Mediocre tropish book that isn't original or interesting. The starting premise of evil oligarchs is juvenile and unoriginal. The rest of the book was boring and not well written. Do not recommend.

I really liked this book! It explores topics such as overpopulation, oligarchy, utopian society, relationships between very different people and so on. I liked the writing style and the way that author quotes some other authors that explored civilisation and humanity in their own way. As an ecologist I really appreciated the accuracy of the terms that author used when he desribes his concept of Martian society. I think that the author is aware of the seriusness of the situation that he put his characters in, yet he still manages to keep the story light. The only thing that I didn't really enjoy, was that some monologues went on and on, but they didn't say anything more than they already did.
Overall, I think, that this book is great and I can't wait to see how the story will unfold :)

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC

The Last Voyage presents an intriguing premise with its dystopian Earth and Mars colonization storyline, but struggles with heavy exposition and overly complex dialogue, making it a tough read at times. The second half offers more engaging character dynamics, though it suffers from pacing issues and a few unresolved plot elements, leaving it feeling both bloated and incomplete.

The premise of this book was quite interesting. Earth is on the brink of disaster due to oligarchic rule, and a base has been secretly established on Mars as a final effort to save humanity. The main characters of this book are being sent to Mars on the final departure ship to help resolve a string of concerning suicides on base. The beginning of this book reminded me unexpectedly of the current political atmosphere, and really drew me into continuing reading. I was not a huge fan of references to recent historical events, as I believe they severely date certain books, but it did not detract too badly from the overall message.

Unfortunately, though, I did not like the execution of this book.

First and foremost, I really could not stand Colfax. His vocabulary is incredibly pretentious, which I understand is an intentional character design, but it remains fully unrealistic and made reading his dialogue a bit of a slog. Additionally, his behavior toward his daughter, Eve, based in their disagreements on religion was just awful. Reading his absolute hatred and unwillingness to listen to his own daughter made me sick, which I give kudos to McLaren for writing such an effective verbal fight scene. I again understand this to be a character flaw, however I was deeply unsatisfied with how it seemed to be a moment of “just fix it!” by other members of the crew despite them having background knowledge of their relationship.

I also had some issues with the general dialogue of the book. The storytelling relies incredibly heavily on dialogue, which becomes exhausting after a few chapters. McLaren writes engaging prose, but to see predominantly dialogue was disappointing. It also caused many of the characters to fall flat. I couldn’t connect very closely to most characters, except maybe Eve.

A final issue I have is minor. I was very off-put by a few instances of writing around Nikau. They are written to be non-binary, which McLaren properly respects. However, there are various instanced in which Nikau’s name is used rather than pronouns, which causes unnecessary and distracting repetition. Not only does this come across as bad writing, but it also left a bad taste in my mouth.

I liked the premise of this book, and think the plot itself was interesting, but the writing tripped me up. There was too much exposition ham=handedly done through dialogue, and even when the dialogue was moving the plot along, it wasn't believable as conversation between two people. I wish I could like this book, but I can't. :(

As soon as I read that the predicate triggers involve an over abundance of wealth and a disregard for the environment I could, unfortunately, predict the tone of this near-future tale. When would we be educated about climate change and perhaps throw in some “social justice?” Mr. McLaren uses science fiction (see George Orwell) to spin a tale about how he sees the current dangers circa 2024/2025 in an interesting novel hat uses a cudgel for us to learn about the dangers ahead ! Not my typical choice in my reading repertoire but glad to have read a book by a gifted author.

Didn’t Mark Twain say never to use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word would do?”

This could be the perfect summary to this book. Way too many words for what actually happens

While I am very impressed with the authors knowledge of vocabulary I find it overused quite a lot in this book. At least in the very beginning. But while he tries to make it a character flaw, or maybe better said quirk, he fails. Because what he accomplishes instead is a type of conversation you would never use or hear anyone use in the real world. And it is a double edge sword because it takes away from the book and dulls it down. And even from the si-fi aspects, it fails to make the book exciting or entertaining in a way, say Andrew Weir would. Which makes the first third of the book less exciting than it should be.

But then it turn, and becomes lot more free flowing, easier to follow, easier to get into and a lot more fun. And just like that it's gone. The writing becomes sloppy, and drags on. For a book that in itself is short, I have a feeling you could throw half of it away and it would be better. The author takes his time establishing characters, one in particular and then just like that, halfway through the book writes them out. Except he doesn't. But for about 2 chapters he's gone then back again. Its like he decided to write him out and then changed his mind. Or even worse did it for dramatic affect and did it poorly.

