Frozen Orbit by Patrick Chiles
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Publication Date: January 7, 2020
Four astronauts blast off in a nuclear-powered ship en route to Pluto, chasing after a secret decades-old Soviet mission that went awry. (I'd recommend readers avoid this book's Amazon/Goodreads description, as it basically spoils the big reveal. And not subtly, either.)
This was . . . not to my taste. Hard science fiction soars when it explores new realms of the possible, but it's also infamous for flat characters, tedious science descriptions, and emotionless prose. Frozen Orbit, alas, falls prey to two of those three mighty sins: the characters are pretty lifeless and the prose tends to plod. Moments that should feel emotional instead feel hollow, clunky. (I actually found the scientific descriptions to be somewhat interesting, which is unusual for me in this subgenre. )
The political machinations at home seemed unrealistic, and I didn't find any of the subplots (the 'mystery' of the Soviet commander's journal, the A.I., the relations between the crew) very engaging. It takes about two-thirds of the book to actually get to Pluto, which surprised me, and not in a good way; the early sections felt almost like filler.
Overall, I thought the description made the book sound a lot more interesting than it turned out to be---in part, I suspect, because the description basically spoils the 'mystery' of what was waiting at Pluto.
I received a free copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
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