David Holman (3)

This was so bad.

The premise had merit. I loved the idea that we were going to get a story set at least in part, at the High Down Rocket Test Site in England. You get a lot more than that in the novel, but it was generally quite poor. First of all, the characters had about as much development as a cardboard cutout. I seriously could not tell the difference between any of the British men that orbit around Swan. The only difference between them were names and job titles. The dialog was also show more quite stilted. Do British people really go around calling each other "old chap" and the like? I also found it strange that measurements were given in feet and inches, while British spelling was used for certain words. The author also kept creating these back stories for very minor characters. Why? For the most part, these segments did nothing to further the story except to make the book longer. I also felt the author's grasp of the American space program to be tenuous at best. Too many technical errors to recount here.

All in all, I read this because I wanted a story that talks about rocket testing in England. I did get that, though it seems some of the details of the site were changed to suit the author's purpose. I give this book 1.5 stars for trying. show less