Starship

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating novel
Review: After the contact was made between the alien ship and the earth, the leaders of the world decided that even if the planet was invaded, mankind would survive. Huge spaceships, nine miles long and five miles wide, were built and sent into outer space looking for worlds outside the solar system that the inhabitants of Alpha can colonize. Over time, the good of the whole supplanted individuality.

Most residents were fed psychotropic drugs to keep them docile and any deviation from what is considered normal behavior is swiftly dealt with. Even young children were indoctrinated from the time they were little. One day the scientists observe a blight in one of the agricultural pods and it is spreading to other pods. Unless a planet can be found that they can survive and thrive on, the residents of the starship will die in eighteen months.

Generations of suppressed rage led to the conspiracy concerning the food supply. People feel outraged that they were brainwashed and drugged into thinking along the party line. Once the food supply was destroyed, chaos became the norm except for those who were frantically trying to find a way out of the mess those in authority put them in.

STARSHIP is a fascinating novel that shows what living in a closed environment means. Kevin D. Randle is a natural storyteller who shows both sides of the issue leaving it to the reader to make up their minds if such extreme measures in relation to the residents were warranted.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating novel
Review: After the contact was made between the alien ship and the earth, the leaders of the world decided that even if the planet was invaded, mankind would survive. Huge spaceships, nine miles long and five miles wide, were built and sent into outer space looking for worlds outside the solar system that the inhabitants of Alpha can colonize. Over time, the good of the whole supplanted individuality.

Most residents were fed psychotropic drugs to keep them docile and any deviation from what is considered normal behavior is swiftly dealt with. Even young children were indoctrinated from the time they were little. One day the scientists observe a blight in one of the agricultural pods and it is spreading to other pods. Unless a planet can be found that they can survive and thrive on, the residents of the starship will die in eighteen months.

Generations of suppressed rage led to the conspiracy concerning the food supply. People feel outraged that they were brainwashed and drugged into thinking along the party line. Once the food supply was destroyed, chaos became the norm except for those who were frantically trying to find a way out of the mess those in authority put them in.

STARSHIP is a fascinating novel that shows what living in a closed environment means. Kevin D. Randle is a natural storyteller who shows both sides of the issue leaving it to the reader to make up their minds if such extreme measures in relation to the residents were warranted.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A stunning improvement over the first novel in the series
Review: Kevin D. Randle is well-known as a leading figure (and prolific author) in ufology: spearheading the search for answers at Roswell, examining the case history of other reported UFO crashes, asking tough (and sometimes unpopular) questions about the alien abduction phenomenon, and generally examining UFO evidence in as large a context as possible. I was surprised to discover his entry into the world of science fiction, but The Exploration Chronicles is proving to be an interesting series that differs wildly from my expectations. Signals, the first novel, suffered from a number of flaws, especially in terms of characterization, but maintained my interest as it explored Earth's first contact with an intelligent race of aliens. The ending was almost shockingly anticlimactic, and I figured Randle was saving his good stuff for the second novel. Now we would finally get a good look at these elusive aliens - or so I thought.

Randle surprised me, however, by taking an entirely new direction here in Starship; since his UFO research has dealt primarily with our reactions to contact with an alien intelligence, I expected that subject to be the continuing theme of this second novel. Instead, Randle has done the opposite and cast humans in the role of an alien race seeking a new home on a new planet. The heart of this novel lies in the social interaction and political continuity of life aboard the starship, and to my surprise Randle's exploration of social and psychological themes actually succeeds much better than his first novel's overreliance on science to the detriment of his characters. The writing in this book is a significant improvement over that found in Signals, and I am actually quite excited about the future of this series.

After a brief prologue featuring the two main characters from the original novel, Starship jumps more than two centuries into the future. The Starship Alpha, called Home by its thousands of residents, is well on its way into deep space in search of a planet suitable for colonization. The mission's main purpose is to ensure that, should disaster strike Earth, the human race would continue to survive. The original colonists are long dead, replaced by their descendants who were borne into a mission they may not have wanted; none of them has ever been outside the spaceship itself. Life onboard the ship is highly regulated and controlled; indeed, a futuristic breed of socialism keeps everything and everyone productively docile. The residents have been bred, with the aid of genetic engineering, to look and act alike for the most part; each person has his assigned role in the society and does it without complaint. Last names have even been dropped in favor of numbers indicating when each person was born in relation to the time of the ship's launch. Oh, a few individuals have doubts and question the facts they are given by the computers, and a few even exhibit troublesome behavior, but such problematic residents are dealt with by those in security or the medical facilities. Medication and special food additives are used to control the population and make them docile; those who cannot be controlled so easily simply disappear. Everyone is content and committed to the ideals of the mission, never knowing that their lack of individuality is an act of manipulation by those in authority over them.

