Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It's an amusing story, but is not science fiction. It's romantic space fantasy. Ms Wells knows her biology, but little else. She clearly knows literally nothing about astronauts, astronaut training, or NASA. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with space fantasy, but know what you're getting. For example, in the opening chapter, the Mission Commander is manually docking their capsule with an alien spacecraft, while the rest of the crew talks non-stop, arguing and back-seat driving. Once docked, it's time to go exploring. The protagonist can't remember how to put her suit on properly, "I thought I only needed to wear the diaper during launch and reentry". This mission wasn't a last-minute emergency; it was a normal NASA planned space mission. Which means the astronauts spent a year or more practicing this stuff, full-time, every day, until it not only became automatic, but the response to every possible failure NASA could think of would be automatic, too. Then, because the ship appears to be empty, NASA orders the crew to have their guns in their hands as they proceed. Huh? Because there's no apparent threat, fully space-suited astronauts are going to tie up one hand holding a gun as they make their way down a dark, weightless, unfamiliar corridor? Later, they are told to "keep your sidearms handy" while they sleep. Right, there are LOTS of directions you could fire a gun in a crowed space capsule (sounds about the size of a SpaceX Dragon or Orion) that won't kill a crew member of destroy some piece of equipment everyone needs to get home. While several of them are floating down that corridor with guns drawn, artificial gravity comes on abruptly. They fall into a heap, but nobody gets shot! Waste of a great slapstick opportunity there. :) Next there was a flashback to when they were still on Earth. In that scene, one of the astronaut-candidates shows clear symptoms of claustrophobia...but NASA never notices and sends him on a multi-year mission. Oh, and how do we dock with an alien ship? Well, NASA used the Hubble and Mars Observer telescopes to determine the exact dimensions of the alien docking port, obviously. From 60-110 million miles! That was the first two chapters. The whole book's like that. If you think I'm just nit-picking about stuff that doesn't matter, then you might have a fun read here. Otherwise, keep shopping. Fluency is much closer to being a Twilight novel than to The Martian.