Fermi's Progress - Dyson Fear by Chris Farnell
I would like the author for a free copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - available on ebook
Published - Out Now
Price - £2.50 Kindle eBook
The Fermi is Earth’s first faster-than-light capable spaceship. It’s also its last. The moment its engines engage, it unleashes a shockwave that vaporises entire planets, entire solar systems.
Fermi’s crew, the last surviving members of the human race, now find themselves circling an ancient Dyson sphere in a distant corner of the galaxy, where they must explore a city of ships and negotiate with a vast, lonely AI for their survival. But that isn’t their only problem.
Because the Fermi’s engines are powering up again…
We love apocalypses in our genres but we also have this hankering to know what could happen next. Can we survive? Can we learn from them? Or as we are human will we still be us? In Chris Farnell’s novella starting a new series of stories we have the earth over and done with and a small team of remaining humans realising they are creating more havoc wherever they go. A story that treads in the path of Douglas Adams and Red Dwarf with some interesting moments of true pathos.
The reader is thrown in the deep end of someone dying but it is not clear who that is (building tension) then we meet the crew of the strange spaceship Fermi arriving on what appears to be a vast Dyson Sphere. Two brothers Samson - part of secret efforts to create a British Superhuman and Connor who well isn’t. Thrown in the brilliant Rajita and the the smart tech businesswoman Connor they have seen the earth destroyed and now try to work out what to to do next. The Dyson Sphere though are amazed that someone is claiming to come from…outside!
This very much feels like the first episode of a new series. I was very impressed how Farnell mixes up the narrative in a very non linear fashion for most of the book. We see the various crew members start to join forces. The brothers meet again in a shootout at a call centre in a wonderful fight scene that also underlines the differences between them. When we move to space although clearly Farnell loves SF - their Dyson sphere though isn’t a cut out alien world. Lots of thought has gone into issues like translation, other cultures and how a sphere would think of space are handled really well. For a story with a lighter tone I liked some genuinely beautiful moments exploring the end of earth, love for families and the joy of being alive combined with some wicked digs at modern life’s trivialities. The characters are not yet fully fleshed out but I liked how Samson on the one hand is your lantern jawed hero and on the other actually has a genuine kindness to them (plus cunning a ;little like Carrot from Discworld) while Connor while a slacker hides a lot more going on when the moment comes.
My two issues are more my tastes not the book’s. The story loves old geek reference and for me that gets wearing after a while. In 2021+ will we still need to complain about Stars Wars the original editions not being available to purchase? This feels a tad a middle aged geek issue! The other was the repercussions of earth’s destruction and the team’s later revelations as to what caused it I feel are overlooked and I don’t feel rang true. That though may be for later stories to explore in more depth.
A fine start to an interesting series and I think those looking for a fun yet intelligent space adventure would be well rewarded by giving this a try.
