Book #24 of 2024: Orphan Planet | DNF: The Destiny of Minou Moonshine

[thistlechaser]

Orphan Planet: A feelgood space adventure (Odyssey Earth Series Book 1) by Rex Burke.

Quick synopsis: Set in the near future, a man with no connections on Earth signs up for a one-way journey to a new world across the galaxy.

Brief opinion: Sometimes you can't tell a book by its cover. Based on the cover, I expected to dislike it, but turns out I loved it.

Plot: Jordan Booth is a teacher and not much else. No friends. Lost his only girlfriend. No connections to anything. So on a whim, he signs up to be part of Earth's first journey to settle on another planet. Thousands of people are going, so they need all sorts of jobs, including teachers. He is one of the three teachers picked to go.

While nearly all of those thousands of people are put into hypersleep for the 17 year trip, Jordan is woken up early. There had been a few accidental pregnancies (six) and so first of the other teachers (a preschool one) was woken up to see to them. She died, and so next they woke up Jordan.

So there is Jordan, with no real connections to other people, no desire for friends or relationships, suddenly given six teenagers to raise. (The biological parents were no part of the kids' lives, their jobs were too important to split their attention that way. The previous teacher had basically been the mother to the six kids.)

He sort of flounders through the job until they near the planet... then there is an accident and the kids and Jordan are trapped in a lander ship. It seems like the main ship was destroyed, but the teacher/teens and thus the readers don't know for sure yet. They end up on a totally different planet and need to survive together.

Writing/editing: Writing and editing were both excellent. I have a hard time believing this was a self-published book. Remember the last book I reviewed (Chase) where I had asked how crap like that had gotten published while good self-published books aren't? Well this is a book that should be professionally published!

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I liked nearly everything about it. I liked all the characters (believable teenagers! Smart ones, but still teenagers). I love stories about people on a planet or island or something needing to survive.

The small thing thing of note, not really a "dislike": This book is very British. There were a number of uses of slang and British/Scottish/Irish wording I stumbled on. Just a very minor thing though.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved. On to book 2!

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DNF #17: The Destiny of Minou Moonshine by Gita Ralleigh. Set in an alternate universe India, a poor young girl joins up with a band of thieves to do something. There was nothing wrong with the book and "alternate universe India" is a fun idea, but the story just didn't hook me at all. DNF

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Book added to my to-read list.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Great! Hope you enjoy them!