Do You Dream of Terra-Two? - Book Review

Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

by Temi Oh

What is it about:

When an Earth-like planet is discovered, a team of six teens, along with three veteran astronauts, embark on a twenty-year trip to set up a planet for human colonization—but find that space is more deadly than they ever could have imagined.

Have you ever hoped you could leave everything behind?

Have you ever dreamt of a better world?

Can a dream sustain a lifetime?

A century ago, an astronomer discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. She predicted that one day humans would travel there to build a utopia. Today, ten astronauts are leaving everything behind to find it. Four are veterans of the twentieth century’s space-race.

And six are teenagers who’ve trained for this mission most of their lives.

It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years locked in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.

And something always goes wrong. 

What did I think of it:

This book was very different from what I expected it to be, but not in a bad way.

I expected this to be a SF adventure. Instead it focuses on the psychological aspects of a group of people forced into close proximity for a long time.

Every chapter the viewpoint switches and you get to see in the heads of the teens who are picked for this project. The book starts before the launch and lets you get to know their hopes, dreams, and fears.

I had my favorites of course, and was soon rooting for those.

Then they are launched into space and tensions start to rise soon. I was eager to find out how they would cope and if my favorite characters would be ok.

This is an alternative history: it starts in 2012 and the history of space flight in this book differs from real history. I think the way this as integrated into the story was well done. One particular bit of the history in this book really intrigued me, and I was glad it eventually came to be important to the story.

All in all this is an intense and emotional story that had me invested from start to finish. You bet this is a keeper.

Why should you read it:

It's a psychological SF read.  

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