Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during that 2nd attempt, I have only managed to make it halfway through so I’d rather stop here and state that this book just wasn't for me.

It was actually a good read. I tried to start reading it two or three times since it isn't my usual kind of book (with it being sci-fi ish). Once in the headspace and could accept the futuristic technology as truth it was a good read. There were several surprising twists that kept it entertaining. Would recommend as a neat-futuristic read!

If there's one thing that completely puts me off while reading a book, it's the 'telling' narrative instead of the 'showing' one. And I know that sounds like a cliche reason to not like a book but honestly, if I wanted to read a screenplay that set up the setting for a scene every time to get the characters to perform something and still crash badly after each scene, I wouldn't have picked up a book to read. The biggest problem I had with Zero Limit was the continuous descriptions that were clearly just there to somehow mask the lack of excitement in the plot and/or the lack of any substantial crisis or conflict. The characters didn't come to life at all, and half the time, I would keep shouting at them in hope for a sense to arise in them. When I read the blurb about a female war hero, I was looking forward to reading a woman who I would cheer on this journey but her constant shift from the most complex situation at hand to little things that are completely off the orbit, annoyed me to a greater extent.

Another thing that fell flat for me and knocked off a star instantly was the poor execution of political views regarding the recent immigration laws. I'm always interested in fiction books bringing hard truth and reality into vision but it disappoints me when not done properly. I don't mind tropes but science fiction is one genre that really needs a good amount of originality to trance me. After all, the universe is expanding and if a space fiction is being written, there's ample space to create. This book couldn't do that.

There are a lot of comparisons that can be made here. From an asteroid that needs to be 're-directed' in order to save Earth (Armageddon anyone?), to a war over planetary control and mining (Firefly's brown-coats), to sarcastic quips about trying to stay alive (The Martian). And yet Jeremy K. Brown has still managed to write an enjoyable novel.

Fast paced!
Without a doubt the best part of Brown's Zero Limit is that it's quick. A lot of things happen in a short amount of time. There's not a lot of wasted time setting up our characters, their personalities or even our unique asteroid setting. Instead Brown has taken advantage of the assumption that the average person knows and understands some basic space science. For example; how and when gravity plays a factor, orbits, blowing stuff up can move it, and so forth. As a seasoned science fiction reader I was okay with these assumptions. Now that may not work for everyone but for the average reader I think it's a pretty safe bet.

Science
I'm not an astrophysicist. Nor am I even a science major or all that well versed in science that isn't taught on the Big Bang Theory (I'll never forget Schroeder's cat). So for me as long as the science seems to make some sense I'm happy. It may be that there are lots of scientific inaccuracies in Zero Limit. Given that I wouldn't know even if there were, my naive self enjoys just plugging along with the story

Motherhood
The emotional attachment between characters that Brown sets-up is between our lead gal (a mom) and her daughter. There are some bittersweet moments between the two of them and the daughter ultimately provides the 'why' that is required to buy into the story. However overall I could have done without this portion of the story. It wasn't really anything new and the relationship felt a bit forced.

Overall
This is a fun, fast paced science fiction read. If you're not looking for too much depth or emotional connections and would rather just experience some crazy ideas on how to stop an asteroid from hitting earth then you are likely to enjoy this story. While I wouldn't necessarily read it again; I'm not unhappy I read it in the first place.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

Back when I was in grade school I started to focus on Science Fiction and Fantasy as my main reading. Don't get me wrong, I read a lot of other things (back in the days when I was easily reading 100 pages a day), but those were the books I went to first. One of the books that got me hooked back then was Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein. I found his adult novels to be trying too hard to prove how sexually liberated he was (lots of incest, but when a man wanted a relationship with another man, the only thing to do was have gender change, which still annoys me).

But his juveniles were wonderful. People get in trouble, and use science to get out of it. This gave me a taste for hard science fiction books.

Zero Limit, by Jeremy K Brown, while not hugely innovative, scratched that itch. It has a touch of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, crossed with the movie Armageddon, and a dash of modern politics.

The set up is a time where there is a moon colony. The current president of the US got voted in on a wave of anti-Moon sentiment (they come and take your jobs!!!). After election, he deports all moon-born people back to the moon, and refuses to let anyone leave the moon (which seems to imply the only people on the moon came from the US, otherwise how can he do that? It's never quite fully explained).

