3.5
The Last Astronaut
ByPublisher Description
Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020!
"A terrifying tour de force." --James Rollins
"Readers will be riveted." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet anonymity, convinced her days in space are over.
She's wrong.
A large alien object has entered the solar system on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate. Out of time and out of options, NASA turns to Jansen.
But as the object reveals its secrets, Jansen and her crew find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival -- against the cold vacuum of space, and something far, far worse...
"Breathless, compulsive reading." --Christopher Golden
"A suspenseful, fast-paced story of first contact." --Kirkus
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Last Astronaut Reviews
3.5
“little bit of a slow start for me but it didn’t take long until i couldn’t put it down. the gradual reveal throughout this book is a big reason for the five stars, as well as the 3-dimensional characters that i couldn’t help but emphasise with. i was excited to read this and i was still shocked by how much i enjoyed it”
“Overall: 3.5ish stars which is a bit disappointing.
Plot idea: A-
Plot execution 2.something
Characters: F
Writing: 4/10
The plot idea is great: something alien is on its way to earth in the near future and everyone is scrambling to figure it out and what to do about it.
The execution leaves so much to be desired. It’s called the last astronaut but … she’s not the last. There are 6 people who go into space. And the titular Last Astronaut is just awful as a character. Makes repeated bad decision after decision that isn’t and can’t be justified by the in-universe reasoning. The characters (mostly) are one-dimensional - but I do applaud the racial diversity.
The alien object idea is very fun and the descriptions of it, though they do go on forever, can be evocative and represent something I haven’t read before.
But the writing. Oh the writing. It’s not great. I wish it were better. I wish it had explored the ideas more. It seems like maybe there was a plot and a desire to make it more about the horror of the experience? Is it a horror book and not a sci fi book? I dunno.
I wanted so badly for it to be more than it was.”
“This was surprisingly such an amazing book. I rarely read sci-fi novels because it’s a genre that I don’t tend to gravitate towards. However, I’m so glad I got to read this one. It had a good plot, and multiple POVs that kept the reader engaged.”
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