I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. It didn't seem fair for me to review a book that I didn't finish.

What I expected from this book didn't match what I ended up getting in this book. The main plot, and the most interesting aspects of the story, got sidetracked often. I also felt like there were quite a few scenes that didn't add anything to the story and distracted from the more important moments.

This book was so freakin interesting! About a year or so ago is when I first heard about DID (Dissasociated Identity Disorder) so when I saw this book had "fractured personalities" I NEEDED to read it and I'm so glad I did.

This book has very mixed reviews and I can understand why. This book is dense with information and not a lot of action. But that is why I loved it so much. I'm one of those people who watches documentaries and loves to learn about things, this book was a lot like that. So, if you aren't into that kind of thing and are looking for a more "space adventure" action packed book, this is not the book for you. However, if you want a "docuentary" style of writing with lots of cool information and a DaVinci Code type twit, absolutely read this book!

The characters were so interesting, I loved The Children's Collective and how they were such a big part of the personalities, yet such a small part that we found out about. The relationship that Stella had with the crew was awesome, pretty true to form from what I've heard about this kind of thing. Only certain personalities would come through to speak with her until they were satisfied that she was trustworthy. I loved that one of the personalities was a psychologist and Stella and the personality would talk for hours about the split personalities! How freakin cool.

I will say that after all the awesome information and story that I was getting, at one point in the book I did get a bit bored. This is later in the story when the dynamic of what's going on changes. While it was still interesting and leads up to the other awesome part, I did end up skipping ahead about half a chapter. But once I did, WOW, the story opened back up into something that I wasn't at all expecting and my attention was all in until the final page. If you, like me, find yourself drifting off, I promise it gets better again if you can just hang on a little longer.

The fact that the author is an actual Scientist makes this book all the more interesting and explains why the book is set up the way it is. Like I said, you should probably be a person that enjoys documentaries. I see that Alma has written other books as well and I can not wait to check them out! I'm thoroughly impressed by what I've read so far and mad at myself for waiting so long to get to this book.

Thank you to Crossroad Press and Netgalley for a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story of two starship crews, one lost more than 200 years ago, and the recent mission which brings the lost crew back home. There is some science fiction as the basis for the story, but it's really a philosoophical exploration. This book is very much in dialogue with Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, wrestling with questions of ethics and promises and faith, and readers who appreciated The Sparrow will find much here to ponder and savor.

2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
The first interstellar scout ship disappeared, and humanity took decades to decide on another one. But when the second comes back, it brings with it the crew of the first - still astonishingly young, but seemingly fractured into multiple personalities. Dr. Stella Froud, assigned to find out what happened, is more concerned about why both crews are effectively incarcerated.

Review
The concept of the book didn’t grip me, and that’s partly my fault. Some time ago, I read a collection of stories by Alma Alexander, Untranslatable. While I wasn’t bowled over by the collection as a whole, I thought her prose had promise, so when I saw this come available, I thought I’d give it a try. Unfortunately, I didn’t look too closely at the premise when I did.

The premise – a crew of returned astronauts whose minds have fragmented under the pressure of whatever they found – has elements of both psychological (there’s lots of discussion about multiple personalities, though mostly pretty generic) and thriller (how the doctor working with them can escape evil bureaucracy), neither of which is a genre that interests me. That’s my fault for not being more careful in book selection. While the story and its characters are carefully constructed, I found it very slow moving – one of those books I was reluctant to go back to.

The characters, while well developed, are on the stock side, and there’s relatively little surprise in the actions they take. At least one – a Native American with mysterious wisdom and special psychic senses, verges on cardboard. While the principal character has depth, the ending loses its way a bit, with an attempt to both wrap up loose ends and draw in a secondary character who until that point has played a supporting role.

Philosophically, the book is more interesting. There are some nice animal friendly moments. While the plot development is somewhat pedestrian, Alexander delves into faith and belief a little more than a book of this type normally would, though much of that is stuck in at the end as a bit of an afterthought. At the same time, her ending undermines the original theme of justice and right, and effectively betrays some characters through no fault of their own. While the protagonist stands up for self-determination at the beginning, she abandons that pretty thoroughly at the end.

