Departure, by A.G. Riddle
Starts with a plane crash, feels like Lost, turns into a sci-fi caper.
Riddle, Inc., 2014, 318 pages
En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind.
Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they've crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home?
Five passengers seem to hold clues about what's really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw - the son of a billionaire philanthropist.
As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they're letting on - answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past - to save our world...or end it.
Any story that starts with a plane crash and the survivors finding themselves in an unfamiliar environment going "WTF?" is going to draw comparisons to Lost, but I think the author went out of his way to invoke that feeling here, where a plane from London to New York goes down in the English countryside, receives no contact from the outside world, and right away some of the passengers are acting weird and suspicious, while the mysterious protagonists both turn into take-charge Action Guy and Action Girl while being immediately drawn to each other. You really want a movie deal, don't you, A.G. Riddle?
Eventually, they learn that they've been thrown into a post-apocalyptic future. At this point, the story becomes more of a conspiracy-adventure, involving time travel, double crosses, a little bit of quantum mumbo jumbo, and an insta-love romance between the two protagonists. The plot takes some clever twists and a few cliched ones, and overall it was a satisfying story; I just found the conclusion less interesting than the beginning.
My complete list of book reviews.
Riddle, Inc., 2014, 318 pages
En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind.
Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they've crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home?
Five passengers seem to hold clues about what's really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw - the son of a billionaire philanthropist.
As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they're letting on - answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past - to save our world...or end it.
Any story that starts with a plane crash and the survivors finding themselves in an unfamiliar environment going "WTF?" is going to draw comparisons to Lost, but I think the author went out of his way to invoke that feeling here, where a plane from London to New York goes down in the English countryside, receives no contact from the outside world, and right away some of the passengers are acting weird and suspicious, while the mysterious protagonists both turn into take-charge Action Guy and Action Girl while being immediately drawn to each other. You really want a movie deal, don't you, A.G. Riddle?
Eventually, they learn that they've been thrown into a post-apocalyptic future. At this point, the story becomes more of a conspiracy-adventure, involving time travel, double crosses, a little bit of quantum mumbo jumbo, and an insta-love romance between the two protagonists. The plot takes some clever twists and a few cliched ones, and overall it was a satisfying story; I just found the conclusion less interesting than the beginning.
My complete list of book reviews.