Azimuth Falls by Dustin Carpenter

[mullman2002]

A young boy, Rowan, is torn from his comfortable life on Earth, to start a new life on a space station tethered to the Planet Apollo in a far away solar system. On board the station named Azimuth, Rowan is met by his father Rune and new wife Mara. Every thing about life on the Azimuth is different then on Earth. The clothing, the language, the units of measure, and the food is compromised of synthesized protein goop.

As Rowan gets accustomed to life on the Azimuth, he is sent down to Apollo's surface for a special ceremony, along with a few other citizens. Then disaster strikes and a handful of people must band together in order to survive on the Alien planet and seek rescue.

This book has all the elements to make a great Sci-Fi story. There's space travel, Aliens, robots, cool gadgets, and even an overbearing government. However, with all the right ingredients, I feel this book still fell a little short. There was no real action, or conflict. The book felt more like a historical listing of events, then a nail biting page turner. I just personally couldn't get excited reading this. While there is a major catastrophic event, it still doesn't do much to the story. The book is somewhat predictable and unoriginal.

Even though the characters are placed in a survival situation, their means for survival somewhat happen to appear and there is no real struggle for them. There are also some ideas brought up throughout the book, that never really come to light and leaves you wondering what was the point.

On the plus side, the writing style was very descriptive and made it easy to imagine what life on the Azimuth and Apollo looked and felt like. I felt as if I was there with Rowan.

In the end I would say Azimuth Falls is worth the read, I just wish there was a little more.

I give this book 3 stars. With a stronger plot, and better developed ideas, this book would be worth 4 stars.