Jeff Rake

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A space shuttle flight crew discovers that the Earth they’ve returned to is not the home they left behind in the first book of this emotional, mind-bending thriller series from the creator of the hit Netflix show Manifest and the bestselling author of The Warehouse.

Ryan Crane wasn’t looking for trouble—just a cup of coffee. But when this cop spots a gunman emerging from an unmarked van, he leaps into action and unknowingly saves John Ward, a show more billionaire with presidential aspirations, from an assassination attempt.

As thanks for Ryan’s quick thinking, Ward offers him the chance of a lifetime: to join a group of lucky civilians chosen to accompany three veteran astronauts on the first manned mission to Saturn’s moon Titan.

A devoted family man, Ryan is reluctant to leave on this two-year expedition, yet with the encouragement of his loving wife—and an exorbitant paycheck guaranteeing lifetime care for their disabled son—he crews up and ventures into a new frontier.

But as the ship is circling Titan, it is rocked by an unexplained series of explosions. The crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes.

When the fanfare dies down, Ryan and his fellow astronauts notice that things are different. Some changes are good, such as lavish upgrades to their homes, but others are more disconcerting. Before the group can connect, mysterious figures start tailing them, and their communications are scrambled.

Separated and suspicious, the crew must uncover the truth and decide how far they’re willing to go to return to their normal lives. Just when their space adventure seemingly ends, it shockingly begins.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'd never heard of the Netflix show Manifest before I picked up this DRC. I'd never heard of the imprint that publishes it, either, and I'm old enough that imprints matter to me. I track them and their subject-matter focuses so I can ask for DRCs I'm happy to read and review. Surprise! There's an entire LitRPG-inspired publishing world, that now subsumes to old movie novelizations and TV-show expansions. This had escaped my attention until now because I've never played these games. I got hooked on Dark Shadows novels and Doctor Who novels back in the day, but found most Star Trek novels pretty hit-or-miss, and gave up on them. So this rediscovery was pleasant because now I've watched Manifest and really like it. I hasten to add that this novel is reminiscent of the TV show's premise but is not directly related to the show you can see on Netflix.

This story started out with a cool-to-me hook: six random people are lightly trained after being plucked from richly deserved obscurity to travel to Saturn's moon Titan. Terrible, tragic explosions on their craft occur; they're brought safely back to Earth but them isolated from each other very stringently, instructed not to attempt to contact each other or to discuss their experiences.

From here we're in the PoV of the six people separately as they experience...oddness, off-kilter alterations in what their memories of Earth tell them should be present in the world around them. It is unsettling to them. The...can't call them changes, that implies violated continuity, can't call them alterations because that implies known agency...discontinuities in their realty versus their memories of reality are strange, undirected by a moral compass, some make things better some worse yet the people are left with a sense that they're suffering from Capgras Syndrome. I suppose you're already assuming the characters ignore, and circumvent, the orders to stay out of contact with their fellow survivors of the trip. Of course this is the case.

The *real* story here is in the returnees' efforts to provide each other with support, you aren't crazy the world is-level support. It's not a space-sci fi story at all; it's a Sliders-meets-Sliding Doors narrative of roads not taken. This ties in to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the Hindu, and later Buddhist, concept of Indra's net. This is more fun for me as a reader but might very well cause some disappointment for others. Understanding going in that space travel and hard sci-fi are honored more in their absence as igniting events than bases for the continuing action will help you decide if this is the read for you.

As each character has unique struggles to adapt to their individual changed circumstances they're all, as a unit, required to look at the common underlying altered reality of the world they collectively remember. It's this facet of their experience that most recalls the earlier media franchises I reference in tge paragraph above. It creates among these six people, so randomly assorted and so very different in personality, training, and character, a found family with the most powerful ties imaginable. Their shared bedrock assumptions have been whisked out from under them.

It's in this that the authors choose to emphasize the shared nature of their trauma, and its developing coping mechanisms. The six PoVs are not dealt with chapter-by-chapter, which could easily lead to dilution and confusion among the characters, but with chapters that entertain similar attempts to cope by varying constellations of people. There are chat threads, emails, news articles, and other such media insertions into various parts of the narrative. This is a narrative technique as old as Tristram Shandy yet we still act as though this is somehow new and fresh and surprising. It worked beautifully in Stand on Zanzibar nearly sixty years ago. It still works now. Its worldbuilding is useful; the technique of said worldbuilding functions as commentary on both message and medium.

