This was creepy in all the right places. The characters were all fun to follow, and the neuro-divergent rep was excellent. Scott Brick does an amazing job of bringing the story to life as always, and I found myself clamoring for a sequel once it was done. Would definitely read another novel set in this universe!

Actual Rating 2.5

If I could rate solely the story for this one, I’d give it a 4. It’s not heavy on the science aspects, making it pretty accessible to those of us who prefer lighter sci-fi. It’s also a little predictable, but I didn’t find that to be a bad thing in this instance – it made it easily consumable while still being interesting and entertaining. It likely won’t please die-hard sci-fi fans.

If I could rate solely the characters, I’d give them a 2, maybe even a 1. This story is told from multiple POVs that shift throughout the book, though there is one female that we spend a lot of time with. I’ll give you one guess as to how she was depicted. If you guess “brilliant and socially awkward scientist who doesn’t know how hot she is,” then you guessed correctly! And about 90% of the time we spent in this character’s head was “I can’t believe I didn’t realize my mentor was attracted to me.” So much wasted potential. There was almost no character development provided beyond what was barely necessary for the characters’ roles in the book (everyone had a “thing” and it was the only thing that they thought or talked about the whole time). I didn’t need everyone’s life story but having them feel alive and like real people would have made this book so much stronger.

The writing of this one wasn’t particularly strong, and the author tended to stray heavily into telling rather than showing. I think if I hadn’t listened to the audiobook version (the narrator did an excellent job, by the way), I would have rated it even lower. I wouldn’t classify this as horror, though it does have some darker slightly spooky moments. If you enjoy Lovecraftian light science fiction, then you may enjoy this one. My thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I wanted to like this. It sounded just like the kind of space horror I’ve been enjoy recently. This review will be slightly spoilery.

I read the audiobook and I will say that I am not a fan of this narrator’s style and it’s not at all a small part of one of the reasons I kept debating to just stop reading at many points throughout the book.

Since I was listening to it I’m not 100% sure on the spelling of things but, we’ll start with Cammie first. Love having a neurodiverse main character, dislike that her entire character is science and wondering what she’s going to do now that her mentor is dead (also her analyzing, more than once in the exact same way, how her mentor probably had feelings for her she never realized. Also what’s she supposed to do now that he’s dead?).

Noor is the rich man who wants to make sure his name is written down first for the discoveries his team makes and he doesn’t let you forget it for one single moment how other explorers or leaders of a field are forgotten to history or were just barely beaten to it by another team.

The rest of the team just blurs into one and I’ve had a hard time distinguishing who is who as the POV switches. It was definitely after 50% of the way through that I understood who anyone was and by that point people were about to start dying. Up until the book ended all of the characters were referred to by their first and last names, like we needed the reminder (which I did, but it didn't help and just wound up feeling clunky).

I cannot stress how much this book rehashes the same character moments for seemingly no additional character growth or background.

I wrote the majority of this when I thought I was going to DNF the book about half way through and even though I finished it, it all still stands. At about 70% of the way through we get a handy dandy alien goo that dumps basically all of the information about the aliens and also gives the characters the ability to understand the alien language. It took no effort other than happening to stand right by where the alien goop was. This was also when the book got even remotely interesting. Mind you, this was long after they had had cryo-pods fail and discovered alien bodies.

While not the same in the end, this book reminded me of Ghost Station by SA Barnes throughout the first two thirds and that book is a lot more entertaining in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review.

Wormhole-obsessed Cammie and co head out to the edge of the solar system, where a wormhole lies in wait. And maybe something else, too ... or someone else.

I enjoyed this space-faring monster flick. A little bit of Alien, a little bit of Contact. I could feel the Star Wars vibe, which I understand the author is well-acquainted with. The pace was excellent, the audiobook narration compelling.

What I didn't care for was the skeevy treatment of Cammie's autism and the relationship between her and her mentor, who's at least 30 years her junior. In the end, the situation is portrayed as an innocent tale of star-crossed love, no inappropriate business here, even while other students call him a creep without Cammie really "getting it." Why even go there? I couldn't understand what the author was trying to portray here.

I also thought it was silly that Cammie, PhD in astrophysics and genius when it comes to wormholes, for some reason forgot how wormholes work at the end of the novel. Huh?

There's a cliffhanger, too. Another novel is coming.

Being that I've read a lot of good science fiction in the last few years, and being that this audio is narrated by the terrific Scott Brick, when I saw the audio ARC available on NetGalley, I requested it and here we are.

This is the story of a crew on a privately funded mission to investigate a wormhole named Nether. This mission is the first of its kind and the crew does not know what they might encounter. As it turns out, they encountered a number of issues, not the least of which is evidence of at least 2 different types of aliens. As the crew works out the many difficulties of their mission, they discover at least some of the aliens are still around and they are not happy. Will their mission be successful? Will they even survive it? You'll have to read this to find out.

What attracted me to this book in the first place was the promise of Lovecraftian horror blended with science fiction. I love me some space horror! For whatever reason, though, I never got entirely on board with this story. One of the main characters is Cammie, a neurodivergent but brilliant member of the crew. I felt the most connection with her. Maybe the only connection I found was with her. I'm not sure why, but the rest of the characters felt flat to me.

About halfway through, maybe a little later, the Lovecraftian portion comes into the picture. Now, THIS I was down with. I wanted more of it in fact, but I guess we'll see that in the next book?

Lastly, I love Scott Brick. He narrates another series and I don't think I would have even read that action series if it weren't for his voicing of it. He's a compelling narrator and usually quite effective at narrating action. In this volume however, he felt a bit over the top to me. Maybe that was because there was so much action? I don't know for sure, and I don't know how to explain it, other than it was like all the sentences ended with exclamation points. It seems like I'm asking a lot of questions here, but I'm just trying to pinpoint for myself why I never felt fully engaged.

All that said, I am going to continue this series when the next book is released. I feel like I'll get lots more of the Lovecraftian related themes and that was the main focus of my interest. There is enough going on for me to be interested in continuing and I hope to get a better feel for the main characters as the series continues.

Recommended!

*Audio ARC from publisher.*