail of course, because YA). The characters go through the arc of liking each other, being driven apart and finding each other again (and the fact that they will is never really in question).

One nice thing about this novel, that mixes the formula up a bit is the reappearance of the other four main characters from the earlier books in the series. They are quite prominent in the second half of the book and, well, obviously, help with the whole world saving thing. More or less. The only thing that bothered me a little bit in this book was a relationship issue. One of the things that drove them apart was never discussed again (on the page). And I strongly feel that it should have been for Sofia to be able to be OK with their relationship. Otherwise, from her point of view, she's letting some extreme creepiness slide (from Gideon's and the reader's point of view, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation), and that bothered me. It wouldn't've had to have been a long conversation. Oh well.

The science fictional elements in this book were pretty enjoyable. I mean, I'm a bit meh about space zombies but the other aspects were pretty well done and even raised some interesting philosophical questions. Unfortunately, most of them are spoilers.

If you enjoyed the earlier books in the series, then I definitely recommend picking up Their Fractured Light. If you're new to the series, then it makes sense to read them in order. Since the books all feature different main characters, they do sort of stand alone, but this final book deals very heavily with the over arching plot and and probably makes more sense if the first two books have been read.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2015 Allen & Unwin
Series: The Starbound Trilogy book 3 of 3
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased on iBooks
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian SF Reading Challenge

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner is the sequel to These Broken Stars, which won an Aurealis Award this year. It is about a different set of characters on a completely different planet and the connection with the first book does not become apparent until about half way through.

Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.

I liked that the basic premise from the first book — soldier plus civilian — was gender-flipped in this one. Lee is a captain in the military and has been station on Avon for two years, an unusually long time since most soldiers only last a few months before they're infected by the Fury (go mad and try to kill people) and get sent home. Lee is smart and capable and I had no trouble believing in her training and resourcefulness.

On the other side of the swamp we have Flynn, a prominent rebel (I hesitate to say rebel leader because things are a little more complicated than that) who accidentally gets more involved in things at the military base than he originally planned. His encounter with Lee brings the two of them together but it takes a while before the two of them don't hate each other, which is refreshing (because why would you not hate a dangerous enemy?). Flynn is intimately linked to the rebels; not only do they look up to him but they are also his stand-in family, making some of his decisions harder and more fraught with conflict.

Although definitely linked by an over-arching plot (which isn't immediately obvious) This Shattered World is quite different to These Broken Stars. The main source of commonality is the military backgrounds of a character per book and, of course, the very engaging writing. Initially, I thought I might be disappointed that the character set have changed but this turned out not to be the case as the new characters Were just as compelling as the ones in These Broken Stars.

The only thing I was little bit disappointed with — actually disappointed isn't the right word. There anything I thought was a bit strange is that really a lot of the plot and especially character backgrounds would make more sense, I think, if the characters were a bit older than they currently are. That would put them outside of the YA bracket but I think it's pushing it to have eighteen(ish) year olds being quite so experienced. That said having the book as way a probably does opened up to a larger audience which is not a bad thing.

Overall I highly recommend this series. If you haven't read These Broken Stars then there's no reason that you can't read This Shattered World first. The reading experience would be better starting from the start since the over arching storyline plays out in that order, but I think the books will stand alone reasonably well. I really like with the authors are doing with this series and with their brand of YA SF in general. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they do next, starting with book three.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: December 2014 (US) Hyperion, November 2014 (Aus) Allen & Unwin
Series: Starbound book 2 of 3(?)
Format read: eARC
Source: NetGalley courtesy of the (US) publisher
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge, Australian Women Writers Challenge

Some spin-off short stories

One of my backer rewards from the Crudrat kickstarter were audio-short stories of Gail Carriger's other works. I reviewed Fairy Debt before and the story I'm reviewing today is the other one I hadn't previously read of the set.

The story is The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn't, the Mummy That Was, and the Cat in the Jar. It's set in the Parasol Protectorate universe and features the father of Alexia, the main character of that series. I would recommend reading the story after having read the Parasol Protectorate books because some things are alluded to which are spoilers for the series. That said, no definite spoilers are revealed so if you can still read it alone.

The story tells us a lot more about Alessandro Tarabotti than we learn in the Parasol Protectorate, the latter being set after his death. On a trip to Egypt with his butler Floote, Alessandro encounters or deals with all the things mentioned in the long title of the story. It was an entertaining listen and illuminating as to the nature and employment of Alessandro. Highly recommended, particularly to Parasol Protectorate fans.

