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geekwayne's review
4.0
'Aurora: Darwin' by Amanda Bridgeman is a pretty fair space opera full of decent suspense and action. That sort of tails off in an ending that seems to drag on too long.
In a not too distant future, we have conquered space flight and we are out fighting space pirates. That's what Captain Saul Harris and his crew of the Aurora do for the United National Forces. This time around, they are responding to the lack of communication from a science station. To make things more interesting, they have three female recruits aboard to test the waters of allowing females to travel into the farther reaches of space. In this future, there is still sexism though, so the women won't have to easiest time of things. Added to that, they've been ordered to stay on the ship and not board the science vessel Darwin when the Aurora docks with it. Strangest enough is what awaits them when they get to the Darwin.
I'm used to my United Federation of Space, so the idea of advanced technology and sexism was a bit jarring, but probably not unrealistic. The character interactions weren't too bad. I liked the mystery and action, but the wrap up seemed to take a long time. A lot of it is set up for future books, but I'd have preferred a quicker finish to things, especially because they seemed a bit inevitable. It's a good first outing, and I'll gladly read the next book.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Pan Macmillan, Momentum and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
In a not too distant future, we have conquered space flight and we are out fighting space pirates. That's what Captain Saul Harris and his crew of the Aurora do for the United National Forces. This time around, they are responding to the lack of communication from a science station. To make things more interesting, they have three female recruits aboard to test the waters of allowing females to travel into the farther reaches of space. In this future, there is still sexism though, so the women won't have to easiest time of things. Added to that, they've been ordered to stay on the ship and not board the science vessel Darwin when the Aurora docks with it. Strangest enough is what awaits them when they get to the Darwin.
I'm used to my United Federation of Space, so the idea of advanced technology and sexism was a bit jarring, but probably not unrealistic. The character interactions weren't too bad. I liked the mystery and action, but the wrap up seemed to take a long time. A lot of it is set up for future books, but I'd have preferred a quicker finish to things, especially because they seemed a bit inevitable. It's a good first outing, and I'll gladly read the next book.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Pan Macmillan, Momentum and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
someonetookit's review against another edition
4.0
One again Amanda does a great job bringing the audience into the world of the near future.
Full of spacey goodness with a heart of gold, the crew of the Aurora are effectively astronauts but also army special ops. Having been recruited to investigate a conms error on a science ship, they very quickly realise things are not as they seem.
If you like guns, action and sarcastic bastards, this is definitely the book for you
Full of spacey goodness with a heart of gold, the crew of the Aurora are effectively astronauts but also army special ops. Having been recruited to investigate a conms error on a science ship, they very quickly realise things are not as they seem.
If you like guns, action and sarcastic bastards, this is definitely the book for you
brucethegirl's review
4.0
Oh wow! I LOVED this book. I'm a huge fan of space operas without the heavy sci fi details that can sometimes drown a good story. This is perfect for sci fi fans who also love a story about capable women who are more than Decorative figures, strong characterization driven stories, and a sense of adventure without having to run into aliens or distant galaxies.
nakedsteve's review
3.0
I received this book as part of the Goodreads first-reads program, which means: free!
But hm. So this is sort of supposed to be military sci-fi, but it feels that way only in the way it hits all of the most negative of military stereotypes. The misogyny was so thick you could cut it with a knife. We had our protagonist, a woman with a military father, joining an existing all-male team (along with another pair of women) as an “experiment” in how women do in the military. The men all acted cringingly awful toward the women. And the women didn’t help, as the “inner monologue” that seemed to go on was all about which features of the men were attractive.
What is Bridgeman trying to accomplish with this? Is it a statement against sexism? It really doesn’t work. Even the most dated sci-fi treats women with misplaced protectionism. Not this unrealistic passive-aggressive nonsense. All we got here were characters to dislike. In the 2010s, I expect my future-facing fiction to show improvement in gender relationships. Not back-sliding.
And the length! Good grief this book is long. Finally, about four hundred pages in, the plot actually started to get interesting. But seriously, 400 pages? It was way too long.
And the physics! Let me just slam my head into the wall. We can hand wave away a lot, but when the characters themselves don’t even have a reasonable grasps of things as simple as distance between planetary objects, it just falls apart.
Was it a good book? No, not really. It got interesting about two thirds of the way in, but really, that’s too late. That ‘interstingness’ keeps the rating at three stars, but there are a lot of parts of this one dragging it down.
3 of 5 stars.
But hm. So this is sort of supposed to be military sci-fi, but it feels that way only in the way it hits all of the most negative of military stereotypes. The misogyny was so thick you could cut it with a knife. We had our protagonist, a woman with a military father, joining an existing all-male team (along with another pair of women) as an “experiment” in how women do in the military. The men all acted cringingly awful toward the women. And the women didn’t help, as the “inner monologue” that seemed to go on was all about which features of the men were attractive.