I was happy enough with the characters' varying arcs in this series-starting volume as they reached obviously temporary resolution points in some way. The story overall, of the gestalt formed by our six folks, ends on a cliffhanger. I'm now going to explain why, despite enjoying the read, I'm only giving it three and a half stars. Nowhere is it said that this is the first in a series of stories because publishers know how much many readers hate starting series that are not completed. Ask George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss why that might be the case; consult with Adam Christopher's novel publisher as to why amputating series before they conclude might result in blowback. (I want more Ray Electromatic stories!) So instead of learning the right lesson from this and publicly committing to the entire series in advance, greed rules and there's a tiny little detail omitted from the sales bunf in the hopes you will get hooked and buy them all as they come out. This is scummy.

I also detest cliffhangers because there is never a narrative reason for them. Ever. It's purely marketing. So, three and a half stars for those dickhead marketing-driven moves draining a lot of my pleasure in reading this iteration of a story whose bones I very much enjoy seeing fleshed out. show less

4 Stars

I've been an unabashed Rob Hart fan ever since I read Assassins Anonymous, so any new work or collaboration (please see Dark Space) will automatically stir my interest, and if it’s science fiction, then all the better.

Here, Hart and Jeff Rake have created a compelling first installment that’s part Project Hail Mary and part Twilight Zone. This grabs you quickly just like the former with Earth being in dire consequences and an exploratory mission is the first step to saving the show more future of humanity. It ends with the return of the crew with a topsy turvy development making all question their reality.

This was smart and layered. There’s a rich billionaire with secretive high aspirations who funds 3 astronauts, a genius astrophysicist, and 2 everyday civilians on an adventurous mission of a lifetime. Each has their flaws, their issues, and complex motivations which only add to this quasi thriller/mystery.

Overall, a fast paced read that celebrates the idea of space travel and revels in political machinations and conspiracy theories with a good dose of mind*uckery.

Being the first book in the series, this sets things in motion, where these astronaut heroes have only each other to rely on to make sure things are put back to rights. Not surprisingly, this ends on a cliffhanger, leaving me more intrigued than anything else as to how this will further play out. That’s a testament to the talent of these authors, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for more answers!

Thank you to the authors and Del Rey of Random House Worlds via NetGalley for a copy to review honestly show less

Detour by Jeff Rake, Rob Hart is a highly recommended character drama and lite science fiction thriller which marks the start of a new series. Warning: this ends on a "to be continued..." cliffhanger and I really needed closure so my rating may go up after I get to finish the story.

John Ward, billionaire and presidential candidate, is financing an exploratory manned 2 year trip to Saturn's moon, Titan, where the crew will circle Titan, release a satellite, and return. This exploratory trip show more will provide information on Titan's potentially habitability.

The mission will be manned by three NASA astronauts and 3 civilians with limited training. The civilians include Padma Singh, an astrophysicist for Ward, Ryan Crane, a police officer who saved Ward’s life, and Stitch (Courtney) Smith, a graffiti artist who won a lottery for his place on the crew. The astronauts include Mike, who has a drinking problem, Della, who has family problems, and Alonso, who has personal questions.

The focus is more on the personnel, their private lives, the preparation for the trip, and repercussions after the trip rather than the space mission itself. The two year mission flies by quickly with one major event. As the ship is circling Titan, there are two unexplained explosions, but the crew works together to get back on course, and they return to Earth as heroes. Once back on Earth, it quickly become clear things have changed and the crew members may now be in a parallel universe.

It is a well written novel and held my complete attention. For the first book in what will hopefully be a great series, it was a great choice to focus on character development and background. The mission to Titan is important, but really serves to further the complicated interpersonal drama already established. Readers will be invested in what happens to these characters and all the information behind the conspiracy that seems to be taking place. While reading, it becomes quite clear that this was written for a TV series.

Detour is definitely worth reading, but it is best to start knowing there will be no closure until the next book in the series. Cliffhangers are perhaps better saved for TV shows rather than books; rounded down due to 4 due to this. Thanks to Random House Worlds for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2025/12/detour.html show less

I won't give this book one star rating. Until the lat few pages when I knew it would end soon, I would have given it 4.5, which is high for me. The characters were well-developed and the plot was gripping, suspenseful, and thought-provoking. However, the cliffhanging ending, with no resolution, makes the book one star for me. What a cheap trick! I was looking forward to sharing this book, but now I can't recommend it. Too bad.