Beyond Kuiper: The Galactic Star Alliance

Did not finish the book.

Started with an intriguing ideaaliens consider earthlings to be dangerously immature to be allowed to explore space–but the portrayal of the aliens was so sophomoric and silly that when the story swung around to them again I bailed out on the book.

The authors bog down the story with a massive information dump on the aliens and their terminology. Similes and metaphors are provided that have no basis for comparison, example: the alarm sounded like an Wavoon roar and in a Drotean expression of displeasure and his synapses were firing like a gagaric snow buffalo from Sentron and it was as if he were smacked in the face by the tail of an Dragsan eel. Distances are measured in rudons, time is measured in duprikes. All of these alien words are footnoted with definitions expanded on at the end of the chapter. Thirty-nine footnotes in this single chapter alone. Nothankyou.

Also, the aliens must be pretty dumb to allow earth scientists to amass enough antimatter to be dangerous. Their entire mission is not to allow this to happen. Why didnt they catch this?

The earth and humanity side of the story was dominated early on by dialogue related to political power plays regarding to the worthiness of exploring space. Pages and pages of dialogue talking about the past history of characters and why they are taking their political positions.

Despite the year being set in 2091 there are characters in the book that refer to Star Wars, Star Trek, Jean-Luc Picard, Yoda, etc., multiple times, including yes, the aliens. Examples: Alien: Im going to be the greatest fighter pilot this side of Tatooi. Also, Bernard raised his glass and regarded them with an admiration that reminded him of the look Luke gave Han and Leia at the end of Star Wars. Oh really? A character gave some people a look that reminded him of a look given from a movie from 115 years ago? And how did Bernard see the expression on his own face enabling him to make this comparison? This is unrealistic fanboi silliness.

I quit reading at the 32% mark, or thereabouts. Avoid like the Gamma Secundus gut worm.

This book is the first in a series, but that was not explained in the ad. It just stops rather that concludes. The story is fair but the writers use way too many made-up words and then explain them in a glossary at the end of each chapter. Not worth the time.

The only negative thing I can say is that upon finishing this book I wish the second installment was completed so that I could see where the story continues from Beyond Kuiper: The Galactic Star Alliance. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and never wanted to put it down. Though the story would sometimes center around advanced scientific studies and terminology, the authors presented it in a way where it was still understandable and enjoyable to someone like myself who is not schooled in the respective scientific fields. I have already recommended this book to many friends and will continue to do so.

It’s… Not good. I’m really confounded by all the positive reviews. The writing is incredibly sophomoric. *I* could have written this book. Uncharacteristically for me, I pre-ordered and paid full price for this book because of positive early reviews, hoping for something to fill the void of The Expanse novels – – never again. I hate not finishing books I start, but two chapters in, I can tell this is… Terrible, I’m sorry. Their editor should be completely ashamed of themselves. Not only did the flow sound juvenile with all the artificial world-building and silly footnotes, but typographical errors abound. A comma followed by an exclamation point to end a sentence,! Accidental font changes. There’s a nice idea behind it, I’m sure but… No. It’s bad. Do not buy.

The book tries to use verbal and plot-bound razzle dazzle in place of logic or facts. They lost me when a “scientist” instantly, without investigation, assigns the cause of a nuclear explosion in a nuclear research facility to “aliens.” The person who wrote that has no, none at all, experience with science or engineering. Some sort of failure in the science or engineering is of course infinitely more likely. And, of course, it therefore fails utterly as first-contact science-fiction, where building a logical conflict between two tightly researched cultures (one real, one fictional) is essential. The contemporary science, scenes and organizations are poorly researched (maybe not at all.) I absolutely did not believe the portrayal of engineering organizations (making space exploration and gadgets, not profits…) and science organizations (again, making gadgets, not peer-reviewed papers). The engineer author should have known better, or never paid attention to what his professors and management was doing. Or maybe the other author, the music promoter, simply over-wrote him. I never got to the “futuristic” and “alien” science, scenes and organizations. Putting a (boring) glossary and “alien manifesto” first is a… classic mistake of people who don’t read or watch science fiction. It instantly clued me into the amateurish effort. (That’s research, at best, and should not be in the story except when it affects the characters. Even Marvel(TM) knows better.) The characters I read in the first twenty pages all speak with the same voices, attitudes and nearly identical experiences. None of the characters have any traits significantly different from the consensus liberal culture of nontechnical U.S. persons at the time of publication. None of the “advanced science” was anything more than science buzzwords borrowed from the web. The author(s) are clearly unfamiliar with how science is developed and applied. (I.e. you can’t have breakthrough gadgets until breakthrough science shows up first. And… scientists don’t have a clue about how to make machinery that’s profitable, or useful for anything, really, except more science.) I read the authors’ bios after I put the book aside, just trying to understand the epic fail. The plot is clearly what a music promotor thinks he could sell to bored 14-year-olds, given good visual art. Give it a miss.

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