'Helix' by Eric Brown

Helix, Eric Brown (2.5)

At first I thought this book was pretty good – given I found it in the free book section of a cruise ship’s library – and wondered why I had not heard of it before. By the time I completed it, I realized why some Science Fiction is not well known. While the premise was interesting – humans in the future had trashed earth to the point that they were sending a large contingent into deep space to colonize a habitable planet to save the human race and find a very unique structure of planets (oddly all habitable in one form or another) – the implementation was quite faulty. A few of the obvious issues peeled a warning bell loud enough to interrupt the interesting bits. The best part was the parallel story of another species already on the helix and the confluence of them with the humans was interesting. The techniques Mr. Brown used to overcome big issues (communication between aliens and breathability of atmosphere to name two) stretched believability, in my opinion. He also added a couple of story lines that clattered distractingly against the main theme. Why would two main characters, during a very stressful trip outside their ship to a new part of the helix decide it was a good time to have sex? I got the feeling someone told him to spice up the story and this got added. There was also a back-story to one character that was completely out of character and unbelievable. I always like new ideas in Sci-Fi, but the distractions of this book make it hard to recommend.