A fairly uncomplicated hard sci-fi novel, classic in its development: an Earth ship disintegrates, a sole survivor ends up landing on an unknown planet and discovers that an alien race of galactic marauders is holding two indigenous sentient races in slavery. Obviously she decides to devote herself body and soul to their redemption, helped by the fact that the invaders, though fearsome as they are insectoids, and therefore numerous and endowed with what is called a hive mentality, have in the meantime devolved. Only she is not the only survivor and, many years earlier, another Earth spaceship landed on that planet and even managed to found a religion. There are a lot of clichés in the novel, compounded by the strangeness of a human race that has evolved to the point where it has become good, although relations between some of the Earthlings are a bit contentious at one point. Nevertheless, a decent read for a youngster who wants to approach technological science fiction for the first time.

BINARY SYSTEM is an entertaining, well-written science fiction adventure. It has the feel of some classic adventure SF, and is entertaining and engaging throughout. I've often liked stories that feature a protagonist stranded in an inhospitable location - be it a different planet, or island/continent (depending on the genre). The chance to see a character overcome the incredible challenges they face is interesting, and it's easy to root for a character who's out of their element but determined to succeed/survive/win. Delia Kemp is one of those characters.

I really enjoyed this. If you're a fan of science fiction, then do yourself a favour and pick this one up. Recommended.

The Review: Press copy that compares a new SF project with some of the most memorable work of Jack Vance might perhaps seem a dangerous gambit, drawing inevitable comparison. But award-winning author Eric Brown again proves more than capable of delivering an inventive alien biosystem in which to set a “ripping yarn” of an adventure, delivering an enjoyable quest-style tale of humans trapped on a deadly planet.

First published by 2000AD publisher Rebellion as two separate eBooks, Binary and System, this collection delivers an engaging tale set against the backdrop of universe where humankind has reached the stars, but not yet encountered sentient alien life – until now.

I don’t want to spoil the story by revealing too much of the plot, but as heroine Delia Kemp battles her way across a planet exiting a prolonged winter thanks to its bizarre elliptical orbit, there are plenty of twists and turns to the story as she joins forces with Mahn, a brave Fahran, in a war against the locust-like Skelt, a devious species intent on returning to the stars they came from many centuries ago… and who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

There’s some great world building in this novel, with both aliens and fauna sure to intrigue. Story-wise, Binary System is linear, focused entirely on Delia’s experiences on this alien world, but there’s plenty here to offer future tales if Eric decides, not least the prospect of a more hostile encounter with the Skelt as humans reach other worlds they have, or tried to, conquer.

If you enjoy a good space adventure told with panache, offering a believable alien setting and characters, I think you should check Binary System out. It’s a complete story in its own right, hinting at opportunities for return and further stories which I hope will be realised.

I like Eric Brown's books and this was no exception. This has it all. A explosion causing a trip 10,000 light years away, natives to the planet, aliens other than humans who are no good and a interesting plot line. The characters are great. The non-humans come in several types that add to the flavor of the book. The backstory is worked into the plot and the world building is excellent. A fun read that is not over long. I found it just right for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Binary System by Eric Brown is a recommended science fiction novel with a YA vibe.

Delia Kemp manages to survive the explosion of the starship she was on by getting into an escape pod on the advice from her Imp, a computer implant in her brain. With only her Imp for advice and company she makes her way to the world of Valinda where the winters are nine years long following one year of a scorching hot summer. Fortunately for her, it is nearing the end of winter and soon the year of summer will begin. She finds herself crash landing when her pod is hit by some laser or weapon. She is stranded on the ice-world and taken hostage by the Skelt, a cruel race of giant mantis/insect beings who move at incredible fast speeds. After her Imp deciphers the language of the Skelt, she discovers that they are relative newcomers to the planet too. Their race arrived thousands of years ago and they have enslaved and dominated the other two sentient races on the planet while the Skelt have digressed into a more primitive society.

The blue chimpanzee-like aliens are the Fahrans. Their people are captured and made to work for the Skelt. The giant crab/spider-like aliens are called the Vo. The Skelt use them as beasts of burden and often sacrifice them. Delia makes an ally of a Fahran, Mahn, who helps her escape from the Skelt. They later save and befriend a Vo. The three travel together trying to avoid the Skelt, heading for what looks like another downed escape pod that will hopefully contain other survivors from her starship.

This is mainly a story of Delia's extraordinary escapes and recaptures, as aided by her Imp, which has some neato, quite coincidental features tailor made for her to communicate with, survive and outwit an alien race while befriending other races and trying to make her way to the valley of Mahkanda.