Caitlin Taggart is caught in the middle. She's moon-born, but her family returned to Earth when she was young. She was a war hero from time in the military, fighting in the Middle East, and she married (then divorced) and has a young daughter. She returned to the moon briefly to deal with her mother's estate, and ends up trapped there by the presidential orders, with her daughter back on Earth with her no-good father. Caitlin makes ends meet as a miner, while trying to get back to Earth. She's approached by the son of a Senator for a risky, not to mention illegal, plan to mine an asteroid with a platinum core. He even claims that he can get her back to Earth legally if she does this. She turns him down initially, but her ex gets tossed in jail, and with the threat of her daughter going into the foster system, she says yes, and her team goes with her.

Of course the equipment is rickety, and pretty much as soon as they reach the asteroid, things go horribly wrong, and not only are they stranded, the asteroid is now headed straight towards Earth, and the president wants to use a super-duper giant nuke to destroy it. And them.

Other than Caitlin, the rest of the characters are only just barely sketched out. The way one behaves at the end just didn't seem to make sense. But still, the whole 'how can we deflect the asteroid just enough to save the planet and everyone on it' element made it a fun read. I actually have one of his other books in my Kindle account, so I look forward to seeing what else he can do.

Basically, a fun, but mostly fluff, read.

To get back to Earth and her daughter, Caitlin will do just about anything, including joining a team of miners after minerals on an asteroid. Finding that the asteroid is in a collision course with Earth mens that Caitlin will need all of her skills not only to survive, but perhaps save mankind. Entertaining, with well-developed characters and enough plot twists to keep it interesting.

Caitlin Taggert is stuck on the moon. She might be a war hero, but when all moon-born people are restricted from Earth, she is forced to stay there. Mining on the moon is dangerous, difficult and low-paying work. Caitlin's biggest wish is to get back to Earth so she can be with her young daughter. Then she gets an offer she can't refuse.....mine an asteroid and earn a fortune. Not only is the assignment illegal, but very dangerous. She has strong belief in her crew and, above all, she wants to be with her daughter. But the mission goes very wrong. Caitlin and the crew find themselves facing a much bigger problem....one that could effect everyone on Earth.

Wow! This is an enjoyable, action-packed space adventure! It definitely kept my attention from beginning to end. I like Caitlin as a main character. She's strong, independent and a good leader. Her crew are great supporting characters. The action moves quickly, and the story is engaging. I got emotionally invested in the characters...and was truly sad when some of them died. The ending is definitely white-knuckle exciting. I wasn't sure how it was going to come out until the very end. Great action. Some nice plot twists and turns. Overall, a great SF space adventure!

The cover art is wonderful! It's what originally drew me to read the book. Nicely done!

This is the first book by Jeremy Brown that I've read. I'm definitely going to check out his other books!

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from 47North via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Having read The Martian and Artemis recently, I was expecting something similar. I was pleasantly surprised by the book's original storyline. The parallels to some aspects of the current Presidential administration were an added bonus. Overall, this was a fast paced space adventure story with a lot of depth to it.

Take The Martian, throw in a bit of Apollo 13, and mix well with the latest environmental disaster movie and you’ll reach Zero Limit.

In this near-future caper, veteran Caitlin Taggart is stuck on the Moon after a xenophobic change in immigration regulations turns all Moonborn into non-citizens - even war heroes like Caitlin. Her desperate attempt to get back to Earth and her young daughter puts her on a collision course with an asteroid - and sends the asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Only the skills of her crew and the smarts of the scientists on the ground stand between the planet and an extinction level meteor strike. While the scientists try to save Earth, a panicked population descends into chaos and destruction. There may be nothing left to save.

VERDICT: The book reads much like the scripts of one of the movies it resembles. After a slow start, the action is non-stop, but the disasters are somewhat predictable. Recommended for SF readers who like to see plucky heroes fight impossible odds.

Asteroid vs. Earth

Caitlin Taggart was born on the Moon but moved back to Earth when she was young. She had a daughter plus is a war hero. But on a short trip back to the Moon, she ends up getting stuck there because of immigration issues.

She takes a low paying mining job and misses her daughter. So when a shady job is offered to her to mine an asteroid, she takes it - because the payoff is getting back to Earth.

But everything that could go wrong does go wrong and soon Caitlin, her fellow miners, and the people of Earth are in fear for their lives.

This was an entertaining book written more like a screenplay. It reminded me a lot of the movie ARMAGEDDON - lots of similarities. But I enjoyed the characters and the story.

