Delta-V
Daniel Suarez
★★★★★ 3/5
Science Fiction
Promising premise, poorly executed
I was recommended Daniel Suzrez’s Delta-V by a reader of my blog. I’m sure the recommendation was well meaning, but the book didn’t quite hit the spot. This despite what I thought was a cleverly conceived primary story that held so much promise if only it was executed better.
Near future Sci-fi
Set only about a decade into the future, the story features a crazy but visionary billionaire (know anyone like that?) who wants to be the first to mine an asteroid and send material back to a lunar DRO to take advantage of a favorable/low titular delta-v—which in spaceflight-speak is a measure of the energy/fuel required to achieve an orbital maneuver. He wants to do this by sending a group of equally crazy and hardy humans to allow for real time corrections and tunings needed to keep the mining robots working to plan.
The asteroid in question is Ryugu, made famous by the JAXA Hayabusa mission which returned a sample of the asteroid in 2020. All of this makes for a realistic, near future, hard scifi story.
Light on the Science, one dimensional characters, banal plot
The first third of the book is well crafted. We are introduced to a motley crew of interesting characters with the promise of an exciting plot. Getting into the thick of things, the asteroid mining astronauts soon finds themselves fighting for survival amidst various complications: of course, the savvy reader expects nothing less. And here is where the book fails to deliver: I was expecting a mix of Andy Weir and Neal Stephenson style hard sci-fi writing with a Blake Crouch level of thrilling action. Instead we are left with a watered down version of those three, failing to hit any of the highs with either plot, characters or science!
The Science: Mr. Suarez fails to capitalize on the opportunity to explain the science of basic premises of his book such as artificial gravity through spin, life support systems for years long voyages and so many other themes. Instead, we get the equivalent of the first two sentences from Wikipedia on those subjects. Even the sophisticated and novel concept of a DRO which is mentioned repeatedly and can make for a stimulating discussion, barely gets any explanation!
Character development: The characters, promising at the beginning, soon end up being one dimensional. As an example, the (first) captain of the ship scarcely has a role beyond exhorting the crew to be safe!
The character of Matt Tighe, the protagonist, is built up well, starting with a tragic event during a cave diving expedition, leading to the death of his mentor. He is understandably haunted by the event: a perfect set up for a re-creation of the situation aboard the spaceship as an opportunity to redeem himself. But there is no such redemption. I could go on about the remaining characters, none of them prompting any real connection with the reader.
Banal plot: Finally, the plot itself, with the meaty premise of asteroid mining providing near infinite potential, never really takes off. There are the several deadly emergency scenarios the crew has to deal with, but none of them got my pulse or reading pace racing, which any thriller worth its salt ought to do. It’s always klaxons blaring, foreboding disaster, but which ends up being nothing bigger than something that can be addressed by an EVA or the metaphorical equivalent of turning a switch off.
Overall
This is a good book for a newbie scifi reader combining realistic possibilities and technical accuracy with moderate thrills. The seasoned scifi reader is likely to come away disappointed. I, for one, have placed a hold on the second book in the series, Critical Mass, at my local library. Chances are I will not pick the book up.