I have feelings about this book and they're not nice. The writing is almost childish at times, the conversations feel forced, the jokes are lame and sometimes there's way more info given than needed and time spent on thing it shouldn't. I find myself wanting to quit reading this book because I feel like it'll only get worse from here.

Some thoughts expressed here may seem incoherent and I apologies, but now you know what reading this book felt like. At about 60% in I feel like the writer is doing a poor job of it. And to make things worse, the book and the story itself hold promise. Execution is just poor.

The premise of a book is simple. A dystopian world and Earths soon demise lead a team of people to colonize Mars. We follow a group of people on their way to Mars. They are to be the last people to do so. Quite simple. Yet for some reason the author does his best to complicate things. Earths demise could have been summed up in a page or two. Placing everything 30 years in the future doesn't give it the doom the author would like to portray. Tying politics and religion into everything and bending over backwards to make it central to the plot just takes away from what the book should be. The bombardment of information that does nothing to drive the story forward is simply unnecessary. And over usage of complex vocabulary doesn't benefit the story at all, only alienates the reader. But in spite of all that the series does have promise. The story, once you cut away the unnecessary parts, is both exciting and intriguing. The characters for all of their flaws, breed curiosity. I just hope for the sequels the author drops the unnecessary parts of the story and stops tripping himself with plot devices that bear no fruit nor do they drive the plot or character development.

[NetGalley Read #22]
3.25 ⭐

Mixed bag.
Some good. Some bad.

PART I: End Your Life as You Know It
- A lot of exposition in the first few chapters. Reading three chapters of constant talking about the details of the Mars mission feels a bit tedious. The dialogue also feels a bit... I don't know, mechanical.
The references. All the talking that's doing nothing for me, to make me feel (anything really) for these characters.
I did like the story about the founders of Macopro. There was conflict. There was sabotage. There was a twist in that little story contained inside a chapter. That part was good.

- It's getting better as I read Chapter 6. Still a lot of exposition. But feels more interesting than that in the earlier chapters.

- This is getting jargon heavy again. And a bit pretentious. I find myself, again, feeling what I felt in the earlier chapters: bogged down in so so much exposition.

PART II: The First Trimester
- The second part, the actual voyage, is well written. The relationships between Eve and Colfax and that of the other crew members are interesting.
The twists, the conflicts, interpersonal relationships, while they are well-written, drag a bit sometimes.
The ending is... well, bleak.

Did not know this was part one of a three part series. Probably should have checked first.

A bit frustrating. It feels like this went longer where it didn't need to. At the same time, it feels shorter given all the elements it introduced.

With people like Musk promoting the idea that the solution to our wrecking the earth's ecosystem is to decamp to Mars, this book addresses an important issue. I must say that I was not really satisfied with the way that it did that. It did not really address the issue of if the resources spent on colonising Mars would have been better spent on fixing the earth. What it does make very clear is that the problems on earth that are caused by issues like the greed and duplicity of people will be just as much a problem in a new colony. The people who leave for Mars fly around in private jets, apparently oblivious to their own environmental impact. (Incidentally, Airbus planes are made in Europe, not America, that's a strange mistake to make). <spoiler>A plot is uncovered to kill most people, but they don't seem to feel the need to do anything about it.</spoiler> It is unfortunately hard to imagine that with the level of environmental damage described in the book that there will still be any corals around in a few decades. They are vulnerable and close to extinction today.
The book is quite funny in parts, with amusing digs at Tump and so on. It is easy to be read, although there are some rather long philosophical dialogues which got a bit tedious. It does not go into overdrive describing the new technologies which will inevitably have been invented in the coming decades. Rather strangely, it goes into great detail explaining how AR glasses work in a manner which is very close indeed to present-day technology. The author doesn't seem to have used their imagination much in thinking how things might have developed in the future. It is set in the future, but feels very close to the present day.
In summary, I am glad I read the book, but it was not great.

This review is based on a free copy of the book provided by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

First of all, I would like to mention the amazing prose written in this book. The vocabulary used to keep up with Colfax’s intelligence is fantastic, and often can paint an exciting picture for the reader. Sometimes, however, the big words felt forced and occasionally felt exhausting to read.

I was really invested in the interactions between the crew on the Ark. All of them had unique perspectives and I enjoyed it when the book dove into their conversations. More on the characters, all of them had incredibly unique backstories that influenced their perspectives. Even in the beginning, I felt like I could understand the histories behind the families and relationships mentioned.

It’s also important to mention how relevant this book is. It is placed in the future of a world that is very obviously based in current events. Names like Trump and Putin are thrown around multiple times. It describes the future of the climate crisis that we are dealing with in the present. Reading this book opens the reader to the future of our world, and how current events are influencing our lives.