Overall, the book feels long, and there’s a fair amount of repetition, from the protagonist constantly citing authority she may not have to descriptions of the central mystery and whether harm was caused intentionally. I got tired of what felt like the same scene repeated multiple times, with little forward motion. This is a story that might have worked better at novella or novelette length.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed it until about 85% when a plot twist came out of nowhere and changed the feeling of the book. The author did a great job creating the multiple personalities. I had no problem keeping up with the different personalities or who they belonged to.
I liked how we slowly found out what had happened to our 6 explorers and why they came home with fractured personalities.

However, I hated how the last 15% of the book unfolded. Without giving spoilers I felt the the end was rushed. Several things happened with no warning or no set up earlier in the book. This is what kept it from being a 4 star book for me.

An extremely well-done book where the heroic astronauts on a faster-than-light vessel return from their amazing journey with their minds permanently scrambled. They've all broken into multiple competing personalities and it is up to another team of scientists to examine them in order to try to find out what went wrong. The book straddles the line between horror and science-fiction (as befitting a Crossroad Press book) with the protagonists dealing with an ominous yet inexplicable condition. The book is a bit slow paced at the start but gradually picks up the pace as it continues. It is a solid and cerebral read that I think many fans of more intellectual sci-fi will appreciate.

At one point while reading Alma Alexander’s The Second Star, I wrote a marginalia note hoping the book wasn’t going to go where I feared it might be. Some chapters later, it turned out that was indeed our destination, and I have to confess I was sorely disappointed. That said, Alexander’s novel has an excellent, compelling premise and a quite strong first two-thirds, and I think the vast majority of readers will enjoy the book to that point. After that, one’s mileage will vary.

Two centuries ago, humanity sent out its first interstellar starship, the Parada, propelled by an experimental drive. When all communication was lost, the six crewmembers were assumed dead and that failure kept humanity safely close to home for hundreds of years, until recently, when a second attempt was made. Everyone assumes the second ship is still out there, but when psychologist Dr. Stella Froud agrees to be whisked off to a secret government installation, she learns that the second ship has not only returned, but brought back with it the Parada, and even more stunningly, the Parada’s crew (barely aged thanks to time dilation). Both crews have been quarantined and their return kept secret because the crew of the Parada returned changed. Because it is revealed in the novel’s publicity description (i.e. if you read the book’s summary at an online bookstore you’ll see it) and is also revealed quite early in the book, I’m going to say what happened to them. If you don’t want to know, stop here.

While the six crew members have returned alive, their minds have fractured into over 70 distinct personalities amongst them. Froud, along with a Jesuit — Philip Cart —, a medical doctor, and others, is tasked with finding out how/why this mental split happened, if it is contagious and/or dangerous, and if it can be reversed. Her findings will not only determine if both sets of crews can rejoin humanity, but also if humanity itself is forever barred from the stars.

I absolutely loved this premise and found Froud and Cart’s work with the Prada crew to be fascinating and compelling. The overarching mystery of the ailment is captivating enough, but there are also some sub-mysteries within it that are equally intriguing. I also like how Alexander gives us a situation where the stakes are both movingly personal — will these people ever be able to rejoin society, ever be able to find their way back to themselves — and also societally far-reaching and broad — if this seeming madness was caused by the star drive, then humanity is forever tied to its own backyard.

Beyond that, there is some nice tension between the humanists Froud and Cart on one hand, and the government/military on the other. While this could have fallen into cliched territory, for the most part Alexander avoids that by giving us a more complex characterization of the captain in charge of the project. And the revelation of the cause was a nice move that I thought opened up the story nicely.

If we had stayed in the underground bunker/lab/prison, I would have been completely happy. Unfortunately, the book moves from a psychological, character-driven mystery with a potentially rich science fiction revelation mixed in toward a more action-orientated story with a hefty dollop of religion (which had always been there, but ratchets up greatly). Here is where I though both story and craft started to decline. The action parts relied on some implausible plot events, and honestly, the chase scenes were far less interesting to me than the personal stories. And the religious aspect was the prediction I feared, though I won’t say any more about that to avoid spoilers. Save to say I’m not against religion in science fiction per se (I think The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel is fantastic); I just thought it wasn’t executed well here.

So as noted in the intro, an excellent read (with a few minor issues) for most of the book, followed by a veer into territory that for me, made the book drop off considerably in enjoyment, but which other readers may find less problematic. I’d say it’s worth the attempt for the book’s beginning. I’ve given the book a three as a rating, but here is where ratings’ reductionism rears up. To be more precise, I’d give the first half to two-thirds a four, and the final part a two. Make of that math what you will . . .

I really enjoyed this book. It presents a unique concept in scifi. I enjoyed all the characters and thought the plot was fast paced.

