Crater’s Edge by Lucy Andrews
Crater’s Edge by Lucy Andrews[image error]
You know me by now, a sucker for holes – the ones in the ground. Hence my POTHOLE short story about a small hole that doubles in size every day until… argh! To be featured in my INCREMENTAL collection coming out in 2018
Then there is EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEE with its Best SF novel award (runner up) in 2008 where alien artefacts emerge from the crust leaving behind rather deep holes. Here it is
Not to forget my short story THE MEMORY ROCK when a meteorite makes a hole in my nearby village of Dodleston. A free read here http://thewifiles.com/?p=631
I wonder if this interest in earthly voids started when taking Geography students into Snowdonia and visiting various slate quarries. Especially the vast one near [image error]Bethesda. Penrhyn quarry was the world’s largest at the end of the C19th.
Let’s get right up to date with these new holes. They’re craters on a far-away planet in the far future and thought up by British author Lucy Andrews in her debut SF novel, CRATER’S EDGE published by Solstice Publishing in November 2017.
In 2235 on a distant planet, mining operations are grinding to a halt as mysterious forces, or sabotage, strange geology, or bad luck trigger accidents. Trouble-shooting engineer, Kalen, is sent to Three Craters, but nothing goes smoothly. Even his love-life takes odd turns and his suspicions of a cover-up multiplies in this thrilling page turner.
Most of the point of view is through Kalen interspersed with that from a curious young geologist, Sera. Initially, she is hateful of men—a misandrist—from past bad experiences. Even the hot-blooded Kalen doesn’t like her attitude, until circumstances forces a skin-to-skin contact, a warm one. Warmth needed because strangely on Three Craters, it is cold down the levels in the mine. On Earth temperature increases by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius per 100 metres depth, but that’s what I like about outer space worlds: they can be very different. Back to Sera, she’s religious 2235 AD style. As an atheist I shy from formal religious components in my stories, but Andrews shows how I don’t need to. Do the religious community win out in the end? They should with the God-Force on their side…
Much of the action is underground, very deep down. You start in a deep crater and get deeper. The skill of the writing is such that you can feel the thrum of the drills and the heat of the lasers through your armchair.
In fact so much action and relationship issues occur underground that the cover art could be said to be rather misleading with its futuristic skyscrapers under a blue sky. That happens too, but with tongue-in-cheek I’d suggest this image of a tunnel boring machine is more representative 
