Netherspace
Author/s: Andrew Lane & Nigel Foster
Release Date: 2nd May 2017
ISBN: 9781785651847
Pages: 384
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes
Two authors, one book that captures the essence of aliens landing on earth. In 2019 aliens landed on earth and wanted to trade with the humans. Or that's what the humans thought. There was no way to properly communicate with them, the humans can only exchange their own species in an effort to help them understand their language. One half of humans welcome the aliens while the rest wants revolution.
Humans are exchanged for technology in the form of a faster than light drive and Kara's sister has been sent over for even more technology. She doesn't like the idea of being sent there and likes the aliens even less, but has to put up with it for the sake of progress.
A GalDiv agent wants artist, Marc Keislack to demand he join his team to find out what happened to a lost spacecraft. Marc is reluctant at first as his parents went there and imagines their lives are much more difficult than his on earth. The agent is quick to remind him that his non compliance could result in him being taken by force and his privileges as an artist revoked. Kara has been reluctantly sent on the same mission to find the migration space utility transport that had been headed for a planet in the Upsilon Andromedae binary system over twenty one days ago. Straightaway we get to see why Kara and Marc have been selected; Marc might be an artist, but he has knowledge of aliens in great detail and degrees in genetic engineering and computers. He chose art to make money as it was a career he didn't have to surrender to the robots who were busy taking over other jobs.
Both writers give readers a deep understanding of the possibilities waiting for us in the future, though it may not be the ideal one we hoped for. Netherspace is readable due to its limited set of characters and how the story plays out through each of them. This way of telling the story leads to some very frustrating moments where the reader will be itching to progress to a chapter about their favourite character. The idea that one day aliens from another planet would show themselves to us has always fascinated us, and from these two authors this is one very daunting possibility.
Netherspace takes a while to get started but draws you into a small bunch of people trying to find out where the vessel went. Greenaway acts as their eyes and ears while Kara and Marc do the dirty work they are being ordered to do. Netherspace is the first in a series of novels by the two man writing team and I think readers will be on the lookout for the next in the series.
Netherspace takes a while to get started but draws you into a small bunch of people trying to find out where the vessel went. Greenaway acts as their eyes and ears while Kara and Marc do the dirty work they are being ordered to do. Netherspace is the first in a series of novels by the two man writing team and I think readers will be on the lookout for the next in the series.
Andrew Lane has written twenty-nine books and many short stories TV scripts and audio dramas. His Young Sherlock series is his most popular. He also writes crime fiction under a pseudonym that has gone on to be a US TV series. Nigel Foster started his writing career as a copywriter in the UK and moved into television and radio factual programming before co-founding a movie magazine.
