A Son of the Rock

The Kon-Tiki Quartet Part One, PS Publishing, 2018, 100 p

The Kon-Tiki is an interstellar colony ship weeks from lift-off with its cargo of cloned humans, soon to be imprinted with their originals’ personalities, originals whose expertise is held to be too valuable to send away from Earth themselves. Our two viewpoint characters Travis Denholme and Kat Manning are part of the crew readying the mission. In this eco-catastrophe-threatened world a group called the Allianz, vehemently opposed to this use of resources which it sees as a waste, pickets the base’s entrance while its foreign associates perpetrate worse actions.

Denholme is attracted to Manning but her affections lean more towards his friend and fellow worker Daniel DeVries. In the eyes of the authorities a past relationship with Ute, now an Allianz activist, hovers over Denholme’s reliability.

Anyone familiar with the work of co-author Brown will recognise aspects of this. There is a certain style to it which bears his stamp. This is not to deny fellow writer Brooke’s input. I could not say for sure which parts were written by Brown and which by Brooke as it reads seamlessly. It is possible they undertook alternate chapters.

After the onset of the imprinting Manning is kidnapped, seemingly by the Allianz. Denholme is questioned about his association with Ute but his lack of involvement is accepted grudgingly. He and DeVries are instrumental in discovering her whereabouts and also what is the real threat to the mission.

The immediate story is satisfactorily resolved within the book’s 100 pages leaving us to wonder what is to come in the succeeding volumes of this quartet.

“Time interval” later count: 10.
Pedant’s corner:- in the blurb; “one of the eighteen specialist” (specialists.) Otherwise; “conduct with last woman he’d dated” (with the last woman,) “was it sooner that that” (sooner than that,) “Richards’” (Richards’s.) “Graphs sprung up” (sprang up,) “until he realised that that” (only one ‘that’ needed,) “‘Don’t looked so surprised’” (‘Don’t look so surprised’,) iced-covered (ice-covered,) “‘Tyres tracks’” (Tyre tracks,) “tyres marks” (tyre marks. I suppose this could be tyres plural but then it should be tyres’ marks.) “‘What if Lauren and Danvers planning to sabotage’” (‘What if Lauren and Danvers are planning to sabotage’,) “but he seems as surprised” (the rest of the story is in past tense; ‘seemed’.)