The Last Astronaut

Neither NASA nor SpaceX will be overly happy with this one. This is another real-ish solar system space survival story in the vein of Andy Weir's The Martian or Lisa A. Nichols' Vessel. In terms of techno-jargon, it sits somewhere in between those two, with more jargon early in the book before the book takes a less technical turn towards the back half. Stylistically, this is a mockumentary type tale with both a storyline and documentary elements interwoven and uses various event names for the headings of the chapters rather than chapter numbers. Overall a solid effort and very much recommended. I'll be looking for more from Mr. Wellington in the future, that's for sure.

TL;DR

I really enjoyed this book, definitely recommend to read it if you want a horror/thriller scifi story. There wasn't anything that annoyed or bothered me about it. Story was great, characters were interesting, the alien object was amazing. I have nothing bad to say about this book, go read it!

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

✓ - Main Story: I liked the idea of this mysterious space object that we encounter, almost the entire story is inside this thing so that's great because it's the best part of the book.

✓ - Side Stories (if it applies): A little bit of backstory with out main protagonist but nothing to bothersome. Not super interesing either.

✓ - Characters: Great characters all around, enjoyed all of them. There wasn't anyone who I found annoying or rolled my eyes when they were talking.

✓ - Setting/Ambiance: The tension and feeling of being inside the object was amazing and terrifying. I really liked the ambiance and it's a very strong point of the book.

✓ - Ending: Good ending as well to round up the entire book, I'm glad it didn't flop it.

Extensive Review

Okay here is where I usually start to talk about things that annoyed me or didn't make sense. For this book this section is going to be very short because I haven't found anything to put here. Maybe that at some points of the book it was hard to understand who was talking because it jumps from one character to another abruptly and I had to go back a few lines and read it again a bit more slowly to understand who's inner mind are we listening to now.

I liked all the characters in this story, I'm surprised because there is always one that is just annoying or one that you hate for various reasons. In this story I thought they were great. Even when they do some extreme things, since you hear their thoughts you understand why they did it and it can be understandable.

The science to me seemed well researched, I was looking up things that I didn't understand and it was on point to what the characters were saying or explaining. Maybe some one who more of an expert can detect some mistakes but to what little knowledge I have it made sense.

I'm not talking about the alien object because I think it's better to know nothing about it and just experience it while reading, it was my favorite part of the book and I'd say is pretty much 80% of where the story happens which is good. The other 20% is the backstory of our main protagonist and the travel to get to the alien object.

This was my first "first contact" type of story and I will be reading more of them now. The score might go down as I will compare it to other works but as of right now I will give it five stars because I really enjoyed it and I will recommend it to anyone who wants to read a scifi story.

I definitely enjoyed The Last Astronaut much more than David Wellington's zombie book, Positive. Astronaut gave me some strong Alien/Contact/The Martian/Arthur Clarke vibes from it, but I absolutely wanted it to lean far far more into the body horror dread and existential nightmare fuel potential the plot could have offered. Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream came to mind at times, but it seemed like Wellington struggled a little bit when it came to juggling the large cast, thus resulting in some underwhelming sections that could have been scrapped in order to give more suspense/action. Don't let that dissuade you though, as this was a very fun and gripping scifi/horror book that I'd very much like a sequel to.

FANCAST:

- Mission Commander Sally Jansen (Charlize Theron)

- Roy McAllister (Tim Robbins/Jodie Foster)

- Dr. Sunny Stevens (Dylan O'Brien)

- Dr. Parminder Rao (Garaldine Viswanathan/Lou Llobell)

- Major Winston Hawkins (Alan Ritchson)

- Charlotte Harewell (Rebecca Ferguson)

- Kyung-Leonard (Song Kang-ho)

- Commander Willem Foster (Garret Dillahunt)

- Mission Specialist Sandra Chaniron (Eiza Gonzalez)

2.5 rounded up

Not the space opera I was hoping for. I went into this book because it was recommended as if you liked Dead Space.

You have an astronaut who was going to mars but had to turn back and sort of sacrifice a crew member because equipment failure. And that's fine, she was damaged after that and nasa sort of went off grid.

Now, there's an issue, discovered by a guy from an elon musk-like company, that nasa undertakes. And this Nasa guy decides that the astronaut who wanted to go to mars is the girl for the job. Well, nevermind her issues, or that the rest of the crew consists of the company guy, a biologist, and a militaty guy. What is this threat? Should we go and explore it?

That has a lot of potential for space shenanigans, people with poor training, great curiosity, issues and bad decisions. However, the issue with this book is that for the most part, nothing happens!

I had to skim through the second half just trying to get to a plot. And ok, you expect in a horror sci fi that characters make bad decisions, otherwise there would be little conflict (if they see danger and decide to turn back, end of the book). But this fellas man... This astronaut in particular... I can't even. And even with her doing nothing but putting herself and others in harms way, for a good chunk nothing even happens.

TW for body horror, but other than that, the story moves slowly and the resolution is way too convenient. Also, i don't want to spoil it, but i thought it left most of the problem potentially unresolved.

Overall, interesting premise, tough execution. I recommend it for people who like slow burn space operas, with a bit of body horror, lots of cuestionable choices and not a lot of science. And maybe if you connect with the characters a bit better, it would make for an easier read.