Looking at my bookshelves, I am a very eclectic reader. There are books from every genre represented there. But it is safe to say that in recent years I have either read horror or Ken Follett books. After returning from the SFWA convention I had acquired quite a few sci-fi books. In Our Stars is the first half of a duology called The Doomed Earth. It is safe to say that it has been at least a decade since I have read a sci-fi novel.

In this book we are introduced to Kayl Owen, a lieutenant in Earth Guard on the spaceship Vigilant. The Vigilant comes across wreckage from a derelict vehicle. Well half of a vehicle anyway. He is tasked with leading a crew to investigate it. Amazingly he finds a survivor.

Returning with the survivor, sets events in motion that he never suspected. The survivor appears human, but has alien DNA. And she refers to herself as Lieutenant Selene Genji of the Unified Fleet. A fleet designation that doesn’t exist. She wears a uniform that has never been seen. Pieces salvaged from the wreckage have attributes that have never been seen before. And orders from command indicate that all of this is to be covered up and not discussed. Owen isn’t too keen on this. In part because we find out that his father was the scapegoat in an incident where the truth was covered up. As Owen is trying to figure out what is going on, he becomes tasked with escorting Genji to Earth on a shuttle. Just him. He has been talking to Genji trying to get to the bottom of things, so when Earth Guard itself sabotages the shuttle with the intent of killing them both, she saves him. And herself, so not a totally selfless action.

From this point, higher ups are clearly hell bent on covering this up and making sure Owen is the scapegoat for it all. Just like his father had been. The surname Owen is an easy target, it seems.

All this is in roughly the first 50 pages of the book! And I neglected mentioning events from the first two pages where Earth actually blows up. But it got better. Well, sort of, or maybe will get better if Owen and Genji have anything to say about it.  I’m not going to go into a complete breakdown of the almost 400 page story. I had never read anything by Jack Campbell prior to this. He is a sci-fi author exclusively, to my knowledge. But I really enjoyed his writing. It was an easy read. His style flowed well. There was one moment where I checked out, but I don’t recall what it was now. I’m not saying that this was perfect by any means. There were two things that bothered me throughout it though. The relationship between Owen and Genji is repeatedly brought up by her as something that can never happen beyond the basic level of she has a mission to save Earth and he is helping her. And I mean this is brought up over and over again. For me, I felt it was beating a dead horse with the amount it was mentioned. In my head I was saying “I know this, I remember the last time it was mentioned. And all the other times.” To the point where I was annoying myself at the repetition of this within my own brain. The other thing that was a bit of a deus ex machina was the fact that anywhere they went it seemed they ran into someone Owen knew, and that person helped them. In a way that they would not have survived without that aid. The story takes place roughly 100 years from now and there are colonies on the moon and Mars. And surely humanity would have crossed the 10 billion mark in population by then, if not possibly 20 the way we propagate. 

Don’t let these minor gripes sound like problems. I read this book in about a week. Which for me is crazy fast. I’m a slow reader and have trouble delegating time to sit and read. This is only book one, and I will say that it is only half a story. So you are committing to reading both books. I haven’t read the second one yet, but you will see a review here when I do.

For now, I’m giving this an 8, the couple gripes I had keeping it from 9 territory. But I am looking forward to reading part two and completing the story of these two characters.