Synopsis:
Banner Dawson spends seventeen long years in cryosleep aboard the damaged Valkyrie-198 as it limps along towards the small void just beyond the orbit of Saturn. During those years, back on Earth…
Jack works with relentless determination to develop the skills and knowledge needed to rescue Laura from the cryogenic pod under the mountain….
Alexis rises through the ranks of the Independent Order of Valkyries…
Maestro seeks to help and then heal a king…
The leader of the Society authorizes increased activities in the Borderlands, and Ranger Stone is lost as a result…
Ranger Stone’s son Brian, the boy with one blue and one brown eye, comes of age and learns a family secret that places him at the center of a great conflict…
And Bucky the horse continues to chew on nothing.
At the end of Beyond the Lemon Tree Moon, Number One, Annabelle, and many from the Potato arrive in the Earth System. But what awaits them when they return to their ancestral home?
Find out in Navigating Yesterday.
Favorite Lines:
“Alpha, I have learned over time, often makes the most instantaneous and seamless shifts from one extreme to the other, and the opposite parts of her nature are equal parts of her. She is grace and she is brutality. She is discipline and she is rage. She is calculating and she is wild. She is beautiful and terrifying.”
“Can you fall in love in 100,000 words? If they are the right 100,000 words, it turns out that you absolutely can.”
My Opinion:
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.
This is book four in Deans’ The Voided Man series and this time we are reading from Brian’s perspective. If you haven’t read the other three books in this series, to get you up to speed without giving anything away, Prisoner Number One was exiled to space for eternity but ends up establishing a new life for himself amongst the cosmos. The family he left behind joins him in book two and we get to read about it with the perspective of his daughter, Cassiopeia. Book three continues the cosmos journey twelve years later from the perspective of some of those from the extended family and leaves off with many from the Potato finally arriving in the Earth System. You can find my reviews to those three here: The Voided Man, Ascending the Hourglass, and Beyond the Lemon Tree Moon.
We are now in book four and still get to see many familiar faces that we are well acquainted with from the rest of the series with the addition of a new voice from Ranger Stone’s son Brian. The last time we saw Brian was in book three; he was just a baby back then and now he is grown and ready to be a part of the journey. This is a bit unique because in the past, the storyteller has always been a part of the family but Brian is not. As always, I trusted Dean’s process and he didn’t let me down.
While in Beyond the Lemon Tree Moon, we experience a society that is living in harmony, it seems that Dean is taking us on a complete 180 with Navigating Yesterday as society has seemed to revert to a Lord of the Flies-esque society full of conflict, corruption, and factions. As always, Dean is an excellent storyteller and as the world of The Voided Man expands, I am in constant awe at his ability to introduce new characters, themes, and ideas without them seeming too far fetched for the storyline. This world continues to be uniquely its own with refreshing introductions to complex, but relatable plot points and characters.
Summary:
Overall, this was another great addition to Dean’s The Voided Man series and I am excited to see where he takes it next. This book (and series) is for anyone who is interested in quirky and humorous science fiction, especially sci-fi that touches on space travel and what it means to be human. Happy reading!
Check out Navigating Yesterday here!