The Sleeping Gods, by Ralph Kern

ISBN: 9780992907785 (Part 1 only)
Amazon ID: B08TTKTM5C

There's a lot of book here, but I'm not convinced there's quite as much story.

The Sleeping Gods comprises two books - Endeavour, and Erebus. It's not at all clear to me how or why they form a series.

The author had the ideas for four short stories, and decided to join them together with some trivialities about transport, and turn them into a nearly-400 page book.

Aside from the crew of a spaceship, there's virtually no connection between the four stories at all, and the bits of triviality about transport which joins the stories together could have been made so much more of if the author really had wanted to create an epic story of space exploration and encounters with alien species.

As it is, though, a spaceship with 12 crew members (one of whom we never even find out the name of, let alone what he or she does) goes off somewhere, has an interesting time, returns to Earth, and then goes off somewhere else. There's no discussion of what the people on Earth make of what this crew has found or learned about, and there's almost no character development or background to the people we're reading about.

It's like reading a Star Trek episode with a thin story to it, followed by another one, and followed by another one, but without finding out anything significant about the characters on the Enterprise along the way.

As for the actual writing, it's astonishing.

The author decides that "Poseidon" is a good name for one of the locations which get visited. Unfortunately, he writes "Poseidon" in the text and "Posiedon" in the chapter titles (well, all but one, for some reason).

It's extremely noticeable that this book did not have an editor (there isn't one mentioned in the acknowledgements, whereas there is for the second book, whose text is clearly of a far higher quality).

Some examples of the word constructions you will find:

• after a few months of being put through the ringer…
• "we use what is called the Einstein-Podolky-Roden-Aston effect…" (I don't think that was artistic licence and creativity, but I can't be entirely sure; in the story, it was said by someone who should know about Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen)
• "you guy aren't getting all philosophical are you?"
• If Tom had been on that mission, he would have simply keel-hauled his crew mate…" (bearing in mind that this is a space mission, where there isn't even a keel, never mind the possibility of dragging someone through the water underneath it)
• Anyone unprotected would be completely microwaved, but Tom felt nothing at all in his protective suit
  • we very soon find out that his "protective suit" has a transparent plastic helmet, which he can easily see through
• Small explosive bolts blew the heavy pressure door of its hinges
• "we're losing our value in that regards"
• They looked like huge octopi on steroids.
  • The plural of "octopus" is "octopuses" or very possibly "octopodes"
• the author believes the plural of "gas" to be "gasses", and readily mixes miles, kilometers, feet, light years, astronomical units (and in one utterly bizarre piece of prose, "astrological units") when discussing distances
• Now, even her designers would have been taken back by what she would look like…
• traveling in the plain of the ecliptic
• whatever it is, its physical and bouncing a signal
• the ring would have comprised of about 400,000 os these boxlike structure
• "Looks like sheering damage…"
• "Optical sensors are getting nothing but visuals." Er, what else would you expect from an optical sensor?
• the author believes that Kelvin are not a unit in themselves, but should be expressed as "degrees kelvin"
• the opposite of "ascent" is apparently "decent" (on several occasions: 22 "decent"s and 6 "descent"s, in a book about space travel…)
• "the waterfall was a pouring lethal radiation on them and the umbrella was made of metal and diamond composite that was."
• the driver just looked at them as he drove pass
• "we're just going on what's cached in ships memory"
• The damp and sodden grass bordered a path with weeds and moss on it as.
• watching the ships sails dwindle into nothing
• Arthur, stood nearest the door turned and punched him in the face, crushing Arthur's nose and sending him flying back out of the house.
• Harry couldn't help but be shocked at the Tom's state.
• there will be dozens of planets containing dozens races in this system.

The book really could have done with an editor / proofreader.

There are also a few weirdnesses (in my opinion) with the way some things seem to work, for example:

• Four people are in spacesuits, standing an airlock, waiting for it to de-pressurise.
  • One of them thinks "it might be a good idea to take some weapons"
  • They then open an arms locker and get some weapons to take with them, wait for a while, and then the outer hatch opens
  • They're therefore clearly still standing in the airlock - they didn't go back into the main ship to visit the arms locker
  • Who in their right mind would place an arms locker in the airlock of a spacecraft - the first part any visitors (welcome or unwelcome) would be likely to arrive at?
  • This seems nuts to me - the arms locker/s should be deep in the ship in secure areas

There is a nice (clear, and deliberately obvious) reference to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This book is better in at least one sense, because it had an editor to keep the author on the straight and narrow path of spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Well, that's what I thought when I saw an editor listed in the acknowledgements. I'm not entirely sure about the quality of the editing (see below).

The first 5 chapters of Erebus read more like Die Hard than they do Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, Close Encounters, or anything else to do with science fiction. After that, things settle down rather more to flying around the place in spacecraft, but even that is more of an extended chase sequence than is it interestng science fiction.

There is no continuity (that I've been able to find) between the people or the places between the first book and the second, so it's entirely unclear to me why these are put together under the combined title The Sleeping Gods.

• The blade cleaved into my partners head with a sickening thud.
• They give manifest details, custom's information for the passengers, and all that boring stuff.
• Anyone that hadn't evacuate or been killed…
• The custom's security station scanned the passport implant…
• He could immediately see what the problem was. The casing of the junction box has somehow sprung open…
• "You know that […]" she continue introspectively.
• The author believes that the Jovian moon is spelled "Calisto".
• [He was] casually playing catch with himself with ball all he'd found somewhere.
• … until we can put him through the ringer properly.
• [You think] he is going to be phased if you put him on the rack?
• A reluctant chorus of ascent came from the other officers.
• Nearly everyone who have ever lived and died had done so on that small sphere.
• I here compound interest is akin to magic.
• Sirius B had a number of scorched ciders tumbling around in close orbit
• This was the nerve-racking bit.
• I saw the black hole and accretion disk sluing to one side.
• I saw a graphics box highlighting a dark spec.
• Tasker took the round her in the chest.
• If Frain think he's getting onboard my ship, he's got another thing coming.
• I can't say I'm please to meet you, Victor.

The author casually uses the word "perigee", and then in the very next sentence uses the word "apogee" and feels the need to explain it.

I can't make my mind up whether "sensor officer" is a typo or not.

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