by My choice of books have always been restricted to crime stories, humor and general fiction. When it comes to science fiction, I usually preferred to see them in the big screen and never really gave it a try. Especially the ones involving aliens, spacecrafts, futuristic stories etc.
Some of my favourite movies in this regard includes Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Star Wars (I – VII), Alien, Gravity, Interstellar among others. The most recent science fiction movie on spaceships that impressed me was Passengers
So when I received a copy of the recently released “Europa” by Hywell Richard Pinto, I was quite intrigued. What will it be like? How does one imagine about the things that will happen 200 years later? What kind of technology would exist that could be integrated in the storyline.
The story was set in the year 2250, and primarily about a special mission on deep space exploration and the unfortunate incidents that happened inside the spacecraft.
The story was set in the year 2250, and primarily about a special mission on deep space exploration and the unfortunate incidents that happened inside the spacecraft.
Story in brief (Skip the next two paras if you don’t want to know the plot)
Set in a futuristic timeline, space missions to moons and planets is quite common, possibly in hope of settling there at some point of time. A top secret government organization involved in this space missions has some rogue elements inside that wants to sabotage the mission as well as stealing the information.
The government orders a special search and rescue mission to find some missing crew from a previous missing and also utilize the opportunity to research on the living conditions of the planet. In parallel, a shadowy organization in connection with top politicians wants to gain access into this spacecraft, Silver star and get the samples smuggled.
Meanwhile inside the Silver Star spacecraft, the captain finds himself away barely six months into the 2 year mission, with more than 18 months to go. He’s not alone and finds that there are three other officers who have been “mistakenly” awakened”, if so to be believed. Why did it happen? Was it a medical or a technical mistake? Or was he intentionally given a wrong dosage ? Or Did someone wake him up aboard the ship. As the days goes by, the four of them find one of the crew members murdered and that gets things even more suspicious. Soon after the mission the captain finds himself implicated for the murders and the prime suspect. Can he battle his way forward in the trial and emerge as an innocent victim or is there more to the eye, than what it seems?
The storytelling is crisp, to the point and gets into the story quite quickly. Hywel has managed to deliver a good book , especially as a debut author and certainly has immense potential to delve into this science fiction series even more. With less than 200 pages, the book is a breezy read and tends to avoid lengthy descriptions which comes as a big Plus. I managed to finish it less than two days and would recommend it for a casual read .
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