For me, the beginning was one of the weaker parts of the book. The exposition about the world that was provided had a bit of an ‘all-over-the-place’ feel, and it was difficult for me at first to understand the environment that these characters were living in. The pacing in the beginning was strange, too, often having chapter breaks in the middle of conversations.

The dialogue also occasionally felt uncharacteristic. While there was characterization clearly applied to the content of the dialogue, the format in which they were speaking was not unique. Most people spoke in paragraphs as well, which is not how people speak in real life. It sometimes felt that the characters were explaining their world to the other people in their world as a way of explaining things to the reader. This could have been a bit more realistic.

Overall, I gave this book a 3.5/5 stars.

Thanks!

I enjoyed this book! I love the futuristic science fiction world imagined here in this story, and seeing all the possible future outcomes that could occur. It was thrilling and scary to read, but in a good way that kept me on the edge of my seat!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

I liked the premise of the novel and was keen to see the story develop. However, the slow start, the dissertation on oligarchy and environmental dissolution got in the way of a potential and exciting narrative and I did not finish.

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to review this.

It's starts off with a typical dystopian world, which is very possible at some point in the near future of our world. With oligarchs ruling most of everything and everyone's lives depending on how important and what work they can do to serve the oligarchs .

The world is dying as we know it and story is based around 10 people selected to go to Mars in order to I guess preserve and save humanity. The person who is funding this is also an oligarch who is I guess according to the story the one good egg in the basket (jk no oligarch is good)

I think it's an interesting concept, but I didn't see anything new in terms of how one of these dystopian, let's save the earth type of story goes. I did like a lot of the diverse cast that were included but I have to say they were as individuals a bit shallow, as a POC, this was evident. I also understand religious trauma when I see it but I didn't really understand why this was such a key piece in a science fiction book but then I did have a look through the author's other content and it gave me some basis of understanding.

This book blends science fiction with spiritual/philosophical reflection, imagining a possible near-future 21st century. The story follows a diverse group who embark on a final voyage to Mars, which aims to save a select few while leaving the majority of humanity to face the consequences of the climate crisis. The plot explores the challenges of survival, the complexities of human relationships, and the search for meaning in a world on the brink of extinction. It has a long introduction that is somewhat theoretical with little action, but this picks up later in the book.

The main protagonists are Colfax and the younger Eve. Colfax is from the older generation who through the excesses of wealth and a disregard for the environment have made the crisis possible. He unfortunately comes across as rather stereotypical, and unsympathetic, Eve on the other hand represents the younger generation searching for a meaning and purpose.
Initially, she views him with suspicion and distrust, a symbol of wealth and privilege and questions his motives and the ethics of his Mars project,
However, as the journey progresses, their relationship evolves, she begins to see a different side of him, his genuine concern for humanity and its survival. Colfax, in turn, is also challenged and begins to re-evaluate his own assumptions and beliefs.

The writing style is accessible and engaging, delving into complex scientific and theological ideas, perhaps in a little too much detail, as the narrative sometimes feels a bit preachy and a “tell” rather than “show” format.

It is however, a thought-provoking read that raises important questions about the future of humanity climate change, environmentalism, social justice, and the role of faith in addressing the challenges we face. While the narrative and character development could be stronger, the book's exploration of these themes is compelling.

Hodder Faith (An imprint of John Murray Press) provided a complimentary advanced reader copy ARC , for an honest review. My thanks Brian McLaren the author, the publishers and to NetGalley. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

I have read most of McClaren’s work over the years, so I was excited to see he was shifting lanes into fiction again! I found the premise such an interesting one: Earth is in peril, oligarchs rule the world, and a tiny team of people are taking the last voyage to the colony on Mars in hopes of building a better future for humanity. The symbolism of Noah’s ark isn’t lost on this former evangelical.

I found the first half a bit tedious and preachy/idealistic at times. I wanted him to show me, instead of tell me, what happened to make this voyage necessary. So much of the world building occurs through dialogue, and the story would have been better served to include flashbacks from life on earth as it deteriorated. Colfax in particular is so pretentious in his dialogue that it becomes annoying and makes scenes with him sometimes feel less accessible.

That said, this novel, and ultimately the series, raises absolutely fascinating questions about the future of humanity, colonization, ethics, morality, religion and its role in government, and so much more. The last 30% or so of the book was so engaging and interesting that I wanted more of the story. It ended just as these characters started to feel like real, flawed relatable characters.

I will read the next book and hope it tightens up the pace a bit.

I thought this book had a lot of potential. I loved the setting and overall plot. Where it lost me was in the prose and style of the writing. Especially with dialogue for Colfax, I get that’s part of his character, but no one speaks like that.

