H2LIFTSHIPS- BACKSTORY BY BOB FREEMAN

My Ratings: 3.5/5 stars

About this Book:

The back-story for H2LiftShips, following our intrepid sentients in the void, the Luna Casino, and the Asteroids, with a little old school schooling and celebrations. This is where we fill in the answers to some of your questions..

How did an asteroid citizen, born and bred, learn to drive a sports-car on Earth?
What happens to you after being abandoned on a divorce asteroid?
Why is Jack so afraid of prison? What traumatized that poor little puppy?
Are the bioGels sentient? And are they plotting against their owners?
What does it take to be a SolarSail Captain?
Do octopuses really think that they are better than the terrestrials?
- (spoiler, yes they do)

My Review:

A true nerd jumps at the chance of exploring the backstory of the characters/ premise that she likes. And like a true nerd, when I got a chance to read the backstory of H2Liftships and even though I expected it to be much shorter, it was roughly the same length, (perhaps a few hundred pages short) but bigger than a novella. While H2Liftships: Beyond Luna had a lot of technicalities and read more like manual, with this book, the author tried to portray a more interactive book with lesser technicalities. But like my experience of Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, sometimes, you begin loosing interest when the story starts dragging on.

I was keen on learning about the backstories of some of the characters, so I could understand the baggage they carried, and while it was amazing in some parts, few chapters couldn’t hold my attention. The one thing that works in the favour of the author is that the premise created is so unique and interesting that one is unable to control the urge of finishing the book. This backstory did fill in a lot of blanks, but I think it is better that I read this AFTER reading Beyond Luna (though I think, that’s the order it has been deliberately kept in). Since I was already fond of the premise and characters, it made reading it a lot more interesting than it otherwise would have been.

The writing style is what I adored most. Here’s a sample:

Human

All too often, humans considered themselves the ‘gold’ standard of sentient life. They had learned, or sometimes they didn’t, that there were more standards than themselves. They often had leadership positions, not because of intelligence, but because that old flexible opposable thumb and delicate hands gave them an advantage.