An alien spaceship baptised as the Target has been ‘parked’ in the Greater Asteroid Belt since at least 1964 when a Mars probe discovered it. NASA has been keeping an eye on it using the Hubble Space Telescope, all Mars landers, and every other piece of technology capable of watching so far. There has been no change since the crashing in 1947 at Roswell, no signal, nothing. But now, an asteroid is coursing towards the alien ship, and NASA wants to meet the aliens or plunder whatever tech they can before the asteroid hits its target. And that's where the breathtaking adventure begins. The assembled team, including Jane, a linguist, boards the Target to find it ... can’t say more about what they find but Fluency (Confluence Book 1) by Jennifer Foehner Wells is a page-turner.
Characters are well fleshed out. The tensions between Jane and Alan is established form their first meeting in one of the few flashbacks present in the story. It increases page after page, in unison with the tension between Jane and the rest of the crew, with her being the only non-scientific/military personnel. The commander’s attitude is often bullish and patronising, but Jane always stands her ground. My favourite scene is the final one, but of course, I can’t tell why.
What I didn't like.
Aside from a quite detailed sex scene in the middle of the novel that in my humble opinion has little space in a hard sci-fi story, there’s a question that bugs me. There’s no mention of other nations and their space programs as if they didn’t exist, while it’s known that what brought us in space in the first place has always been competition. Who’s gonna go where first? Well, this aspect of reality is totally missing and it was a bummer. Although by the end of the novel there’s a hint about the reasons for this choice, I still classify it as a plot hole.
If you want to take a look at the novel, you can find it here.
And for this week it's all. thanks for reading so far and see you next week with some free books and sales.