Thank you Net Galley for the ARC. When I first started to read the book, it appeared to be a plausible dystopian future that we seem to be on a fast track towards. With Oligarchs in control, it felt very relevant to the state of the world today. The path that they are on, no one should have that much power and control. Going to Mars does look to be an adventure of a lifetime. Then you think about the repercussions and the toll and mental strength it takes to leave behind everyone and everything you know.

I liked how the author talked about how this group with their different backgrounds, and faith clashed and tried to make sense of what was happening. Thurman stuck out with his story about how he needed to prove himself to show that he was worthy of the respect, and it is a battle that I have experienced and others that I know have. To me his story was soul crushing and familiar. It was more than just a trip to Mars, it went deeper than that with the dynamics and the other factors at play.

Eve and Colfax, their clash between faith and non faith was fascinating to read, with both digging in. Eve attempting to at least understand her father’s point of view. I can see where they both are coming from. No one likes to feel belittled or made to be feel ashamed of what they believe because it doesn’t fall in line with others and how they think you should believe. Eve for her part, did acknowledge that she did come on too strong with her father but Colfax could have handled their conflict a bit better with his reaction.

“This loneliness feels like a black hole inside a black hole within a black hole. Infinite gravity all the way down, an infinite gravity all the way down, an infinite ravenous insatiable abyss.” Out of all the lines in the book, this one stuck out to me the most. Overall, we characters questioning their faith, their world and themselves and that feeling as a whole is a deep loneliness. People want to be understood and to have clashing personalities and beliefs it easy to fall in tribalism or to be cast out instead of coming together.

In the end this story sounded like a warning to me. A warning what could happen to humanity if we did not change course. I am very relieved to see that this is not the end of the series and that there is more to come. I can’t wait to see how this plays out and with the characters coming to terms with their own internal battles while making sense of the truth of why they are on this trip and what has happened to humanity.

The Last Voyage by Brian D. McLaren







Before I start - I was given the opportunity to read this ARC before it was published for an honest review - from NetGalley. This is my review!



The Last Voyage will be published on July 31, 2025. Book one of three.

In the future, the world will be ruled by oligarchs' - who will give "power" to politicians and governments around the world - but the true rulers are the oligarchs. (This is the books premise).



Well basically the oligarchs' do not care for humanity the planet - gasp - just on getting more money, raping the land of more resources. Until they kill it. The Last Voyage is the last group of ten attempting to get to Mars. It is funded by the "last good oligarch.

The book begins by meeting one of the main scientists leaving her country -all cloak and dagger and carrying cyanide pills on her jewelry. Then you meet the two big characters - maybe three - Eve and her father and then one of the oligarchs. Eve has multiple degrees, but is not a scientist, she is more of a Christian religious expert - the problem on the Mars base is people keep committing suicide and they are sending her there to figure out why. She wants her father to come - who is a scientist and an atheist, or else she is not going to go. Her father has lost his wife, his lover (she goes back to her husband) and is super intelligent and honestly at times my eyes were glassed over reading his dialogue.

They agree to go - go to one location that is secret to train to leave - with the others - where the location is targeted and attacked by the other oligarchs - so they leave and go another location - minus two of the ten to leave (they are taken as hostages). They managed to talk, the other eight, to get the two oligarchs to come to them with Mars.

So the rest of the book, and really I kept telling my hubby who can they get to Mars, there is only 80 more pages to the book, but there will be two more books, The rest of the book is a lot of proselytizing - to the Christian faith - while Eve's father made my eyes glassy with his intensive vocabulary Eve's constantly bashing us over our head about the Christian faith made me skim over entire parts of the book. Remember she has to solve why people are committing suicide on the base - well it turns out some were killing themselves - but there is a serial murdered up there with them. lol. Which makes the pilot want to turn the ship around and go back to Earth that is dying. In the end they decide to continue to Mars.

Overall, I really liked the book - I am an atheist also so this constant harping of Christianity but frankly all religion was to much. I mean haven't we fought enough wars and destroyed a planet in the name of religion? Also, the preachers were the oligarchs' bitches also. lol. There is a good combination of other faiths and ethnicities on the ship - and also a nonbinary person (that caused some reviewers to go ape shit on goodreads). I guess they think only white Christians were worth saving.

Overall, I would give this book a 4.5 and I know I cannot wait for the other two books to come out! Thank you for allowing me the chance to read it.

In a sci fi book I don't want to read about things in my world or the reality the reader is in. Make brands up and build the world with new stuff. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Though set in the future, I felt like I was watching scenes from today as the characters discuss the evils of oligarchy, ignoring climate change and the like. The books is a unique combination of science, religion, thriller, and scifi with a wide variety of characters (some you like, others probably not so much).