Description:
Charlie and Susan Samplin make a new home for themselves on the finest repair depot in space. On the Space Equipment Authority’s Maintenance Station 16, Charlie discovers that he has a natural talent for the station’s favorite pastime, Zeegee, a zero gravity sport. He also finds satisfaction professionally when his skills as a technician are finally allowed to shine. Susan finds life on the station stimulating too, as she makes many new friends, including Station Director Sureenon and his wife, Penny.
But soon, a series of mysterious mishaps occur in seemingly unrelated systems, one of which results in the death of a co-worker. Charlie suspects the one person he doesn’t get along with, but others disagree. The mishaps stop as mysteriously as they started—for a time—but when an old friend comes aboard they begin again, leading to the discovery of a device that can only be alien technology. But who brought it on board and why? Join Charlie and Susan as they work together with new friends and old to solve the mystery and discover A New Home.
Overall Rating: 4 1/4 stars
Plot/Storyline: 4 stars
The opening of this space novel intrigued me: a young married couple face a life-changing decision. After that, the plot bogs down for a while, with conflicts based largely on overreactions, deliberate withholding of information, ignorance, and coincidences. As soon as the zeegee game makes an appearance, the pace picks up, and several plot lines begin to weave together nicely. The quicker pacing isn’t maintained evenly, though, becoming slow and contemplative in many of the action scenes outside of the game.
The worldbuilding is so thorough that this space station becomes a readily visualized setting. While some readers may tire of the abundant details, I like worldbuilding and think this is one of the author’s strengths.
The ecoterrorism that drives the plot toward the end of the book is subtly established, which I thought a nice touch but maybe too subtle: are the KOSSPers (Keep Our Solar System Pure) peaceable and well intentioned, or dangerous terrorists? Why is the space station being sabotaged? Who are these aliens whose technology reveals the security holes on the station? The number of unanswered questions along these lines left me unsatisfied at the end.
Particularly where the sabotage plot develops and the villain is discovered, I couldn’t just go along for the ride: it seemed too much of a stretch that nobody identified the villain earlier. And I was hoping for more of a science fiction plot (more aliens, especially) rather than an espionage/technothriller hybrid, transplanted into space.
Character Development: 3 1/2 stars
The characters are drawn well, with an appropriate balance between their professional and personal lives, depending on their role in the story. It’s a pity they aren’t, on the whole, more complex or at least easy to empathize with, though.
To start with, Charlie and Susan Samplin, the two lead characters, lack human foibles: they’re like the prom king and queen in high school. Everyone wants to be their friend, their own relationship is loving and supportive, and their instincts are spot-on. Technical skills come so easily to Charlie, his greatest professional problem is the boredom that comes from repetition. Susan’s perfection lies in the realm of ethics and social behavior, for she knows exactly what everyone should do and isn’t reluctant to offer her opinion.
Identifying with the characters in this book proved unexpectedly tricky, for in addition to the perfection of Susan and Charlie, characters’ emotions (when touched on at all) seesaw between extremes: from pleased to panicked in a moment, from casual acceptance to rage and on to shame in a heartbeat. These emotional swings, along with a tendency toward headhopping (that is, abrupt shifts of perspective from the head of one character into another), kept me from feeling sympathy for otherwise likable characters experiencing stressful or frightening events.
I did enjoy the glimpses at the innate psychic gifts that many of the characters seemed to have; this characteristic fits the futuristic setting and adds to the plausibility, for if the humans on the space station were exactly the same as men and women of my own time, this would suggest that despite the technological advances, no physiological or behavioral changes have occurred. Men still gather with their coworkers to talk about the game and women still gather with their friends to talk about shopping, clothes, and interpersonal relationships. This clichéd behavior may make the unfamiliar space-station setting more accessible, like SF lite, for readers who are unaccustomed to the genre, but I prefer my sci-fi fare to be more exotic.
Writing Style: 4 1/4 stars
The author has a suitable writing style for the genre, generally intelligent without being pedantic. The descriptions are precise, with an appropriate level of detail. Although sometimes the dialogue becomes stilted or overly formal, it does function well to advance the plot and add to our sense of the characters.
On occasion, the sentences become overly convoluted, forcing the reader to puzzle out the meaning. Also, in the quest to add interest or action to the dialogue tags, the syntax frequently suffers, with mash-ups such as the following: “I’m sorry,” Susan was confused.
Overall, though, I did enjoy reading this book and would recommend it, particularly for its lack of gore and sex–a refreshing absence these days in every genre, even science fiction.
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From the author, Eric B. Thomasma:
How did you come up with the title?
The name of the station, SEAMS16, just popped into my head. It was obvious to me that MS16 stood for Maintenance Station 16, but I didn’t yet have a name for the corporation. Space Equipment Authority fit the acronym. A New Home, of course, refers to Charlie and Susan making a new home for themselves on the station.
How long have you been writing?
Not long. I wrote A New Home about 3 years ago.
What authors have inspired you?
I don’t feel that I was inspired to write by other authors. I never read anyone’s work and thought to myself, “I want to be a writer like this person.” I wrote when I felt I had a story to tell, and I continue to write for the same reason.
Where did you get the idea for the novel?
I started writing the story based on a dream that I remembered and quickly outlined. By the end of the second paragraph the story no longer resembled the outline, but it was what got me started.
Who is your favorite character?
Oddly enough, my favorite is a fairly minor character in the story named Skeet. I never had a daughter and I guess in my mind she has come to fill that role.
About the author:
Eric B. Thomasma was born and raised in West Mitten, USA. He still lives in the area with his wife of 34 years, Therese, and together they raised two sons, Eric Jr. and Nicholas. Eric spent most of his adult life working as an electrician and service technician in the telecommunications industry, with side interests in computers and video production. He has written and self-published three novels, SEAMS16:A New Home, SEAMS16:Arrival, and And So It Begins… He has also self-published two children’s stories, Sam and the Dragon and Billy’s Family. You can learn more about Eric and his writing at his website,http://ericbt.webs.com/.
SEAMS16: A New Home
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