Now, I'm recommending Binary System because there are plenty of readers who will enjoy the escapism and won't care one iota about any of the things that annoyed me. The ending makes up for much of the slow start and a reader can chose to ignore many of my gripes. The writing is technically excellent, descriptive and fluid. The characters jump from one adventure/escape to another while encountering all sorts of new, interesting settings and creatures. There are battles and celebrations. The good guys are all good and the Skelt are all bad. It is like a classic sci-fi/western plot.

However, there were many cons for me, including the plot, simplistic world building, aliens, characters, and the Imp. I almost stopped reading after several escapes, etc. when the alien Vo was giving Delia and Mahn a ride, and said in reply to her questioning their weight that they were as light as a fly on its back. Hello... this is an alien race and world and there are no flies here. Why on earth would an alien say that? Well, actually the aliens, other than descriptions, aren't all that alien-sounding. I'm betting the Imp humanized them for us and gave them personalities we could relate to.

The Imp is the real hero here. The Imp is the one thing that keeps Delia alive. Delia is supposed to be a doctor, but in reality, mentally, she is just in the Imps way. I'm sure if the Imp could experience human emotions, it would be just as annoyed as I was over her swooning over Tim in the beginning. It must be hard to be an Imp in an adult who acts like a teen. Perhaps the whole character of Delia could have been destroyed with the starship but the imp survives. It could set a new directive, finding a way to be mobile, making its way to a planet, communicating with the inhabitants, and escaping the bad guys.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Solaris.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/08/binary-system.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2084297125

What an imagination this author has ,what a brilliant world he has created, wonderful and scary and weird with interesting new species some cute some very frightening and some just plain nasty.I loved the main character Delia and some of the other characters I thought the whole idea was fab and was a real adventure and was drawn into this strange world and couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen.I loved the Imp too what a great idea really clever.It must be so much fun to be able to create all of this and I thought it was brilliant.I look forward to reading more by this writer, and for anyone who enjoys Sci Fi and a cracking good adventure this is a wonderful book.

You know what this book reminded me most of? The television series/book(s) The 100. Something about having to ascertain the hostility of a planet and encountering people/species and not knowing if they are hostile or not...there was a link there.

I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book, I wasn't expecting to in any way shape or form but I think this is a really good example of how you write a science fiction novel that isn't overly full of jargon or too complex for anyone without a masters degree in engineering to comprehend. The story was more about characters and about the journey and the action than about the specifics of alien worlds. That may be the exact opposite of what you want from a sci-fi novel but for me it hit right in that sweet spot.

The inclusion of an imp (a kind of implant in Delia's head that has artificial intelligence) was a smart way of avoiding a lot of plot holes and opening a lot of opportunities in this novel. it's quite nice not to worry about why you're alien is able to communicate with a human when you can put it all down to AI. Rather than feeling like a cop out (which it could easily have done) this felt like a way of letting us really get to the action rather than having chapters of language learning or something like that.

There are a lot of really fun characters in this book, Delia included. I never thought I'd be finding myself saying 'I liked the sentient spider crab alien character' but that is indeed the case.

Bottom line this book was incredibly readable. It's one of those titles where you just have to find out how it ends! It felt to me like a fantasy novel wrapped up in a sci-fi setting, not too dissimilar from the things I love to put me off while at the same time being new and exciting. It pulled me through and I was out the other side before I could really register what had happened. Which is certainly a good thing in my opinion as it means I was enjoying the story too much to look at how much of the book I had read/was yet to read.

My rating: 5/5 stars

By the way, I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher (Solaris) in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.

Binary System publishes on the 8th of August so there's oodles of time to preorder if you fancy it!

Binary System by Eric Brown- After a catastrophic accident aboard a large space vessel trying to transition a light-year jump, one lone survivor is hurled many thousand light-years off into uncharted space. Delia manages to land on a world in a binary system with no hope of being rescued. This world rotates between two stars of different size every ten years going from very hot to very cold. Not expecting to find anything living on the surface, she is surprised when captured by a race of harsh insects, who want her only for what information they can glean from her about star flight. These military-like insects were once a star faring race but have lost their technical knowledge over time. Also they are not the original race of this world, but rather subjugate any and all the natives. Delia escapes with the help of a blue-haired chimp, and later is helped by a giant spider crab. She sets out on a quest to run from the insects, who are fiercely hunting her, and across this strange land to a place where another life raft from her ship might have come down.
Reading this I couldn't help but feel some of the awe and wonder that I experienced reading Andre Norton when I was young. It reminds me of a young adult adventure with a bit more sophistication. I don't know if the author intended that. His heroine is supposedly in her thirties, but the feeling and the almost constant action and shared danger between her and her new found friends gave me that vibe. I found it to be enjoyable in this vein, not too intense, but rewarding.

