@breastcancernow.bsky.social

My Walk 100 Miles in May Challenge 2026! Help James Flanagan raise money to support Breast Cancer Now

www.justgiving.com/page/james-f...

I have decided to do something!

I'm raising money for Breast Cancer Now, who generously support our research.

The challenge is to walk 100 miles (160 km in real numbers) in May. My fitbit will keep track.

I think I can hit the target by about May 20th.

Click the link if you want to donate

The highest quality video of the moon was just released…
so beautiful

* Artemis II

Cover of K47 by Ricky Ginsburg

1/8
K47

by Ricky Ginsburg

Status: Quarterfinalist

#SPSFC #SPSFC5 #Booksky

www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPCN3QDN

Spoiler: My favourite of #SPSFC5 so far.

9/9
#Booksky, Just my opinion, but I’m recommending you give this one a pass.

8/9
Lastly, there is a detailed description of the lingo regarding time and distance in the preface. I find this really unnecessary and just makes it harder for the reader. Why, if we are “translating” from these aliens into “English” do we not just translate their words for time and distance too.

7/9
How long was the journey? How has it changed them as people? The last main concern is the balance of Show vs tell. It reads like a summary of what has happened rather than showing us and immersing the reader in the experience. This is the challenge for all authors, getting that right.

6/9
The story starts as the crew land on a desert plain. It really desperately needs a bit more lead up to that. This story could have started on the home planet, choosing to leave, choosing the crew, on the journey we could get to know the crew showing us the dynamics between them all.

5/9
Summary:

Ok, I’ve read the first chapter and decided this is a DNF for me. There are several things that have struck me so far. The formatting is all over the place and makes for harder reading, that should be an easy fix.

4/9
As a synopsis it sets up the plot reasonably well, but it does not give us any characters to hook onto, it doesn’t give us any sense of the stakes. Are they sad to leave their planet, is the impending doom immediate, or with a growing sun, surely millennia away?

3/9

The title does not really add anything as a hook. The blurb tells us that this is a dying planet where the locals have decided to up and leave their planet behind and colonise another. They have spotted a nice blue planet and set about to colonise, but find more than they bargained for.

2/9
Cover:

I’m not a fan of the cover. It is a wraparound artwork with a nice orange and dark landscape, although the juxtaposition of the green-suited woman doesn’t really work on the composition for me. That may just be personal taste.

Cover of Explorer by Roger Floyd

1/9
Explorer

by Roger Floyd

Status: Cut

www.amazon.com/dp/B0DN4RGC2Z

15/15
Summary:
This is potentially an interesting story, but I wasn’t captured by it. It was only at the 25% mark that something interesting happened. It is definitely Military Scifi without going too technical on the details, Soft Military Scifi.
#Booksky - This one is for the Military SciFi fans.

14/15

When it comes to “Show vs Tell”, there is a bit too much Tell throughout, as well as a lot of explanatory dialogue. So, the writing could be improved.

13/15
Writing:

There are a few issues in the writing with very little imagery and descriptions to really settle the setting in the mind of the reader. There is a bit of head hopping across characters when we are following Tim as the POV character, then switch to his superior, or others.

12/15

We gloss over much of the training, so we don’t get an appreciation of how hard it is, or whether Tim is ever at risk of failing his training, or even whether he wants to succeed at the training. A few more obstacles would have helped.

11/15
Stakes: The biggest challenge for me in reading this is that the stakes don't seem terribly high. It becomes apparent that someone in the shadows aims to kill Tim, but that doesn’t seem to drive much of the plot. The war training should be leading to a war, but I don’t see any hint of that.

10/15

The planet is cold, that much is clear. There is a city and towns on the outskirts, but the setting largely focuses on the military training facilities. We learn a bit about the politics of the American Alliance vs the enemy YFAAS (the Asian-African alliance).

9/15

Setting & Worldbuilding:

This is not set on Mars, as I had come to expect, but rather on a planet called Moros. We do not get an in depth view of this planet, where it is, or the context of why humans are there, but it does seem to take about 2 years to get there.

8/15

The strange part of the story is what seem like flashbacks to Tim in 2014 as a college undergraduate whose biggest challenge is getting himself invited to a Halloween party. I find those short sections of text a bit redundant.

7/15

The opening of this book has a vague similarity to Ender's Game, cue the training montage, as the character learns how to fight in this space army and a drill sergeant yelling at him. He learns how to command his squad and learns how to stay alive. There is very limited character development.

6/15
Characters:

The main character in this novel is a young soldier called Tim Bortman who starts out as a cadet, aces his IQ test to get promoted to Lieutenant Cadet. He is stationed on a frontier planet and the first quarter of the book demonstrates that Tim is rather uncertain of himself.

5/15

The blurb tells us this is a military sci-fi set in the Outer Rim around 2267. Or it’s set in 2014 with a college student who just thinks he’s in the Outer Rim. A mind-bending time travel, or psychological thriller not knowing what’s truth and what’s fiction. I’m intrigued where this will go.

4/15

The composition of the cover is good with the space suit ahead of the planet, ahead of the title. But the eyes in the space suit are just weird. If you can’t see the rest of the face, why just the eyes? That was a weird choice for me.

3/15

I like a story about Mars, and there have been some great ones over the years from HG Wells and CS Lewis to Philip K Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Weir among many others.

2/15
Cover:

I don’t know what a MOROS is, so the title has me puzzled. What is it, what does it mean, is it an acronym, or the name of a planet, or a character? From the cover I’m expecting a tale about Mars. The red planet automatically sends me there.

Cover of Moros by LD Rogov

1/15

MOROS

by L.D.Rogov

Status: Cut

#SPSFC #SPSFC5 #Booksky

www.amazon.com/dp/B0FHNH71KQ

13/13
Summary:

I would say that murder mystery is not my typical fare, so it could be this book just isn’t for me, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about reaching the end of this mystery.

#Booksky. If Murder Mystery is your thing, then this book is for you.