Overall, this is a great book. There are twists and surprises through the book that make it a gripping read. The physics just toes the line between inetersting and not too complicated. The author must have been a physicist. The plot builds suspense, so you always want to keep reading. The narrator is funny in a mildly sarcastic and understated kind of way. The characters are developed well throughout the book, aided by the flashbacks. I enjoy books with a good plot and this was it.
It reminds me a lot of the three body problem series. But dare I say it; better.
Storyline
Ryland Grace wakes up froma a coma on a spaceship and doesn’t who or where he is. Flashbacks slowly remind him. He is on a mission to save the Earth from an alien bacteria that is eating Earth’s sun. His journey is a suicide mission to recover information about how the bug can be stopped from spreading. He does not have enough fuel or food for a return trip. The book centres around his journey to a star 13 light years away, and what he finds when he arrives. I’ll add the rest of the story at end of the review (includes spoilers).
Funny Quotes
- Loc 560: “I smack the handle with the palm of my hand. The handle doesn’t move and now the palm of my hand hurts. So … yeah. Not fruitful.”
- Loc 571: ““That. Did not work,” I say to no one.”
- Loc 1467: “Got to get that sweet, sweet energy if you’re going to be a life-form.”
- Loc 2248: “I don’t have time for this. I have an alien thingy to catch.”
- Loc 4956: “Ever assemble chain in zero g? It’s not fun.” - Grace has the ‘im out of my depth doing cool shit and its funny’ kind of approach
- Loc 5722: Is there a name for this kind of humour where someone is so blaisee about very serious and impressive things?
- Loc 5727: “Being on fire sucks.” - Understatements. The humour is mainly coming from understatwments
- Loc 5734: “The hardest part about working with aliens and saving humanity from extinction is constantly having to come up with names for stuff.”
- Loc 5871: ““We’re dead in space. We’re stuck here forever.” “Not forever,” Rocky says. I perk up. “No?” “No. Orbit decay soon. Then we die.””
- Loc 6483: “Sheesh—you almost ruin a mission one time and all of a sudden you have an alien-enforced bedtime.”
- Loc 6537: “I don’t have anything to flush the tanks with—I left my “ten thousand gallons of water” collection back home.”
- Loc 6652: “I spend a lot of time un-suiciding this suicide mission.”
- Loc 6833: “Oh, and there’s the matter of the intelligent alien life-form I hung out with for a couple of months. I might want to jot a few things down about him too.”
- Loc 7380: “It has mitochondria—the powerhouse of the cell.”
Interesting Physics
- Loc 627: “Thing is, in a centrifuge, the farther you get from the center, the higher the centripetal force will be. So if I were in a centrifuge, the “gravity” down here would be higher than it was upstairs. And it isn’t.”
- Loc 644: “Earth is the largest solid object in the whole system.”
- Loc 1082: “I’m pretty sure that light is how they move around.” Stratt raised an eyebrow. “I don’t follow.” “Believe it or not, light has momentum,” I said. “It exerts a force. If you were out in space and you turned on a flashlight, you’d get a teeny, tiny amount of thrust from it.””
- Loc 1147: “If the fuel has been spent, the ship can ditch the tank to reduce its mass and make the remaining fuel last longer. It’s the same reason rockets lifting off from Earth have multiple stages.”
- Loc 1568: “Anything smaller than the wavelength is functionally nonexistent to that photon. That’s why there’s a mesh over the window of a microwave. The holes in the mesh are too small for microwaves to pass through. But visible light, with a much shorter wavelength, can go through freely. So you get to watch your food cook without melting your face off.”
- Loc 3444: “I know the density of water—it’s 1 kilogram per liter.”
- Loc 3495: “The octave is a universal thing, not specific to humans. It means doubling the frequency of every note. The computer immediately translates the result. “Original crew was twenty-three. Now is only me.” That octave-drop … I think it’s emotion.”
- Loc 3713: ““Neutrinos are what’s called Majorana particles. It means the neutrino is its own antiparticle. Basically, every time two neutrinos collide, it’s a matter-antimatter interaction. They annihilate and become photons. Two photons, actually, with the same wavelength and going opposite directions. And since the wavelength of a photon is based on the energy in the photon …” “The Petrova wavelength!” I yelped.”
- Loc 3886: ““If planet has less science, it no can make spaceship. If planet has more science it can understand and destroy Astrophage without leaving their system. Eridian and human science both in special range: Can make ship, but can’t solve Astrophage problem.”” - If we every meet Aliens, then it will be because we have the same technological progress
- Loc 4910: “The faster you go, the less time you experience.” - Relativity
- Loc 5004: “The weightlessness that astronauts experience while in orbit comes from constantly falling. But the curvature of the Earth makes the ground go away at the same rate you fall. So you just fall forever.”