I received this book from 47North through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .

zero limit (Jeremy K. Brown)
Title: zero limit
Author: Jeremy K. Brown
Publisher: 47North (47North is the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror imprint of Amazon Publishing, the full-service publishing arm of Amazon)
Publication Date: TODAY!! (paperback and e-book)
ASIN: B01N9I5HSN
Source: NetGalley

So this book was described as "Artemis meets Gravity in this gripping, adrenaline-fueled ride." Nope, not for me. I actually tried to read this twice and gave up on it both times.

Now I have not seen the movie gravity so I can't comment on that but I would consider this to be a bad version of Armageddon the movie where ye replace Bruce Willis with a not-quite-as-badass woman, have even cheesier dialogue, and no real tension.

As for artemis . . . umm no. Well both take place on the moon. That's about all they have in common. Artemis made me feel like the author had been to the moon and experienced both its wonders and its problems. This novel's moon seemed like a cardboard cutout of a Hollywood sound stage with all the cliché glory that entails. I did like the concept of a miserable moon-dust rampaged living space but this novel did not do it justice.

Add in really bad politics involving the middle east and an immigrant (moon-born) hating politician and it just added to the rip-off feeling. I wish I could have liked it but alas.

So lastly . . .
Thank you 47 North!

Goodreads has this to say about the novel:
Twelve billion metric tons of asteroid. One woman who can save Earth. Zero margin for error.
For war hero Caitlin Taggart, mining work on the Moon is dirty, low pay, and high risk. But no risk seems too extreme if it helps her return to Earth and the daughter she loves more than life itself. Offered a dangerous, long-shot chance to realize that dream, Caitlin will gamble with more than just her life.
By leading a ragtag crew of miners on a perilous assignment to harvest an asteroid, Caitlin could earn a small fortune. More importantly, it would give her clearance to return to Earth.
But when an unexpected disaster strikes the mission, Caitlin is plunged into a race to save not only herself, but every human being on Earth.

To visit the author's Amazon webpage visit:
Jeremy K. Brown - Author

To buy the novel visit:
zero limit - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:
Yer Ports for Plunder List

What would you do to see your loved ones again? Caitlin is about to make a choice that will affect everyone around her. She has no choice but to take this new mission even though it is illegal but at what cost? She just wants to get off the moon and return to earth to see her daughter and to get her crew there safely. Caitlin and her crew set off on the mission but everything goes wrong. Vee, Tony, Diaz and Shaw are about to help Caitlin get home but who will make the trip back with her? The asteroid that they are meant to mine has been moved off course by them landing on it and it is now on a path of destruction that leads all the way to earth. What do they do now can they do anything to get it away from that path? Caitlin has been in many of a bad situation but this is nothing like war and she has no idea if the team can actually do anything? Lucky there are people on Earth that will do everything to help them before it is too late. Can they really work together before it is too late? Caitlin has watched her team disappear before her own eyes and she fears that it is too late now. Can the team on Earth do anything to help? What if it is too late to save so many lives on Earth? Will Caitlin ever get to see her daughter again? A good read suspenseful. I was lucky enough to receive a copy in exchange for my honest review via Netgalley & the publishing house in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I enjoy a variety of sci-fi, but I think my favorite is the near-future, highly believable, hard sci-fi style. Jeremy K. Brown's Zero Limit is a great example of this. He tells a thrilling story that is wrapped up in the science and politics of a tomorrow that people living today could experience.



Caitlin Taggart is a war hero, having acted with bravery in the Middle East. Through a variety of circumstances, include anti-Moon prejudices and anti-immigration policies that have stranded her on the Moon, she is the head of a mining crew scraping the Moon's surface and processing H3 to be shipped back to Earth for energy production. When the flamboyant owner of a mining company asks her to lead an expedition to rein in an asteroid that is mostly platinum, the promise of a chance to return to Earth and her Earth-bound daughter is too much to turn down.



Upon arrival at the asteroid, a fuel explosion destroys her ship and alters the path of the asteroid to a collision course with Earth. Cait and her rag-tag crew of miners are the Earth's only hope to avoid apocalyptic devastation. Working with crews on Earth, they dredge all the technology they can access to push the asteroid to a path that will miss the Earth. Brown pays close attention to the use of science and technology, building a very believable story, in many cases using examples of technology that exists in real-life 2018, or is close to reality.



As you might expect from a story like this, Brown includes plenty of melodrama and edge-of-your-seat close calls. Of course the first solutions they attempt won't work out that great, and there will be some major flubs and terrible losses along the way. But that's what makes this a page-turner, an exciting, old-fashioned and forward looking action-packed story that will keep you up reading at night.





Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

If it can go wrong it will seems to be at the heart of this story. Politics transferred into the future and space was another underlying theme. This is fast paced but fairly predictable. The characters are fairly well drawn and fit the action. I could not help but draw a parallel to some of the things and people in the news today. I enjoyed the concept but really hated what happened to some of the characters.

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

The last unknown, outer space! The last place humanity can taint with greed. Caitlin Taggert was a war hero, now working on the moon, mining. The pay is bad, the conditions are poor and the risk is high, but she lives for her daughter on earth and the hope she will be with her soon.

Caitlin and her team are made an offer they cannot refuse, an offer to risk it all for wealth and a chance to go back to Earth. One mining mission that was it, one illegal mining mission on an asteroid floating in space. One dangerous, illegal mining mission on an asteroid, what could go wrong? Wasn’t her team the best of the best? Supplied worn out equipment, with the carrot of seeing her daughter soon dangling in her face, Caitlin and her crew were about to cause a disaster that could cause the Earth to perish, her daughter, included. Now it is up to her to save herself, her crew and the world.

ZERO LIMIT by Jeremy K. Brown has moments of white-knuckle reading, moments of motherly angst, the slime of greed and that gut churning race against time and the impossible. It also has poor decisions, the consequences of those decisions and the weight of humanity hanging in the balance. As the clock ticks down, the tension ramps up and a plethora of characters get involved, some with political machinations, some with dollar signs dancing in their dreams, some re-hashing an old love gone bad…and where is Caitlin? Out of control in space, being chased by an asteroid thrown off course and the clock keeps ticking…

A quick read, perfect for space travel fans who enjoy that race against doom while clueless earth-bound powerhouses wring their hands!

I received a complimentary ARC edition from 47North!

Publisher: 47North (March 6, 2018)
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
Genre: Science Fiction
Print Length: 298 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com

3.5 stars

This book is a hard one to review. Hard in that it’s both exciting and lacking in the excitement. I found up to 20% in it focused too much on being wordy, rather like a film script than an actual book plot.

I really like the idea of living on the moon, it’s a very good plot idea. ‘Cutter’ Caitlin is a likeable character, very strong willed and confident. But with the other characters I found them rather secondary, meaning if anything happened to them I wasn’t too involved. Perhaps a little character depth would have been better.

There are moments in this book where it’s piques interest, where there’s action and you want to read more. And then there are moments where it lulls, where words become too wordy and descriptive. Show the story. Don’t tell.

Having said that, this isn’t a bad read. I did enjoy it for the most part and i will read more from this author.

This story is like Deep Impact and Armageddone meets The Martian.

The story revolves around Caitlin Taggart who is aboard at Tamarisk with her crew to mine some minerals or whatsoever at the moon. Unexpectedly, tragedy happens in which they triggered a big asteroid that in fact will not hit the Earth's atmosphere, and will now be a big dilemma for everyone in the Earth.

The concept of the story is not new because we see and read a lot of these space thing novels anywhere. It should be thankful because it is fast-paced. There are certain issues in the story that was set back because the writer wants it to be "THE WOMAN WHO SAVE HER CREW AND EARTH FROM A BIG ASTEROID THING."

Here are some issues for me or lack of story build:

They're mining without authorization and well in fact they put the lives of the people in danger. I read that they were hired by the senator's son but it left out in the story. The question is why? What are the relations of this senator's son in the mining exploration? The issue was not addressed.

The science guys looked like dumb here. They ask for some opinion on how will they solved this thing. The Alex-guy new some theory about calculating asteroid's hit or somewhat but he has been set-back and some missiles or nuclear weapons are prioritized. What the hell is he doing in the story?

It all revolves to Ms. Taggart. I see the point of the writer to boost women empowerment. Yay! She did everything to save her crew. Her past as a military was emphasize. Also, the government here looks like a laughing joke for a missed missile. Really? Too early for the story line and to cliche. I think this book should be solely be about Caitlin Taggart with her crew without the help of the government because they can't do anything like in The Martian but this story would be a "same-like" with the The Martian.

After all, it is a fun read.

Zero Limit doesn’t lack for excitement, but it doesn’t really excite either. Quite a conundrum. Maybe because it is essentially a screenplay written like a book and the brain can’t rationalize spending an entire afternoon and early evening on something that should essentially be no longer than 120 minutes. So basic plot is an deadly proportionate asteroid hurtling toward the Earth with (gasp) small team of Moon’s Earthlings on it. So a disaster/rescue vehicle. A twofer. In cinematic relations it’s basically Michael Bay’s Armageddon in corniness and clichés and other crucial plot elements. Although it obviously tries to be The Martian. It even has several Gravity inspired scenes, although who can drift away into space quite like Mr. Clooney and who can crashland as fashionably conscious (yes, no space diapers) as Ms. Bullock. So yes, too many allusions, inspirations, whatever you want to call it to claim originality and yet…it started off so promisingly, on the colonized moon. And then it turned into a selfmade quest thingie, which I personally despise, which is to say a protagonist sets off on a very dangerous/potentially lethal mission often (definitely the case here) for purely selfish/personal reasons, convinces friends/colleagues to come along risking their lives out of some weird moral obligation (promise of financial gain, etc.) and then when it snafus out of control, they get to be the heroic ones who save the day or at least their own butt as they case may be here. Seriously? Seriously? There are so many stories like that. Why? It everyone’s attention span so short that they forget midway through that the waist high doodoo their champions are bravely plowing through is of their own making? Is it an extreme case of the end justifying the means? Is it some weird moral rationalization? So here in Zero Limit there’s a war veteran currently stuck on Moon due to some immigration regulations (more on this later) who through a series of past questionable personal choices stands to have her only daughter age 8 and stuck on Earth go into state custody. The only way out she can find is take up an obvious slimeball businessman on a very iffy and not entirely legal offer to exploit an asteroid for platinum. Not even a matter of life or death, really. But she nevertheless convinces her team of four friends/coworkers to do this with her and when to no savvy readers’ surprise a snafu lands them on an asteroid, it also now sets it on a collision course with Earth. In other words it’s a mother’s love story that puts the entire world at risk. Now the President of the Free World (yes, things haven’t changed that much in the future, there are still smartphones…imagine that Moon is colonized, but the technology apparently stood at a standstill this entire time? Why? Is you showed a smartphone to someone from 50 years ago you’d blow their mind. Repeat every 50 years to the same result. Stands to reason in the future our communication devices will be…I don’t know, smarter? Anyway…) yes, so the President (a rip so blatant as to defy satire and head straight into the realm of caricatures, is the future really that sad?) and some scientists need to save the world…and save the asteroid’s unwilling ridealongs if any should survive. This is all set against a social milieu of anti Moon Immigration politics, rising nationalism, rampant jingoism, etc. You get what the author’s going for, but there’s no real cleverness of subtlety about it, not quite a satire, more like the most sincerely bland sort of sociopolitical commentary. And the President’s character…where to even begin. Suffice it to say there’s a 180 degree change toward the end that is so uncharacteristic, so wildly unrealistic, so preposterous (even for the realm of fiction) that’s it’s just difficult to take it seriously. It’s like getting whiplashed by wishful thinking. And then one good talking to and he saw the light…Yey. Really? Interestingly enough (especially for a male author) this is a very estrogen driven story. All the main/strongest principal characters, most of the connections, most of the story drivers are women. And they are mostly all upbeat, unflappable, infinitely adept, energetic, resourceful and so on. It’s really a girl power sort of story. But that’s neither here nor there, just an observation. Anyway, I believe a review shouldn’t take up this much time, after all there are books to be read, so I’ll finish this up. It was an entertaining enough book and very well meaning, but (as the tone of this review might attest to) much too frustrating, some interesting science, not that compelling of a fiction. Frankly, you might have much more fun with any of the movies mentioned in this review. Oh and watch out for asteroids. Thanks Netgalley.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the 47North via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of its merits.

While I was intrigued by the description, I was not sure what to expect when I opened its digital pages. When you read a lot of sci-fi, there tend to be repeated themes that circulate in the proverbial atmosphere.

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised with Zero Limit, which improved as the story went along. Sure, you can see some connections to Andy Weir’s Artemis and the whole “an asteroid is going to destroy Earth” theme was explored in Armageddon and Final Impact, but the author’s skilled use of technical details in such a way that it did not overwhelm the average reader was much appreciated. In addition, the protagonist’s motivation throughout was well maintained and her backstory nicely developed. She was complex and real, which made the story hit all the right notes. In addition to solid internal and external conflict, the relationships in the story were woven together nicely. Even the awkwardness between Sara and Alex has a ring of truth to it. The climax of the story was executed with good pacing and excellent detail.

While others may critique the references to contemporary culture and politics, such have been in science fiction since the beginning. A cursory glance at shows such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, The Orville will provide examples in abundance. Interacting with our society and its issues helps audiences of today relate to tales of future woes.

Other than there being a bit more language then I personally tend to prefer (and a small quibble about the origin of the Oval Office), there wasn’t much fault to find with the story and its telling. Definitely worth your time.