I read this at the suggestion of a friend (before I go and see the movie) and I must say that it was enjoyable. There’s some true heart in Ryland and how he came to be in the situation he’s in. I found myself smiling along with some of the tender moments and tensing up during the more stressful ones throughout.

Ryland is on a mission in space but he doesn’t know what it is. His crew is dead and he just remembered his name. It’s a stressful situation, to say the least, and he’s got to figure out what to do or who knows what’ll happen? Without giving too much away, his memories slowly return as time goes on and the situation gets even more dire. About midway through, the story takes an unexpected turn and I was fully onboard. Initially it’s really math and science heavy, which was a bit of a turn off. It’s pretty hard to get into at the beginning, but stick with it and you’ll find a really interesting sci-fi story that goes to some crazy places. There’s plenty of action and human moments that made me audibly go “aww.”

Given the situation, there’s not a lot of characters. We do get to know some people from Ryland’s life on the ground through memory flashbacks. The mission coordinator was an unapologetic woman with good intentions and a tenacious personality. His crew members (Yao and Ilyukhina) were polar opposites in their personalities. One a straight-laced soldier, the other a playful drunk. Both of them had their roles in the mission, but with Ryland being left without their support, and memory of them, he’s got to step up. As he remembered more about them, I started to feel the loss as he did. It’s not a new way of introducing characters, but it works well for the situation. If the story started with Ryland Grace remembering everything as he woke up in space, the story would have been way less involved. As the reader, we would have simply believed he was either doomed or destined to succeed. This simple choice made it way more complex, and you’ll find out why as you read.

Much like my previous read, this is also for the sci-fi fans, however, people that excelled in math and science will find even more to love about this one. While it was initially a bit dull with all the calculating and science terms, I honestly started to learn things and the middle part where it all changes was enough to get me through the rest. The revelations about Ryland’s past and the mission itself were perfectly paced and helped the story about a man alone in a spaceship feel less isolating. I’m interested to see how the movie presents the math and science as well as the mental state of Ryland. There’s a lot of ways this story can be presented, so here’s hoping they struck as good of a balance as the author did here.