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I received a free ecopy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Captain Lincoln has always known his last day, his eightieth birthday, was coming, but it's still the hardest day of his life. Lincoln was a much-loved captain of the generation ship, the USNAS Hope Eternal. On the ship, births and deaths are very strictly planned out - every five years a small group composing the new generation is born and on the same day the group turning 80 dies to make way for the younger generations. Lincoln has had a good life on the Hope Eternal, the best life anyone could have on a ship that's trying to preserve the best that humanity has to offer. Now he just has to come to terms with his ending.
When I was approached by EXO Books, the pen name of the author and their publishing company, I was intrigued right away by premise of the story. It's a sci-fi novella about focusing on the life and death of the main character. It features plenty of science fiction elements primarily dealing with the ship itself, but its focus is much more toward the cast of characters and the relationships as they have built. It's a celebration of life and love while at the same time dealing with the subject of death and facing your time with dignity. The author does a fantastic job of creating and developing the cast of characters. They feel real and come to life right off the page, particularly Lincoln himself. It's an emotional read and you may even want to have a tissue handy. In the end, the only reason I ended up giving this novella four stars instead of five is because of the illustrations. They didn't really add much to the story for me - both the music and the character illustrations. Plus, I didn't particularly like the style of them all that much either.
Overall, if you'd like to try a personal sci-fi novella that prefers to focus on the human condition, you can't go wrong here. Plus, The Last Day of Captain Lincoln is a quick read that can easily be devoured in a day or two. I'm definitely interested to see what EXO Books releases next.
I read the ecopy of this novella from November 1 - 3, 2016 and my review is also on Goodreads. You can find this on Kindle for only 99 cents.
the last scifi I read was Sleeping Giants, I really enjoyed it. have you read it?: https://wordsandpeace.com/2016/07/30/book-review-sleeping-giants/
ReplyDeleteYes, I loved it! Thanks for sharing!
DeleteI really struggled with this one (although I've struggled with several books this month - it's a difficult month - so I'm conscious it may be worth giving it a second shot down the line). The subject matter was intriguing, but the execution left me cold.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely be interested to hear what you think if you do try it again.
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