- Loc 5953: “There’s a teeny, tiny amount of hydrogen and helium wandering around out there in space. It’s on the order of one atom per cubic centimeter, but when you’re traveling near the speed of light, that adds up.”
- Loc 5996: “Earth invented nuclear power, television, and even did several space launches before the transistor.”
Storyline
- Loc 1105: ““What would you call an organism that exists on a diet of stars?” I struggled to remember my Greek and Latin root words. “I think you’d call it ‘Astrophage.’””
- Loc 1798: “Astrophage can, apparently, do this in either direction. It takes heat energy and somehow turns it into mass. Then when it wants the energy back, it turns that mass back into energy—in the form of Petrova-frequency light. And it uses that to propel itself along in space.”
- Loc 2575: “They have some pretty good science going on, so they did the same thing we did. Make a ship, and go to Tau Ceti to see why it’s not dying!” - Aliens
- Loc 2929: “Rocky is smaller than a human. He’s about the size of a Labrador. He has five legs radiating out from a central carapace-looking thing. The carapace, which is roughly a pentagon, is 18 inches across and half as thick. I don’t see eyes or a face anywhere.”
- Loc 3045: ““It’s a clock!” I say. “I showed you a clock, so you showed me a clock!”” - Early communication
- Loc 3077: “If we’re going to talk, we’re going to talk science. And just like that, Rocky and I have established a fundamental unit of time. Next up: length and mass!”
- Loc 3669: “I stare in shock. How can a civilization develop space travel without ever discovering radiation?”
- Loc 3689: “through a mechanism we don’t understand, when those protons collide at a high enough velocity, their kinetic energy is converted into two neutrinos with opposite momentum vectors.”” - Astrophage energy storage system
- Loc 3704: “If you work backward from the mass of a neutrino, you know the velocity those protons have to collide at. And when you know the velocity of particles in an object, you know its temperature.”
- Loc 4266: “trace amounts—” “Wait.” He holds up a claw. “How much Astrophage you ship need for return to Earth, question?” “Uh … just over two million kilograms,” I say. “I can give,” he says.”
- Loc 5661: ““DuBois … Shapiro …” I snuffled and wiped my eyes. “They’re dead. They’re dead … oh God” - Primary and backup science astronauts
- Loc 5709: “Taumoeba. The savior of Earth and Erid. Hopefully.”
- Loc 6261: Stratt amnesia drugged him so he didnt even remember that he was sent on the mission against his will
- Loc 6385: ““Understand! Make environment barely deadly. Breed Taumoeba that survive. Make more deadly. Breed survivors. Repeat, repeat, repeat!”” - Breeding predator to withstand nitrogen
- Loc 6765: ““I guess this is it,” I say. “It is time,” he says. “We go save homeworlds now.””
- Loc 7163: “Especially with them zooming off toward Earth and me headed almost the opposite direction toward the Blip-A.” - Going to save Rocky
- Loc 7390: “My first few years on Erid were touch-and-go. Taumoeba kept me alive, but I became severely malnourished.”
- Loc 7431: ““Your star has returned to full luminance!””
- Loc 7434: “It’s over. We won. Simple as that. Sol—Earth’s sun—has returned to its pre-Astrophage brightness.”
- Loc 7482: Ends up a school teacher on Erid as he decides if he will make the journey back to earth
Rest of the Storyline
Grace gets to Tau Ceti. The only star that has Astrophage but is not dying. He is here to find out why. He bumps into alien space ship and meets an alien, Rocky. They slowly develop a means of communication and learn about each others biology. Rocky is like a spider with a turtle style central shell. He speaks in notes, and sees via sound (all wavelengths). He is from the planet Erid. Rocky had a crew but they all died. Eridians dont know about radiation. Rocky was only protected by the astrophage of the engine room. Grace and Rocky discover that in this Solar System, Astrophage has a predator. They bring some aboard and it gets loose, eating all their fuel.They contain it in Xenonite (strong compound from Erid). Then try to replicate it’s environment, and build up its immunity to nitrogen (present in both Earth and Erid atmospheres). Once they have bred stronger predator. Rocky gives Grace fuel to go home. This is not a suicide mission for him anymore. After they part ways, Grace realises Astrophage can pass through Xenonite. He goes back to save Rocky, knowing it means he will not be able to get home. The book ends with Grace teaching physics to aliens on Erid, deciding if he will make the long journey home.