Book #28 of 2024: Beacon 23

Beacon 23: The Complete Novel by Hugh Howey.

Quick synopsis: Set in the near future, humans are in space and (of course) at war. A veteran of that war is manning a "beacon" (sort of a lighthouse in space).

Brief opinion: If I had read this book before watching the sci-fi show of the same name, I think I would have loved it.

Plot: [Before I get to the plot, I realized I didn't remember the main character's name, so I googled. Turns out he's never named through the book, that's pretty cool!]

NASA has enabled humanity to spread through space, but because of some travel issues (something about dark matter), there need to be beacons in some places to warn ships traveling through. Sort of like lighthouses in space.

The main character is a vet of the ongoing war with an alien race. (A nice little plot detail: Humans are the "alien swarm" that all other sentient alien races have nightmares about.) He was badly wounded. His commanders thought it happened in a heroic way, so he retired a hero. In truth, it was the opposite.

Asked what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, he said "be alone" (he was badly broken by the war), so they sent him off to work on a beacon.

Most of the stories/book were about little things that happened in his life. Chasing down rattling noises, dealing with ships passing through. By the third story, the reader gets hints that something bigger with the war is going on, and by the end the main character has to decide if he will do an unthinkably horrible thing to end the war.

Writing/editing: This was a collection of five short stories/novellas in one book. The writing and editing were mostly good, I think I saw two editing issues, but neither was memorable.

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: My biggest issue with this book is that there's a TV series based on this book (and yet nothing at all like the book's story). I really, really love the TV version's story. The book's story is so completely different, I wish this book had a different name so I didn't compare the two.

I think that if I hadn't watched the show, I would have loved this book. The main character was so broken and had PTSD, he was quite an unreliable narrator (both to the readers and to himself!). The ending was really interesting... I just spent the entire book thinking about the show.

[Edit: Another reviewer (BZ) summed up the unreliability really well. "Even when he makes you doubt the last 40 pages with a single line."]

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, 4 starts. I think I would have rated this a 5/loved if I hadn't watched the TV show and a 3/okay since I had watched it, so averaging it out to 4.