What is Bridgeman trying to accomplish with this? Is it a statement against sexism? It really doesn’t work. Even the most dated sci-fi treats women with misplaced protectionism. Not this unrealistic passive-aggressive nonsense. All we got here were characters to dislike. In the 2010s, I expect my future-facing fiction to show improvement in gender relationships. Not back-sliding.
And the length! Good grief this book is long. Finally, about four hundred pages in, the plot actually started to get interesting. But seriously, 400 pages? It was way too long.
And the physics! Let me just slam my head into the wall. We can hand wave away a lot, but when the characters themselves don’t even have a reasonable grasps of things as simple as distance between planetary objects, it just falls apart.
Was it a good book? No, not really. It got interesting about two thirds of the way in, but really, that’s too late. That ‘interstingness’ keeps the rating at three stars, but there are a lot of parts of this one dragging it down.
3 of 5 stars.
hdungey's review
2.0
Clumsy, poorly thought out and badly written despite an interesting premise. DNF: I couldn't take the bad writing after 61%
calissa's review
4.0
Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What's the first thing I do after signing up for a fantasy reading challenge? Why, dive into some science fiction, of course! What makes this weirder is that I'm not a huge sci-fi reader. However, Amanda and I travel in some of the same circles, so when there was an opportunity to check out the first of her series on NetGalley I decided to give it a go.
I'm glad I did. If you're the sort of person who wants to know how gravity is generated on board the Aurora or why the spaceship is so big in comparison to current technology, this is not going to be the book for you. This is soft sci-fi, preferring to concentrate on the relationships between characters rather than scientific details. It particularly touches on what it is like to be a woman in a male-dominated sphere.
Carrie is a relatively likeable character, being hard-working and passionate. She also has her flaws, one of which is a huge chip on her shoulder. Of the three female recruits to the Aurora, she is the one that deals most poorly with the harassment she receives at the hands of the other crew members. This may be because she is the only female recruit who specialises in combat--being a sharp-shooter--and she strives to prove she is just as good as her male counterparts at everything, even when her petite build makes that physically impossible. She verges on annoyingly foolish sometimes with the way she argues with her superior officers, but she gained back some respect from me by being quick to admit her mistakes.
There is a diverse mix of races and nationalities among the other crew members but I found the characterisation to be a bit shallow. Class differences came a little more into play, but the focus was very much on binary gender differences in a heterosexual context. This focus was somewhat integral to the plot but I hope to see more genuine diversity later in the series.
The beginning was a little rough and verged on info-dumping in places, especially when it came to setting the scene of Fort Centralis. There was also some awkwardness with abbreviations and acronyms that were mentioned once and then never come up again in the novel. However, once it got started, it was well-paced and I devoured it in no time. Some may feel the wrap-up was a bit drawn out, but I felt it held the tension well and played to that focus on character relationships, though there were elements I didn't agree with.
Safe to say I'm hooked. I've already snagged the next two in the series and am looking forward to diving in.
This review first appeared on Earl Grey Editing.
What's the first thing I do after signing up for a fantasy reading challenge? Why, dive into some science fiction, of course! What makes this weirder is that I'm not a huge sci-fi reader. However, Amanda and I travel in some of the same circles, so when there was an opportunity to check out the first of her series on NetGalley I decided to give it a go.
I'm glad I did. If you're the sort of person who wants to know how gravity is generated on board the Aurora or why the spaceship is so big in comparison to current technology, this is not going to be the book for you. This is soft sci-fi, preferring to concentrate on the relationships between characters rather than scientific details. It particularly touches on what it is like to be a woman in a male-dominated sphere.
Carrie is a relatively likeable character, being hard-working and passionate. She also has her flaws, one of which is a huge chip on her shoulder. Of the three female recruits to the Aurora, she is the one that deals most poorly with the harassment she receives at the hands of the other crew members. This may be because she is the only female recruit who specialises in combat--being a sharp-shooter--and she strives to prove she is just as good as her male counterparts at everything, even when her petite build makes that physically impossible. She verges on annoyingly foolish sometimes with the way she argues with her superior officers, but she gained back some respect from me by being quick to admit her mistakes.
There is a diverse mix of races and nationalities among the other crew members but I found the characterisation to be a bit shallow. Class differences came a little more into play, but the focus was very much on binary gender differences in a heterosexual context. This focus was somewhat integral to the plot but I hope to see more genuine diversity later in the series.
The beginning was a little rough and verged on info-dumping in places, especially when it came to setting the scene of Fort Centralis. There was also some awkwardness with abbreviations and acronyms that were mentioned once and then never come up again in the novel. However, once it got started, it was well-paced and I devoured it in no time. Some may feel the wrap-up was a bit drawn out, but I felt it held the tension well and played to that focus on character relationships, though there were elements I didn't agree with.
Safe to say I'm hooked. I've already snagged the next two in the series and am looking forward to diving in.
This review first appeared on Earl Grey Editing.
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