An engaging space opera that boasts interplanetary travel and bright characters but lacks subtlety.
Gifted teenagers build a spaceship to explore the stars in this sci-fi adventure.
Sixteen-year-old artist Rick Seaton works on his metalsmithing at his New Jersey home. Using a lamp he bought at an auction (“It’s antique, a piece of history, and an investment!”), Rick inadvertently launches a piece of metal into the sky. He relays this discovery to his summer-camp friend Martin Crane in Idaho while Martin’s former schoolmate Marge Spencer, an autistic teen with a genius-level IQ, is visiting. Marge has the brains to turn Rick’s “happy accident” into a functional space drive that can propel a spacecraft, which Martin can build and his wealthy parents can fund. But doing this without federal involvement is illegal, which is where Dotty Vaneman comes in. She’s a skilled, well-known violinist whose life Rick recently saved and who can “launder” the necessary millions via her debut world tour. But even after the teens successfully launch the Alouette into outer space, they’re targets of a clandestine American group that essentially polices technological advancements. This interference leads to a kidnapping and an attempt to take them out as they orbit another planet in the Milky Way. Things get even more dangerous when they need to refuel for the return home. They’ll have to land the Alouette on an unknown, Earth-like planet, where they mingle with friendly inhabitants but ultimately end up in a whole new set of precarious circumstances. With any luck, Martin and the others will survive long enough to recover the fuel their ship needs and make it back to their home world.
Fine’s engrossing series-opener is a modern take on E.E. Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby’s 1928 novel The Skylark of Space. Much like the source text, romance abounds among the lead characters. Marge, for one, is enamored with Martin, who stands up for her at school but has been exploring his gay sexuality. Similarly, Rick and Dotty are paired off almost immediately, as the first time he sees her, she’s in peril. Despite an abundance of characters on the other planet, the best among the supporting cast are earthlings—Dr. Marc DuQuesne, who takes in and mentors foster kid Marge but harbors a dark secret, and Shiro Higa, who proves a great help with the spaceship’s construction. Martin’s father and Shiro are Vietnam “war buddies.” The author structures this narrative to great effect, skillfully introducing the main characters before their lives interact organically and the Alouette slowly comes together. There’s also an intriguing Judaism theme running throughout. For starters, both Rick and Dotty are Jewish but hail from noticeably different backgrounds; Dotty’s parents are loving, and Rick’s are emotionally abusive. At the same time, Rick’s reason for space exploration ties to his religion, as he’s certain the teens can “settle the Solar System” and prevent another Holocaust. Nevertheless, while the science and tech are sound, the bulk of the story is explicitly relayed through dialogue. The teens, in particular, often say exactly what’s in their heads, forgoing any nuance in terms of character development. Meanwhile, the ending offers both a resolution and dangling plot threads for the sequel to pick up.
An engaging space opera that boasts interplanetary travel and bright characters but lacks subtlety.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2026
ISBN: 9798341871786
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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