We saw a dying star being pulled into a black hole. Watched icy comets graze the atmospheres of super-Jovian gas giants. Discovered a matching pair of Earth-like planets locked in an orbital dance around a hot, young star, their oceans seething with the potential for life.

The book is a detective and survival sci-fi story of a scout pilot thrown into saving humanity from an alien nano entity. The premise and the plot of the book are amazing: humanity is saved by a superior intelligence right at the point of its own destruction, it’s sent in its entirety into alien arks outside Earth, and it’s taking care of. But a mysterious entity, like a virus, able to mimic humans, is posing a great threat to the human arks. Standing tall is a scout pilot, who is the first responder to an accident to a remote planet that starts the infection.

The premise of the book is great, and the topics are some of the darlings of the afficionados of the genre. But the writing and plot are terrible. A classic case of a great idea and bad implementation. The book is a solid 3/5, where the theme is 5 stars, while the writing and characters are a low 1 star.

I was reading this book right after “The Road” by Cormac McCormack, which is a marvel of writing. Not much happens in that book, but the writing is impeccable, top of the drawer. This book, Stars and Bones, is the opposite. Great themes, good plot twists, but the characters and the protagonist are cringe and shallow. There is no psychological depth, little on motivations, little exploration of the world. The premise of the book promised so much more.

Overall, a good book, but not exceptional.