DETOUR - Jeff Rake and Rob Hart
The wealthiest man on the planet is trying to buy his way into office as the next President of the United States. He has been funding space exploration with his own fleet of spaceships and was planning on being aboard an upcoming launch that was going to send humans the furthest they've ever been, to Saturn's moon, Titan, and back. But the billionaire, John Ward, is assured that the only way he can win the presidency is if he stays on Earth. Besides, it will look good to give an 'average Joe' the opportunity of a lifetime, and so he chooses Ryan Crane - the cop who saved Ward from an assassination attempt.
Crane and a trio of seasoned astronauts and a pair of civilians will head out on a two year journey to Titan and back. Crane isn't 100% sold on the idea of leaving his wife and family for two years, but the millions of dollars Ward is willing to pay Crane, as well as getting the best and newest medical care for Ward's son who was crippled in an accident, makes it too tempting to turn down. But Ward's behavior has Crane questioning the trip - Ward hands him an envelope and asks Crane not to look in it and simply bring it back after they get back.
Little do any of them know how much their lives will change with this journey.
I have so many thoughts it's hard to know where to begin....
I liked the concept and I generally liked the writing. Generally.
In the acknowledgements, author Jeff Rake notes that this story was originally pitched as a TV series and he was advised to make it a book first. And it shows. The book is written in short, TV-like sequences. While it keeps the book moving along at a quick clip, it tends to have us focus on action rather than character.
For television, this is fine. Characters tend to be 'bones' - a general framework for an actor who will flesh out the character. But in a book we need to see and understand relationships. A book that is constantly moving, jumping from scene to scene is really not as much fun as a book that lets us find one or two main characters and follow their journey. Here, EVERY character is given equal attention with just a little lean toward Crane.
This even pacing, despite the fact that it moves quickly, gets boring.
But let's address my warning at the beginning of the review.
I really can't tolerate a book that is not a book. A book has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This book does not have an end. I'm not even sure, now, if it has a middle. It has a last page but no conclusion.
I was really getting into the story, expecting that we'd get some fun surprises about the characters, when I got to 2/3 of the way through the book and I said aloud, "Oh, no. No, no, no."
What I thought was our plot for about 200 pages turned out to be mere set-up. Something happens and I knew immediately that we had only two options ahead: 1) things would get resolved really, really quickly and be very unsatisfying, or 2) we weren't going to get a conclusion to the actual plot. Either way, it didn't bode well.
And so, I finished reading the book that was provided and was left very, very unsatisfied.
Was I interested? Yes. Would I watch a TV show with this story-line? Yes, I would give it a shot. Did I like this book? To a small degree, yes. Did I like this enough to look forward to the next volume? No. Would I recommend this? No.
There are so many authors out there who are writing continuing series', where characters and story arcs develop over the course of multiple books and yet each volume is a contained story. It can be done. It should be done. To leave a book unfinished is, to me, a cheap move by a publisher to try to guarantee sales to future volumes. But here's a tip - a good story with solid characters is more likely to get me to buy future volumes over unfinished stories.
Looking for a good book? Publishing a book with an unfinished story automatically loses one of five stars from me, making Detour, by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart a 2.5 star read from. Conceived for television, it shows.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
2-1/2 stars
* * * * * *
Detour
authors: Jeff Rake and Rob Hart
series: Detour #1
publisher: Random House Worlds
ISBN: 9780593871379
hardcover, 320 pages
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