The Second Star is a gripping psychodrama set in the science fiction genre. Stella Froud is a psychologist with a specialization in dissociative personality disorder. The Parada is Earth's first interstellar ship, lost for over 200 years and now found by the second ship, the Juno. The Parada's crew has aged only 3 years due to the time dilation, but their minds have fractured into many. Stella is brought in by the 'World Government' to figure out why, how, and if there's any way the 6 crew can ever properly return to human society. She works alongside a Jesuit priest, who was brought in at the request of one of the crew, to get to know all the different personalities. The operation is entirely top secret - no one outside knows that the Parada was found and returned home - and Stella is working under challenging and restrictive conditions that cause her to question her own sanity and sense of self.

The book is an engaging read; the plot moves along briskly and we get to know the Parada crew, both their original and their new personalities well. I would have liked to learn more about three of the crew in particular; the story glosses over them to some extent. The book lost me a little with the conclusion, the only reason I docked it a star, I felt it was overly neat and would have preferred a less exact parallel. I found the romantic tension between two of the characters marginally believable - I thought it was going another way entirely and was rather surprised at who eventually paired up. A solid read though, and would definitely recommend.

I was given a copy of the book to review via NetGalley. I have no conflicts of interest.

I was given a free copy of The Second Star by Alma Alexander, the author, Crossroad Press, Mystique Press , and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book written by Ms. Alexander that I have read. I think it is fair to say that this book is science fiction.

The description of The Second Star: A spaceship has been lost for two hundred years, only to reappear with all six crew members alive, but each of them aged a couple of years. The main character, possibly a psychologist or psychiatrist, studies the six crew members to learn what happened to them.
I read twenty-five percent of this story and decided to stop reading.

I stopped reading because I thought there is too much dialogue that appeared to be more telling than showing. I was bogged down in the minutiae and nitty gritty of why she studied the six crew members and what she was investigating. I have read and finished novels that are dialogue heavy. The difference with this novel is the dialogue is dry and not interesting. This might be more an issue with me and may not be an issue with other readers.

As far as I read of this story, there was no action and hardly any narrative text to move the story forward.
The tone of the story is academic, clinical, and somewhat dry. Maybe it was intentional on Ms. Alexander’s part to write this story as a psychological research paper with the main character’s thoughts and observations.

I will rate this book 2 stars because I not read enough to get beyond the introduction of the story because of issues with the dialogue, lack of action, and a sense there was nothing move the story forward.

I would like to thank the Alma Alexander, Crossroad Press, Mystique Press, and Net Galley for the free ARC.

I have liked several of this author's YA books, but this (coincidentally or not, not YA) I didn't much care for.

There was a lack of clarity and momentum to the plot, because it kept swapping around story goals. Each goal was in itself compelling for the protagonist, but there was no real throughline.

Christianity (Catholicism) comes into the story, but the research is not there. Jesuits are clerics regular, not monks (which is fairly well known, I thought), and the magi, despite what your Christmas cards may have told you, were not kings, quite probably were not three in number, and did not attend the birth of Christ.

The world of 200 years from now felt much, much too similar to today. Despite a great deal being made of how people from shortly after our time would not have been able to cope with all the changes, we weren't shown very many changes at all. Cellphones, for example, are still around, and in people's pockets, not (for example) installed in their heads; new versions come out periodically, and old technology may or may not be compatible with new, and yet how they work and what they do is indistinguishable from how they work and what they do today.

I was not a fan of the big reveal, either, and it came out of nowhere late in the book.

There was one good feature, which was the psychologist protagonist's powerful commitment to the wellbeing and just treatment of her patients. If it had been coupled with better decision-making on her part, I would have liked her even more.

As it was, this was not a book I much enjoyed, and if it had been the first I'd read from the author I probably wouldn't read another. It's not representative of her other work, though, so I will keep picking up her books - but with more caution in the future.

I received a review copy via Netgalley.

I really liked the premise of this sci-fi but I’m not sure the execution was all that great. At times things felt thrown at the reader out of no where, especially towards the middle through the end of the book.

Alma Alexander's "The Second Star" is not at all what I expected. I liked the psychology at work, the fractured personalities among the crew of a once-lost interstellar mission from Earth. From there, however, the narrative tends toward Mary Doria's Russel's masterful combination of first-contact sci-fi with religion (specifically, the Jesuit order). As a character study with some sci-fi background, the first half of "The Second Star" is great. However, there's a lot of strongly archaic language ("mayhap"? really?) and the main character's overwrought internal dialogue throughout the novel. And I'm not protective of religion—far from it—but I think the author takes that angle much too far in the latter half of the story. The significant overuse of "miracle" gave that away early.

In her new science fiction thriller, Alma Alexander deftly weaves together several genre tropes and upends them, taking the story in an unpredictable and exciting direction.

The Second Star starts out as a standard “derelict ship found in deep space” mystery. We have the long-missing Parada found by another ship, Juno, whose crew goes above and beyond to get Parada and its crew back to Earth – where both crews are then quarantined because there are several unexpected issues with Parada’s crew: they are significantly younger than even near-light-speed travel should have allowed them to remain, and they are all suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder to an extreme degree. The mystery is: what happened to them out there to cause the fracturing of their psyches, and will the same thing happen to the crew of Juno, the only other space-farers Earth has sent out since the launch of Parada two hundred years earlier? Alexander spools out the clues but doesn’t let the reader wonder for long: roughly about a third of the way into the book, the reader (as well as main characters Stella Froud and Philip Carter) know what happened. At which point, the book smoothly transitions, for its middle third, into a medical-psychological thriller with spy-story overtones: worries over whether the Parada crew’s personalities can ever be woven together successfully enough to survive in a world they can’t recognize are complicated by Stella and Philip trying to figure out exactly what the military command in charge of the returned astronauts plans to do with them. Do the Doctor and the Priest follow orders or follow the higher call of their professions to care for their charges? Once that decision is made, the final third of the book takes a turn I don’t really want to spoil in a review. Suffice to say, the final third is not only the most exciting but also the most thought-provoking portion of the book, and well worth the build-up to get there. The great thing about the technical execution of this novel is two-fold: that it never goes where “derelict space-ship” and “medical/spy thriller” stories are expected to go, and that it transitions so smoothly between the different genres. While I was reading, I didn’t identify clear transition points. It was only after I was done that I realized the book was roughly divided into thirds that fit different standard story types.

But all the technical wizardry of mixing genres only goes so far if the story lacks engaging characters. Thankfully, the characters at the center of this story are an intriguing odd-couple. Stella is essentially an atheist, partnered with a Jesuit priest to figure out what happened to Parada’s crew and if they can be counseled into enough wellness to function in a world that has changed greatly in the two hundred years they’ve been gone. Froud and Carter become confidants, friends, and mutual support – something they sorely need in the face of a by-the-books military command that may not have the best interest of their patients at heart. Their relationship morphs from cordial professionalism to confidentiality and camaraderie organically throughout the story, including key moments where their beliefs conflict and they still find a way to work together to do what must be done.

More importantly, Parada’s crew come to trust the Doctor and The Priest, bringing us not only to the key reveal of What Happened Out There, but also forming the hinge on which the final third of the book swings. The Crew are also well-written, the various personalities of each crew member well-delineated in both dialogue and in descriptions of how the crew carry themselves. The Dissociative Identity Disorder is never played as a joke, nor as something temporary to be “cured.” The question is never “will these people ever be ‘normal’ again?” but rather “What will the new normal for these characters look like?” And because they are six individuals (although with a shared instigating trauma), the answer is different for each. There’s no single solution, no path they will all follow. Watching the Doctor and the Priest, as well as the crew, come to terms with what it means for each of them individually is heart-breaking.

When the main characters of a book are a scientist and a priest, one might expect a lot of preachiness (from both sides). Alexander largely avoids that – these characters, and a third who represents a different spiritual mindset from that of the priest, debate and discuss, but for the most part the author does not allow them to stand on soapboxes yelling. The conversations are nuanced, and the author never lets any of the viewpoints dominate. Even before the final third of the book, those conversations had me thinking.

Any mention of a “second star” brings to mind the classic line from Peter Pan (“The second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning!”). While the story is not obliquely a “Neverland” tale, there is a connection to be made: every one of Parada’s crew have a small-child persona who form a “Children’s Collective” when the group needs to come to a consensus of some kind. They are a mixed- and non-gendered group “ages” six to eight who at once are the most organized and yet the most lost of the personalities. It’s a small nod to Pan, and not the only classic piece of literature the title is a nod to, but I noticed it and think it was intentional.

Readers who enjoy books that blend genres and books that unsettle and make one think should seek out The Second Star, which came out at the start of July.