MERCURY RISING - R.W.W. Greene

 Earth, 1975 ... but with a different history than the one we currently know.  It's been 25 years since man first walked on the moon, and 18 years since a space fleet stopped an alien invasion.  

Enter Brooklyn Lamontagne. A 20-something unskilled dude floundering through life. To avoid a prison sentence for a stupid crime of 8-track tape theft that went wrong and left one man dead, Brooklyn agrees to join the EOF (Extra-Orbital Forces) for a ten year stint. Little does he know what he's in for. From bootcamp in Texas to special training in the Arctic, to the moon for computer work, to deep space on a ship where the entire crew are gay men, to being a pin-cushion for a mad-scientist doctor experimenting on expendable men, to being shot and presumed and left for dead in space, to being prisoner and sent to work in a camp on Mercury.

It is there, on Mercury, that Brooklyn learns about the aliens who invaded decades earlier and, more importantly, of potential plans for a new invasion.  But what can he do, as a prisoner in a place so remote that even fully-loaded weapons are cut into scrap metal because there is no one to use a weapon against.

This was solid, wall-to-wall action, a thrilling space opera - perfect for readers who don't want to spend too much time getting reflective or deeply into relationship building.

We get just enough of Brooklyn's back story to recognize that he's on a down-ward spiral and he's going to be that character who doesn't have much to lose, making his choices for action that much simpler to make. And in this, author R.W.W. Greene doesn't disappoint.  Brooklyn 'grows up' through the course of the book and he's kind of fun to follow. And because Greene keeps the action moving so rapidly, we never really get the chance to sit back and reflect, which is probably good because we'd probably realize how thin the plot actually is.

The end comes about leaving waaaaay too many questions unanswered. In fact, the last quarter of the book seems to be building to something and just as we get there, the book comes to end. Meaning this is the first in a series and by itself an incomplete book. I've noticed some people writing that this works as a stand-alone, but I disagree, given how many questions remain unanswered.

Looking for a good book? Mercury Rising by R.W.W. Greene is an exciting space opera but the plot points remain unresolved at the close of the book, which is too bad.  The writing itself would have me wanting to read the next volume, I didn't need an incomplete book to try to lure me to the next volume.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

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Mercury Rising

author: R.W.W. Greene

series: ?

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 9780857669728

paperback, 378 pages