Eric Brown’s Binary System is as old fashioned as sci-fi adventure gets. Its cliffhanger thrills and heroic derring-do recall the pulp-era storytelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers comic strips of the 1930s, though the mostly hand-wavey science is convincing enough to pass the post-golden age smell test.
In the Farscape-ish setup, Cordelia Kemp is propelled through a wormhole after an accident tears her spacecraft apart. Her life raft crash lands on the planet of Valinda, 10,000 light years away from Earth and home to three distinct sentient species. Two of those species, the primate-like Fahran and the crustacean-like Vo, are native to Valinda, but live under constant threat from the oppressive Skelt, a locust-like, hive-minded race that invaded the planet several millennia before, but had devolved technologically since being cut off from their space-faring brethren. Cordelia, believing herself fated to live the rest of her life as the only human on Valinda, vows to help the Fahran and the Vo in their struggle against the Skelt. But secrets buried in the cultural history of the Fahran hint at the reason for her arrival on Valinda, and she soon discovers her fate might not be sealed after all.
Brown is the kind of writer that has an affection for the tried and true conventions of classic adventure storytelling, giving them just enough of a personal spin to keep them from coming off as tired clichés. He also has a genuine fondness for the characters and worlds he creates, and the settings and sequences are imaginative and exotically rendered. The science isn’t the only thing he waves his hand at, however – there are plot holes and contrivances peppered throughout, but nothing so egregious as to keep the reader from having a good time and desiring a return trip to the world of Valinda.

I'm always on the look out for some new science fiction books to try and I'm glad a picked this one up. I thought it was a pretty good book, although my overall enjoyment of the book is probably more of a 2/2.5 star rating. The main strength of this book (for me at least) was the world. Brown does a wonderful job of creating of rich and detailed world. On a completely different note, the main issue I had was with the characters, specifically the main character Delia. She is pretty much useless and seems to do very little throughout the book - Imp (a type of information processing implant in her brain) seems to have limitless resources and so does all the work. I was also not a fan of the simplified versions of the alien species. In all we have three species (not including the human) - two are good, and one of them is bad/evil. I just thought this was a very simplified way of doing and frankly a little lazy. I just wanted more complexity from them, instead of it being so black and white. The plot was generally quite enjoyable but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me as a whole. Having said that it was an enjoyable read and although the start is a little slow it does pick up.

If I imagine a 2017 version of a sci-fi magazine in the vein of golden-era publications such as Amazing Stories or If, then it would contain stories something like this one. I’ve referred to this pulp-fiction feel before in reviews of Brown’s work, and it’s a style that I find myself liking a lot. This is because there’s a big focus on the yarn for the sake of entertainment without too many words spent on character depth or excessive world-building. Much of Brown’s other work shows his prowess in those areas, but this one is about straight entertainment, pure and simple. It’s almost like Brown pours himself a stiff measure of his favorite liquor then sits down to write stories in his casual style that are meant to be fun, writing for his own entertainment as much as ours. This is a key reason why he’s one of my favorite authors and his books usually keep me firmly hooked because they’re so enjoyable. It’s an excellent reminder of why we read this sort of science fiction: it’s fun!

Somewhat confusingly, the first half of this book was released late last year simply titled Binary and now here is the complete novel which includes both that first half as well as a continuation from where it left off. The story follows Delia, a scientist from an ill-fated starship voyage who becomes marooned on an unknown planet in a binary star system over ten thousand light years from Earth. Her consequent adventures begin shortly after making planet-fall. The planet has a harsh and extreme protracted climate cycle and the alien inhabitants are in a continual state of inter-species conflict. She quickly becomes caught up in this conflict and forges friendships which introduce us to some likeable alien characters. These guys are interesting yet simplistic in their nature but this is certainly okay for the type of story which is probably more driven by events than characterization. None of the characters dominate or become a distraction to the overall plot which, again, lends itself nicely to the easy-reading style. The story concludes pleasantly yet leaves space for continuation which is a welcome thought.

The world building is likewise enjoyable, with excellent descriptions of things like alien cities and wondrous creatures featuring at various points in the story. This aspect is, in my view, this novel’s best feature and an aspect that makes this a fantastic escapist’s book. It’s what I think of as a great chill-out read that doesn’t tax your mind so much, yet keeps you involved with that sense of wonder that we all love in our science fiction stories, a facet that Eric Brown customarily does very well.

