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    Across the Void: A Novel
    Across the Void: A Novel
    Across the Void: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    Across the Void: A Novel

    Written by S.K. Vaughn

    Narrated by Adjoa Andoh

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A visceral space thriller—perfect for fans of Arrival and The Martian—following the sole survivor of a catastrophic accident in space that leaves her drifting in the void with only the voice of her estranged husband, a NASA scientist, to guide her back to Earth.

    Commander Maryam “May” Knox awakes from a medically induced coma alone, adrift in space on a rapidly failing ship, with little to no memory of who she is or why she’s there.

    Slowly, she pieces together that she’s the captain of the ship, Hawking II; that she was bound for Europa—one of Jupiter’s moons—on a research mission; and that she’s the only survivor of either an accident—or worse, a deliberate massacre—that has decimated her entire crew. With resources running low, and her physical strength severely compromised, May must rely on someone back home to help her. The problem is: everyone thinks she’s dead.

    Back on Earth, it’s been weeks since Hawking II has communicated with NASA, and Dr. Stephen Knox is on bereavement leave to deal with the apparent death of his estranged wife, whose decision to participate in the Europa mission strained their marriage past the point of no return. But when he gets word that NASA has received a transmission from May, Stephen comes rushing to her aid.

    What he doesn’t know is that not everyone wants May to make it back alive. Even more terrifying: she might not be alone on that ship. Featuring a twisting and suspenseful plot and compelling characters, Across the Void is a moving and evocative thriller that you won’t be able to put down.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJul 2, 2019
    ISBN9781508294276
    Author

    S.K. Vaughn

    S.K. Vaughn is the pseudonym for an author of three internationally bestselling thrillers. Vaughn’s first science fiction novel, Across The Void, will be released in multiple languages and territories worldwide. S.K. Vaughn lives and works in North Beach, San Francisco.

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    Reviews for Across the Void

    3.5/5

    39 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The storyline kept me reading but one major plot hole bothered me (SPOILER ALERT). They seem to forget that she could be carrying a deadly virus from Jupiter. Bringing this back to earth ca be catastrophic!
    • 3/5
      I liked the story and some of the characters came to life for me. However, there are some rather important plot elements that did were not satisfactorily addressed. Mainly, there is the fact that only 2 people get "caught" for their crimes, when in the novel, one of them commands enough power to launch an actual missile attack on an island outside of the US territorial waters. This comes after this same person finds and launches another attack on two protagonists.

      Even though the latter attack is more "credible", there are a few question marks concerning, for instance, medical controls both before and during the mission and a sudden villanous plan which seemed gratituous to me, and a sudden appearance of another villain who frankly seemed like some kind of diavolo (?) ex machina.

      All in all, the novel was entertaining but I doubt I will pick up another of the author's books.
    • 2/5
      The book had a semigood premise but thats about it.I realised i didn´t like any of the characters and in the end i didn´t care about what happened to them at all.And don´t get me started on how a professional astronaut manages to get pregnant not once but TWICE before the biggest mission ever in human history. I mean really?There are so many better books, read them instead of wasting your time on this.
    • 4/5
      One of the reviews that I saw before starting to listen to the audio of this mentioned that it was like The Martian, and yes, I can see that. This is a story about an astronaut pilot who has been marooned in her ship far from home, and the lengths that are required to even attempt to bring her home. But there's another plot-line simultaneously being worked through about her emotional life and her relationships. That secondary plot-line reminded me a lot of another sci-fi that I listened to a while back, The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlette. Overall, this story had me on the edge quite a bit and I really had a good time with it, but I'd liked to have seen more of the universe ,the discoveries from Europa, what happens after that final showdown and they head home because it's kindof a big deal the whole Ian thing.
    • 2/5
      This was supposed to be the story of May Knox, an astronaut who was making the first trip of its kind to Europa, and what happens after she wakes up from a coma she can't remember being in. She has only the ship's female AI to help her and keep her company and then, shockingly, she discovers she's pregnant. This was supposed to be a book about May and it could have been a fascinating look at isolation, fear, and hope. Instead it was more about May's ex-husband and billionaire former boyfriend and various other men working on the project and it became vastly uninteresting.[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.]
    • 2/5
      I started out liking this book but the implausibilities started piling up and I finally just finished it to find out how bad the ending was going to be.Commander May Knox, returning from a historic making trip to the Jupiter satellite Europa, wakes up in the ship infirmary. Apparently she'd been sick but she can't remember what happened to her. To add to the mystery, the infirmary appears to have been trashed. And the rest of the crew (not clear how many, 10-20 maybe) are gone. She's all alone with only the ship's AI (who seems ill equipped) to keep her company. OK, so the book jacket compares this to "The Martian" and I guess it gets off to a similar start. But it's all downhill from there.I had a lot of problems with this book.First, the ship, the "Hawking II". I would expect with such a name interstellar travel or something about relativity or something exotic would be involved. No. The ship is described as perhaps a sphere with multiple decks which spin for gravity. That sounds like a rotating ball with the decks on the interior. But wouldn't different decks need to spin a different rates to keep a constant gravity? Sounds like it would be complicated to move around it but apparently not. Also there appear to be parts of the ship, like the dock, where gravity can be switched off. Doesn't make sense.I'm afraid there are some spoilers ahead.May finds out that she's pregnant. Oh, maybe some European virus has impregnated her. The point of this mission was to discover if there was life in the Europa frozen oceans. No, she had sex with her husband just days before leaving on the 3-month trip. Why is the infirmary stocked with pregnancy tests and abortion pills? I guess humans will be humans.It becomes clear that the ship was the subject of some sabotage. The book makes little attempt to explain the motives behind the sabotage. Several ideas are floated (barely) but still motivation is severely missing.Then the soap opera. Is the baby the child of her husband or her former lover whom she slept with a couple of weeks before the flight to spite her husband? I really could have done with out this subplot. Then her husband (who had designed the science portion of the ship) and her ex-lover (who was a billionaire wannabe space explore) team up to save her in an experimental spacecraft which the NASA program director in charge of May's mission tries to shoot down as it is launched. None of this makes a lick of sense.I only gave it 2 stars because I was able to finish it.
    • 4/5
      As others, when I started reading this book, my first thought was The Martian. But it is such a different story. May, the commander of an expedition to Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons) is the only survivor of a catastrophe aboard her ship. She awakens from a coma, with amnesia and slowly tries to get the ship on course to home (well, at least to Mars). She has her trusty AI computer, Eve to help her and Eve is also the comic relief at points. There are flashbacks to show how May got there and her relationships to those who want to rescue her. I enjoyed it because there were some plot twists, enough humor and enough action to whet my appetite.