Today, I am reviewing the debut science-fiction novella Notes from Star to Star by Brian Dolan. In this story, our protagonist, last name Hamilton, finds herself awakening from a century-long induced stasis as her ship nears Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, over 4.2 light years away…and the site of possible signals from an extraterrestrial civilization The only person aboard the ship, she has to discover why she’s there, how she came to be the only crew member onboard for such an important mission…and pierce through the coma-induced amnesia to remember who she is.
I give this book a 4.75/5. Here is my breakdown.
Characters: 5/5. We only interface with one main character, Hamilton, and her perspective colors everything. The true draw of the novella is that we’re experiencing everything as she does, putting the pieces together at the same time and making discoveries alongside her. Dolan does a fantastic job of crafting a realistic character in such an isolating scenario; she deals9with self-doubt, worry, and pushes through with practiced routines to keep herself engaged. We feel her triumphs and her frustrations, which culminate with a critical discovery at the end, and a lovely epilogue that brought a tear to my eye.
Plot/Storyline: 4.5/5. Narratively, this novella felt smooth and easy to understand. The plot, streamlined as a novella should be, focused on two main issues: who is Hamilton, and what is sending the signals? Everything else was peripheral to that, atmospheric or tension-building, and this story doesn’t suffer from narrative bloat or overexplanation. The story hooked me in immediately and kept me paging through to discover what happened next. Another big plus.
Flow: 4.5/5. As I mentioned, smooth and easy. Time gaps are dealt with masterfully and the pacing is excellent. Dolan introduced a useful story-telling device in the computer system of the ship, allowing Hamilton to have someone to interact with and bounce ideas off of to move the story forward. Well done.
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5. Toward the last half of the book, I noted a slight increase in typos and grammar errors. This distracted a little bit just as the tension rose and the story started running toward its conclusion, so I’d recommend a quick editing pass to find these nagging problems.
Overall: 4.75/5. Notes from Star to Star is a wonderful, introspective, hopeful piece of (overall) hard science fiction that makes excellent use of character study and interesting story-telling to craft a compelling narrative. I blew through this novella in about half an hour and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to take a quick trip through the stars without being shot at, blown up, or exploded (much).
Thanks, and keep reading!
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