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Days Until Home
On a routine mining mission to the asteroid belt, the crew of the Kerwood is mired in their personal concerns: finishing quickly, getting home, earning a fair share of the profits. Until the ship experiences catastrophic failure on the return journey.
Now they must put aside their petty worries if they're to have any hope of getting home alive. Will the crew find a way to set a course for Earth with their payload--or will they discover the disaster was orchestrated by someone who doesn't want them to return home at all?
Now they must put aside their petty worries if they're to have any hope of getting home alive. Will the crew find a way to set a course for Earth with their payload--or will they discover the disaster was orchestrated by someone who doesn't want them to return home at all?
390 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2017
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
David Kristoph
28 books42 followersI live with my wonderful wife and two not-quite German Shepherds. I'm a fantastic reader, great videogamer, good chess player, average cyclist, and mediocre runner. I'm also a member of the Planetary Society, a patron of StarTalk Radio, and an amateur astronomer and general space enthusiast.
Feel free to contact me at David.Kristoph@gmail.com, as long as you're not a spam-robot trying to sell me penis pills.
Feel free to contact me at David.Kristoph@gmail.com, as long as you're not a spam-robot trying to sell me penis pills.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 30, 2017
If you like a book where anything that can go wrong does go wrong Days Until Home is for you. The crew of the Kenwood have to deal with a little bit of every kind of danger starting with sabotage. The characters are interesting and the science sounds very real. An interesting book. I have to admit I got a little tired of all the disaster as I read the book. I was also still in the dark about some of the characters as the story ended.
I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.
I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.
July 14, 2017
What an interesting idea for writing and structuring a book.
I couldn't tell one author's sections from another - so the book/narrative flowed well. The story kept me reading, and kept me guessing whodunit right up until the end. Which I think was the point.
Interesting characters, interesting backstories, interesting world-building.
Good stuff!
I couldn't tell one author's sections from another - so the book/narrative flowed well. The story kept me reading, and kept me guessing whodunit right up until the end. Which I think was the point.
Interesting characters, interesting backstories, interesting world-building.
Good stuff!
July 2, 2017
Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Days Until Home
By: Mark Gardner, Greg Dragon, David Kristoph
Release Date: 07/04/2017
Overall Rating: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing: 2/5
Days Until Home is a collaborative novel written by three different authors. It tells the story of the mining ship Kerwood and its crew as they pull a normal mining contract on an asteroid and prepare to go home. A massive explosion cripples the ship and leaves the crew and miners struggling to recover both physically and emotionally from the devastation.
I really wanted to love this book. I was primed for it: hard sci-fi is what I grew up reading. I was excited about the potential of the blurb I read, which is why I requested the ARC from NetGalley in the first place. Unfortunately, this piece remains potential without a backbone. Most of the problems with the book can be traced back to its collaborative nature, unfortunately. I suspect it was way more fun to write than it was to read, speaking from the experience of a collaborative fiction writer (hi, Robin!).
For me, it came down to too many cooks in the kitchen. I found it nearly impossible to identify a main character, which given the multiple red herrings and switchbacks that the authors used, was probably intentional. There were so many named characters who had no depth or background beyond their presence in the crew of the Kerwood that I almost needed a chart to keep track of them and who they were sleeping with, affiliated with, and distrusted by. They all had potential depth, but they weren't important enough to the story to get more than a first name, a hair color, and a death scene.
In my notes as I was reading this, I reached the one-third point still filled with hope and excitement. I could see that the writers had the ability to build suspense and drive the plot forward. The sad part was that all that suspense was quickly resolved and drifted off to follow another aspect of the story. Instead of staying closely tied to a few characters, I read from the point of so many that I wasn't even sure who I was supposed to be cheering for.
Additionally, from a diversity in sci-fi perspective, I was very disappointed in the society that was built in this story. One of the protagonists, Viktor, is frequently cited as being Russian, with a thick Balkan accent, but this seems to be only an affectation. His perspective is the same as all the other characters, with nothing in it to make him uniquely Russian. For that matter, why is Earth still using the same country designations this far into the future, when it seems that country lines have been put aside in favor of planetary or settlement affiliations?
While I applaud the inclusion of women in space, especially those who apparently have a lesbian or bisexual orientation, most of the women seem to be either crazy, sexually attractive, or sexually neutral but loyal. Dialog between female characters was woefully under-researched; they talked to each other like heroines from a romance novel, all figurative imagery and earnest fluff. For that matter, one of the red herrings (spoilers) centers on the idea that women can't stand the conditions in space and so they build an illicit shower in one of the holding tanks and sold shower time to the other female crew members.
In conclusion, if this had been written by only one or two of the authors, it might have been a decent hard sci-fi novel. As it stands, I found it a meandering and underdeveloped read.
