{"id":276,"date":"2023-09-13T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T06:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/?p=276"},"modified":"2023-09-13T06:02:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T06:02:12","slug":"s-k-vaughn-across-the-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/13\/s-k-vaughn-across-the-void\/","title":{"rendered":"S. K. Vaughn: Across the Void"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine a more intriguing opening scene than an all-dark exploration vessel drifting in deep space, with the tune Silent Night reverberating on empty corridors, and the ship\u2019s commander suddenly waking up buried in hypothermic gel in an intensive-care cocoon.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Unremitting suspense is among the best qualities of Vaughn\u2019s novel. Mysteries are everywhere \u2013 where is the crew? What happened to the spaceship after completing their research mission on Moon Europa? What had happened to Commander May Knox before she left Earth to embark on this mission, and is it in any way relevant to her current predicament? May\u2019s story is unfolding in front of us with constant glimpses of the recent past and earlier events, while we also accompany her present efforts to find the way back to Earth. This split chronology, a structure that can be deeply annoying if badly executed, works very well in Across the Void, and produces a suspenseful mystery embedded in a gripping SF narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve read Vaughn\u2019s novel just after finishing Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield\u2019s Apollo Murders, and it was a surprise how much more I enjoyed not only the mystery\/thriller, but also the SF component in Across the Void. While Hadfield\u2019s book is entertaining enough, Across the Void has brought both the awe and the fear of travelling in space much closer. It made me wonder about the author, but it\u2019s another mystery \u2013 there\u2019s an S. K. Vaughn listed as \u201cretired school administrator, father of four\u201d with a near-future dystopia and an adventure fantasy on Amazon to his name. And there\u2019s another S.K Vaughn, who\u2019s actually Shane Kuhn, producer and director who\u2019d published three thrillers previously, none of them remotely SF. Are they the same person? Or is the S.K Vaughn pseudonym hiding an entirely different identity? No idea. But one things seems certain \u2013 whoever has written Across the Void, they\u2019ve never been to space, and yet the book is able to transport us right on board of Hawking II, to the training simulators in Houston and to the heart of emptiness itself during EVA walks. Just a reminder how writing is really more about projecting your imagination than documenting actual experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having said that, there are points where projecting imagination is not enough, and a wee bit more research would have been helpful. Where Vaughn\u2019s hard SF really breaks down \u2013 at least noticeably even for readers without a degree in space science \u2013 is woman\u2019s anatomy. I couldn\u2019t go more into detail without spoiling key plot twists, but suffice to say that at a couple of times I had to work hard on suspending disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So don\u2019t expect perfection when reading Across the Void \u2013 apart from ignorance of female biology, there are also some smaller-than-life and edging on clich\u00e9 characters, dodgy motivations, \u201cplot-needs-to-happen\u201d type of solutions. It has been labelled as a \u201cromantic SF thriller\u201d, not a frequent genre combination, and depending on tastes, some may find it too melodramatic. But I\u2019m not on a quest for the perfect novel, just the one worth my time (and yours). Flaws don\u2019t necessarily ruin a good book: sometimes they even add to the flavour. Across the Void falls exactly in this category, so go ahead and enjoy reading \u2013 perhaps with an occasional eye-rolling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to imagine a more intriguing opening scene than an all-dark exploration vessel drifting in deep space, with the tune Silent Night reverberating on empty corridors, and the ship\u2019s commander suddenly waking up buried in hypothermic gel in an intensive-care cocoon. Unremitting suspense is among the best qualities of Vaughn\u2019s novel. Mysteries are everywhere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[85,86,87,88,26,89,84],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews","tag-across-the-void","tag-book-review","tag-hard-sf","tag-romantic-sf","tag-sf","tag-sf-thriller","tag-vaughn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}