To be honest, the writing style seemed to me as if it was written with mostly a young adult audience in mind and, had it not been for the liberal use of lesser-known words (I consulted the dictionary multiple times) I would say that it would be most suitable for teenage readers. My nine-year old could probably read and enjoy this aside from the big words, but I suppose that’s a bit rich coming from me given that I needed the dictionary so often…

Overall the book works because of the effective use of some tried-and-true genre tropes blending together into a cohesive whole that makes a delightful read. It is equal parts adventure, drama and wonder, a combination that pulls the story along almost faster than you can keep up and provides a gratifying read. But keep up I did and discovered that Eric Brown has yet again failed to disappoint me with another entertaining story that was a real pleasure. If my descriptions match what you enjoy then I suggest that you’ll be as tickled as me by this uncomplicated and engaging novel. Give it a try.

Concept: 3/5
Delivery: 4/5
Entertainment: 5/5
= 4 out of 5

2.5 stars.

Binary System follows the story of Delia Kemp, a space traveler who becomes stranded on the remote planet of Valinda after an accident destroys her ship. Believing she has no hope of ever returning to Earth, Delia struggles to survive in a dangerous alien world.

Alright, let’s start with the positives. The physical world of Valinda was fascinating and richly imagined. From snowcapped mountains to cities built along cliffs to massive, vibrant jungles, Brown’s descriptions of each setting were stunning. The writing and world-building were pretty much consistently well-done throughout. I don’t usually read this type of sci-fi so it took me a little while to get used to all of the jargon, but once I did I could really appreciate how much detail went into the creation of the planet’s unique seasons, weather, and ecosystems.

So, what didn’t I like? Unfortunately….quite a few things. I had a number of problems with this story that kept me from really enjoying it.

Delia’s character was…..frustrating. The beginning was a bit slow: for a long time all she was doing was sitting in a tiny spaceship-capsule-thing trying to find a planet to land on. I get that she’d just been accidentally propelled to an unknown area thousands of lightyears from Earth, so it was natural for her to be panicked and feel hopeless. However, I just didn’t really care about her enough at that point to be interested. I also could have done without her going on and on about Tim. It was just difficult to take an interest in the love life a character I’d only just met and who had spent the majority of the early chapters whining about how much her life sucked. She got slightly better once she landed on Valinda, but Delia was never really a proactive character. It seemed like she was constantly being kidnapped or rescued or shuffled around by other characters or being told to do things by her mental implant. I found myself getting frustrated pretty regularly by her inability to do anything by herself.

A lot of the writing consists of Delia’s inner dialogue with what she calls her “Imp” (a type of information processing brain implant). This constant thought-conversation with the robot inside her head made for an interesting writing style, but the seemingly endless capabilities of the Imp seemed far too convenient at times.

I think my biggest issue with the book, though, was how oversimplified the alien races were.

There are three kinds of intelligent aliens on Valinda. First, there’s the Skelt, a powerful race who invaded and took control of the planet centuries ago. They basically look like giant bugs and are universally characterized as cruel and violent. Then there’s the Vo, which are a spider-like kind of sentient creature that are hunted and trained as beasts of burden by the Skelt. And then there are the Fahrans, little blue monkey people that have been largely enslaved by the Skelt. There’s an entirely black and white dichotomy between the “good” aliens and the “bad” aliens. Essentially, the Skelt are evil and vicious, while the Vo and the Fahrans are the noble but primitive defenders of their planet. I kept hoping that as the book progressed, we would get to actually see the complexities of their societies, and I was disappointed when that never happened. In a believable world, each race would contain both good and bad, and have much more complex histories and relations that the ones that are presented here.

Also, the timeline was a bit confusing. Mahn (Delia’s Fahran rescuer) kept saying that they needed to travel as quickly as possible to get to Mahkanda on time. There was no time for them to stay even a few hours to enjoy the hospitality of the Vo, but when Delia suggested a detour that would take them days out of the way, he had absolutely no problem with that. ummm ??? These inconsistencies made their journey lose its sense of urgency, and although the descriptions of the places they visited were beautiful, the plot felt like it was meandering aimlessly for a while.

Despite the slow start, I really did enjoy reading the last third of the book. There was action, intrigue, more character development, and a couple of surprises. Unfortunately, the story on the whole fell a little flat for me

It's always a pleasure to be the first to review the book AND have nice things to say about it. Nice things being...this was a lovely space adventure. It was just pure fun, almost in a throwback classic scifi way, nothing too complicated, no overwhelming tech, just a basic premise of a an explorer who finds herself on a strange new planet and must adapt/try to survive with assistance of some adorable native species. Part of the throwback vibe being the antropomorhisizing the alien creatures, but also viewing them in a somewhat paternalistic way, they are valiant, loyal and intelligent, but not quite on our level...wink wink nudge nudge, hence the cargo cult. But they really are adorable and, frankly, the best characters in the book by far. This isn't a great literary sort of scifi that raises the all important questions, this just an adventure done right, with decent writing, great pacing and terrific world building. Very imaginative, bright, light read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.