The ship is still several decades away from its targeted New Home, but everything is about to change. Blight has been detected in one of the agricultural pods, and the authorities are soon horrified to learn that the damage to the food supply is more severe than first thought and, most shocking of all, it is apparently an act of sabotage. There is a conspiracy afoot that threatens to ruin the ship's mission and kill everyone on board. A new Home must be discovered in the coming months if the people are to survive. A suitable moon is found, but there are signs of intelligent life there already. With the social structure on board the ship quickly crumbling into anarchy, the ship's authorities may have to ignore their prohibitions against interfering in the lives of an existing alien race.

Individual interaction, social and political dealings, and the psychology of both man and society are explored rather deeply and impressively in Starship, as science takes a back seat in the storyline. I did not think the author had it in him to succeed at this aspect of storytelling, since it was a real weakness in the first book of the series, but Kevin D. Randle has really surprised and impressed me with this second novel. It's a remarkable turnaround that bodes very well indeed for The Exploration Chronicles.

Rating:
Summary: Slow Boat to the Stars
Review: Starship is the second novel in the Exploration Chronicles, following Signals. In the previous volume, astronomers determined that signals coming from space were being emitted by an FTL spacecraft. The Earth alliance sent out a newly developed long-range spaceship to meet the incoming starship, but the alien vessel veered off after detecting it and headed back out to deep space. The visit of the alien vessel drove an international effort to produce Human starships.

In this novel, Thomas Hackett, now promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, heads the team producing the first generation ship, The Home. Susan Bakker is part of his team. They celebrate the launch of the ship and then go back to work on more generation ships.

Two and a half centuries later, The Home is having problems with unrest among the residents. Using a regime of drugs and conditioning, they manage to suppress most unruliness. Unfortunately, some residents manage to evade the surveillance devices and attack the food supply. The Home is soon finding itself with severe problems and needs a new supply of organics to make up their losses.

The ruling council sends out ships to search nearby systems for habitable planets to live on while the ship is being purged of poisons. All the search teams report only uninhabitable worlds with one exception: one team has discovered a habitable moon that is already inhabited. Of course, it is off-limits under the original rules for colonization, but the destruction of the last healthy crop leads to a temporary change of priorities and the ship heads for the moon.

In this story, several young people find themselves gaining an unprecedented degree of freedom as the drugs and conditioning wear off during the emergency. They find themselves able to think the unthinkable and do the undoable. Somehow that makes them better survivors in their new conditions.

While this story is based on an old idea dating back to Heinlein's Universe, the author inserts some new twists and adds a touch of alien contact. The action is rather slow at first and the interaction between characters is muted by the drugs and conditioning. Moreover, the generation ship is about as exciting as any small town in the middle of the week. Nevertheless, this story is an adequate bridge to the next installment.

Recommended for Randle fans and anyone who enjoys stories of people in strange environments and conditions.

Rating:
Summary: Slow Boat to the Stars
Review: Starship is the second novel in the Exploration Chronicles, following Signals. In the previous volume, astronomers determined that signals coming from space were being emitted by an FTL spacecraft. The Earth alliance sent out a newly developed long-range spaceship to meet the incoming starship, but the alien vessel veered off after detecting it and headed back out to deep space. The visit of the alien vessel drove an international effort to produce Human starships.

In this novel, Thomas Hackett, now promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, heads the team producing the first generation ship, The Home. Susan Bakker is part of his team. They celebrate the launch of the ship and then go back to work on more generation ships.

Two and a half centuries later, The Home is having problems with unrest among the residents. Using a regime of drugs and conditioning, they manage to suppress most unruliness. Unfortunately, some residents manage to evade the surveillance devices and attack the food supply. The Home is soon finding itself with severe problems and needs a new supply of organics to make up their losses.

The ruling council sends out ships to search nearby systems for habitable planets to live on while the ship is being purged of poisons. All the search teams report only uninhabitable worlds with one exception: one team has discovered a habitable moon that is already inhabited. Of course, it is off-limits under the original rules for colonization, but the destruction of the last healthy crop leads to a temporary change of priorities and the ship heads for the moon.

In this story, several young people find themselves gaining an unprecedented degree of freedom as the drugs and conditioning wear off during the emergency. They find themselves able to think the unthinkable and do the undoable. Somehow that makes them better survivors in their new conditions.

While this story is based on an old idea dating back to Heinlein's Universe, the author inserts some new twists and adds a touch of alien contact. The action is rather slow at first and the interaction between characters is muted by the drugs and conditioning. Moreover, the generation ship is about as exciting as any small town in the middle of the week. Nevertheless, this story is an adequate bridge to the next installment.

Recommended for Randle fans and anyone who enjoys stories of people in strange environments and conditions.