A really good, fast paced page turner of a book that gives you a scary look at one possible future of America and leaves you with the haunting question what if what you are running to is worse than what you run from? ( )

I found this book quite enjoyable. When I read one of the reviews I had to go back and check that I had read the same book. I found the characters pretty believable, having been associated with professional people most of my life. The real person that hides beneath a veneer of professionalism is often just like Birch and his associates. I felt that the characters showed all the strengths and weaknesses that most people would show in similar circumstances. I understand that this story will continue unfolding in further books, and I will be pleased to purchase the next book in the series when it becomes available. ( )

For a newly published author, I found this to be an excellent first book, one I was thrilled to discover is the first of a series!

Having a military background since childhood and throughout my adult life, I found myself captivated by the plot & twists of the strangeness of life & world the characters find themselves thrown into.

His choice of writing encompasses so much more than science fiction. There is space and time travel, past and future lives, military combined with politics; and for the preppers, apocalyptic twists!

With varied plots and surprises, you soon realize you are finding a common theme connecting the dots as you travel a sorrowful and sometimes gut wrenching, heart plummeting journey with the characters.

As with any good director or author, you'll find the end justifies the writing methodology, leaving you hungry for more, future explorations, with L.E. Howel and his characters. ( )

I dislike writing this review. I dislike it because I have found L.E. Howel to be a perfectly nice man when dealing with him personally (he gave me a free copy of this book in exchange for a review). Because I like Howel, I am tempted to just not review this book, out of deference to him.

Because it's not a good book. At all.

Howel does seem to know how to write, at least knows some of the mechanics of writing. His descriptive writing can be good, and I didn't find too much of over-used cliches and purple prose that often marks the work of a bad writer.

But Howel has absolutely no ear for dialog, or for character development. None of his characters seem to act like real human beings, especially not highly-trained astronauts and professionals as the main characters are supposed to be. They seem to talk and act like high-school children - if those children were particularly hot-headed and with little self-awareness or consistency. It's hard to tell one character from the next - there is very little to distinguish one from another, and often a character trait will come up very late in the story, making little sense when put against the earlier actions of that character.

Howel self-published this work. Unfortunately, it really shows. More than anything, what he really needed on this book was a good editor - one that could have coached him in bringing along believable characters who speak like actual people. Once who could have given him pointers on story development.

I think Howel perhaps has a better book in him - I truly hope this nice man finds a very good editor to work with, and spends a lot of time working with that editor. Planetfall is a mess - such a mess that it's one of only 2 books (out of around 150) in the last year or so that I just wasn't able to force myself to finish. When I found myself skimming over page after page in boredom and frustration, I kept at it. When I found myself still doing that at about halfway in, I gave up. Life is just too short to keep pounding away at a book this poor. ( )