Days Until Home
By: Mark Gardner, Greg Dragon, David Kristoph
Release Date: 07/04/2017
Overall Rating: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing: 2/5
Days Until Home is a collaborative novel written by three different authors. It tells the story of the mining ship Kerwood and its crew as they pull a normal mining contract on an asteroid and prepare to go home. A massive explosion cripples the ship and leaves the crew and miners struggling to recover both physically and emotionally from the devastation.
I really wanted to love this book. I was primed for it: hard sci-fi is what I grew up reading. I was excited about the potential of the blurb I read, which is why I requested the ARC from NetGalley in the first place. Unfortunately, this piece remains potential without a backbone. Most of the problems with the book can be traced back to its collaborative nature, unfortunately. I suspect it was way more fun to write than it was to read, speaking from the experience of a collaborative fiction writer (hi, Robin!).
For me, it came down to too many cooks in the kitchen. I found it nearly impossible to identify a main character, which given the multiple red herrings and switchbacks that the authors used, was probably intentional. There were so many named characters who had no depth or background beyond their presence in the crew of the Kerwood that I almost needed a chart to keep track of them and who they were sleeping with, affiliated with, and distrusted by. They all had potential depth, but they weren't important enough to the story to get more than a first name, a hair color, and a death scene.
In my notes as I was reading this, I reached the one-third point still filled with hope and excitement. I could see that the writers had the ability to build suspense and drive the plot forward. The sad part was that all that suspense was quickly resolved and drifted off to follow another aspect of the story. Instead of staying closely tied to a few characters, I read from the point of so many that I wasn't even sure who I was supposed to be cheering for.
Additionally, from a diversity in sci-fi perspective, I was very disappointed in the society that was built in this story. One of the protagonists, Viktor, is frequently cited as being Russian, with a thick Balkan accent, but this seems to be only an affectation. His perspective is the same as all the other characters, with nothing in it to make him uniquely Russian. For that matter, why is Earth still using the same country designations this far into the future, when it seems that country lines have been put aside in favor of planetary or settlement affiliations?
While I applaud the inclusion of women in space, especially those who apparently have a lesbian or bisexual orientation, most of the women seem to be either crazy, sexually attractive, or sexually neutral but loyal. Dialog between female characters was woefully under-researched; they talked to each other like heroines from a romance novel, all figurative imagery and earnest fluff. For that matter, one of the red herrings (spoilers) centers on the idea that women can't stand the conditions in space and so they build an illicit shower in one of the holding tanks and sold shower time to the other female crew members.
In conclusion, if this had been written by only one or two of the authors, it might have been a decent hard sci-fi novel. As it stands, I found it a meandering and underdeveloped read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2018
"Days Until Home" eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Mark Gardner (https://article94.com/), Greg Dragon (https://gregdragon.com/) and David Kristoph (http://www.davidkristoph.com). Mr. Gardner has published 10 novels, Mr. Dragon has published a dozen novels, and Mr. Kristoph has published 17 novels.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in the near future. Earth has expanded within the Solar System. This particular story is about a ship and crew who are mining in the asteroid belt.
They launch back towards Earth with a load of very valuable minerals. Soon after launch there is a massive explosion. The those that survive the blast must find a way to sustain themselves back to Earth. Miraculously they are soon rescued, but was this ship just coincidentally close by or was it there by prior arrangement? Was the blast sabotage rather than an accident?
I really enjoyed the 8.5 hours I spent reading this 356 page science fiction novel. This was a different science fiction tale. I liked the struggle to survive that the crew experienced. Not only did they need to solve the technical problems arising from the disaster, but they had to deal with paranoia (not always imagined) and personnel conflicts. The cover art is OK, but I think that their damages ship would have been better. I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in the near future. Earth has expanded within the Solar System. This particular story is about a ship and crew who are mining in the asteroid belt.
They launch back towards Earth with a load of very valuable minerals. Soon after launch there is a massive explosion. The those that survive the blast must find a way to sustain themselves back to Earth. Miraculously they are soon rescued, but was this ship just coincidentally close by or was it there by prior arrangement? Was the blast sabotage rather than an accident?
I really enjoyed the 8.5 hours I spent reading this 356 page science fiction novel. This was a different science fiction tale. I liked the struggle to survive that the crew experienced. Not only did they need to solve the technical problems arising from the disaster, but they had to deal with paranoia (not always imagined) and personnel conflicts. The cover art is OK, but I think that their damages ship would have been better. I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
December 1, 2017
I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
I found this story very disjointed with each chapter having been written by a different author.
3 authors in total.
I just did not enjoy this.
I found this story very disjointed with each chapter having been written by a different author.
3 authors in total.
I just did not enjoy this.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews