Late 21st century Earth is overcrowded, her natural resources dwindling rapidly. World governments and greedy mega corporations are forced to work together toward a solution.
A crew of ten humans are sent to Mars aboard Hyperion I to locate a suitable site and establish the first colony. After a months-long flight to the red planet, just as they are about to descend to the surface, problems arise. A careless accident kills a crew member, damages the ship, forcing the others to launch early. And that's just the beginning of their troubles.
On day one they learn that magic is real, and that the planet, in fact the entire galaxy, is governed by a complicated and merciless System. Their assimilation into the System makes them enemies of the paranoid powers that be on Earth, and they find themselves cut off. No communications with family, no resupply, they're on their own on a mostly dead world.
And nearly every form of life they do encounter is out to kill them.
Join Commander Fletcher and her crew as they struggle to survive a new world with new but familiar rules.
My Opinion: 526 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
The Martian combined with alien RPG survival mechanics. The story starts off with the 1st mission to colonize mars. Only like most survival stories, something goes wrong and the crew has to make an emergency landing on the planet. Once there they find strange stones that initiates them with an alien citizen program that translates into something like an RPG game interface. It really just sets up a way to give the crew cool powers as they work on surviving and growing their base and powers in the face of limited resources.
One of the best things about the story is that the author has no problem killing off characters which made the survival aspects important and ramped up the tension in the story. Not only are there resource issues with water, oxygen, and food being the biggest. But there are alien threats that are revealed on the planet as the crew continues to explore.
The game mechanics in the story are revealed slowly. There is an RPG interface, a unique set of stats, health, mana, reputation, magic spells, classes, and other expected game mechanics. Tying into the survival theme there’s also crafting and enchanting using resources mined or harvested from the planet. The alien interface also rewards the crew any time they do something that furthers reestablishing a living environment on Mars or anything that furthers the will of the gods.
Overall, the story was really good. The tension was palatable and the terrible consequences for foolish choices or just back luck played out well. I really enjoyed the survival aspects and the exploration of what a crew stranded on Mars would do to survive. Even though that aspect dissipates as the story progresses, it was still an entertaining story.
Score: 7.8 out of 10