4.5 / 5 stars

~

The second story I want to talk about is This Night So Dark by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, a free e-short/novella (well it was about 50 PDF pages) set in the Starbound universe (to complement These Broken Stars and in anticipation of the release of the second book, This Shattered World. You can download it for free from the Australian link or from the US link (the Scribd link on either is probably your best bet if you're outside of Australia or the US).

Reading This Night So Dark reminded me of why (and how much) I enjoyed These Broken Stars. The authors' writing style is eminently readable and enjoyable, which is hard to remember the particulars of when there's a long gap between books. That, of course, would be why their first book won an Aurealis Award.

This Night So Dark tells the story of an adventure of Tarver's set before These Broken Stars. It is, in fact, the reason he becomes such a decorated soldier at such a young age and it was not quite what I was expecting. From the way it was referenced in These Broken Stars I had the impression it was something battle-field related, but that's not the case. It's more of a small mission (sort of, trying to avoid spoilers here) against bad odds. The important thing is that it's an entertaining read.

I definitely recommend This Night So Dark to fans of These Broken Star. It's free, why wouldn't you give it a shot? I think it's also a good taste of Kaufman and Spooner's writing which should give new readers an accurate idea of whether they'll enjoy their novel-length work.

4.5 / 5

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner is Kaufman's début and the first book I've read by either author. I have to admit, the pretty cover and the fact that Kaufman is Australian swayed me to give this one a shot, since the blurb did not sound all that promising to me (or, more accurately, sounded like it could be all romance and not much else). But happily, that was not the case. Blurb:

It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets to the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.

Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder - would they be better off staying in this place forever?

In some ways These Broken Stars reminded me of the Andre Norton book I read earlier this year, Storm Over Warlock. Not stylistically at all, but thematically. Both books are about survival on a mostly empty planet with a "not quite what it seems" vibe. The biggest difference is the modern style of These Broken Stars, which I find considerably more readable than most of ye olde SF. And, honestly, These Broken Stars made more sense.

Although the romantic plot line is prominent, it doesn't really start until maybe half-way through (or a bit more). In the immediate aftermath of crashing on a mysterious planet, both Lilac and Tarver are more concerned with survival and rescue than anything else. And although Tarver is the one with military survival training, Lilac is very knowledgeable about computers, electronics and physics. Their different skill sets mean that both of them save the other a few times throughout the story, which I absolutely loved. Lilac was definitely not a damsel in distress, which was pleasing (and that really is one of my least favourite character archetypes ever).

Although I probably wouldn't go so far as to call the book hard science fiction — since most of it was about on-planet survival and not tech or science — what science was present was accurate or plausible. There were no scientific faux pas to jolt me out of the story, which was a pleasant change, as far as far-future YA SF goes. In fact, the only thing that made me thing "hmm, that's a bit odd" was that backstory about colonies rebelling a lot. We don't really have enough information (and perhaps its forthcoming in later books), but from what we were told, I was thinking that maybe they should rethink their colonisation strategies. This was very much a minor background thing, though.

In terms of plot, we know upfront that rescue will come because the chapters are interspersed with snippets of Tarver being debriefed back in civilisation. Since romance is also somewhat inevitable, you'd think there wouldn't be many surprises left, mysterious nature of the planet notwithstanding. But, quite refreshingly, there was one significant event I didn't see coming, which is all I'll say because spoilers. In short, this is not a "by-the-numbers" YA read. It's thoughtful and genuine and I can't wait to read more. If this book is an example of the future of science fiction, bring it on.

This was an engaging and enjoyable read. The authors combine plausible science with a balanced romantic storyline and a plot which kept me keenly turning pages. I highly recommend These Broken Stars to fans of YA and science fiction, or one or the other. It wouldn't make a terrible introduction to YA for a SF fan and would be an excellent introduction to SF for a YA fan, particularly one who hasn't read much SF (outside of the dystopia subgenre). I am looking forward to getting my hands on the next book, This Shattered World, when it comes out.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: December 2013, Disney-Hyperion (US) / Allen & Unwin (Aus)
Series: The Starbound Trilogy, book 1
Format read: eARC and paperback (I really was swapping between them)
Source: publisher via NetGalley and purchased from Dymocks (signed by both authors!), respectively
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Aussie Science Fiction Reading Challenge