Y’know when a novel states it’s ‘Hunger Games meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ then I’m expecting action with some surreal humour. ‘The Chosen Twelve’, well, I personally wouldn’t say it reminded me of those. Yeah, you’ve got space, you’ve got a group of people, a limit to the amount who can get through a task and some weird robots. However, there were just too many characters - 22! - to keep track of and I wasn’t that fussed on any of them. The satirical humour didn’t work for me here, it just felt like too many ideas squished together. What can I say? For me, this is a novel that would probably appeal more if advertised as a space thriller, take away the off-beat humour that I’d expect and I think I’d have been more receptive to this so maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for this. Next time could be better?

Unfortunately I didn't love this.

The book started off super engaging and funny and while it maintained its level of humour the entire way through I cannot say the same for my engagement. For a long time I felt like I was waiting for things to happen. I got 60% through and apart from the characters being told that only 12 out of the 22 would be chosen to go to the planet not much else majorly happened.

This book was marketed as being a bit like The Hunger Games and that piqued my interest a lot but that never came to fruition. The book kept me wanting more!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was incredibly gripping and tense. I could not put it down. I would highly recommend.

🦾The Chosen Twelve🦾

By James Breakwell

🤫spoiler free review🤫

Blurb:

The Hunger Games meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in this breathless survival thriller.

Lord of the Flies meets Philip K Dick.

There are 22 candidates. There are 12 seats. The last interstellar colony ship is down to its final batch of humans after the robots in charge unhelpfully deleted the rest. But rebooting a species and training them for the arduous task of colonisation isn’t easy – especially when the planet below is filled with monsters, the humans are more interested in asking questions than learning, and the robots are all programmed to kill each other. But the fate of humanity rests on creating a new civilization on the planet below, and there are twelve seats on the lander. Will manipulation or loyalty save the day?

🚀🚀🚀

There are some big names and titles being used to describe this book so I went in with some pretty high expectations. I have to say they did oversell it a little as it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, however it was a fun read that I did enjoy.

In this story, 22 twelve year olds are living on a moon base orbiting the planet Dion, which is humanity’s last hope for survival. A previous attempt to populate the planet went badly and the digital life forms that are running things chose to “delete” that attempt. They are training the 22 children to repopulate the planet and ultimately spread digital life throughout the galaxy. Unfortunately, they have been lying to the kids for their entire lives. There are only twelve spaces on the lander and anyone that stays behind will be left to die. The planet itself is almost uninhabitable and the children are being constantly manipulated in order to achieve the outcome the digital deem optimal.

This was an easy read and I enjoyed the comedy, I’ll definitely be looking out for more of James Breakwell’s work.

Thanks to @netgalley @rebellionpublishing and @james_breakwell for the review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Alas, despite what the cover blurb may tell you, this book lacks the compelling life or death gamesmanship of The Hunger Games, the deliriously off-the-wall humor of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the thematic depths of Lord of the Flies, and the provocative philosophical underpinnings of Phliip K. Dick’s work. It’s more a fairly straightforward (very) soft sci-fi novel that reads like Y.A. even though the varied players are much older. And yet, despite their age and surface smarts, they’re all surprisingly simplistic in their approach to each other and the challenges they face. For the most part, there’s not much depth to these characters beyond Delta, our protagonist, and even she is ultimately upstaged by a robot named Spenser. The humor ranges from the silly to the absurd and it unfortunately undermines the drama once things finally get going (about halfway through the proceedings). The premise is great, but the execution is uninspired. A quick, unremarkable read.

James Breakwall takes us on a moral rollercoaster ride, 22 possible candidates only 12 seats. First and foremost this a enjoyable book that asks you to consider difficult questions in a way that is suitable for all ages. The story is set on a derelict moon staging post high above a hostile planet. Human and AI life’s last chance to survive. In a story which goes beyond a simple moral question, the book brings to life characters with skills and flaws, friendships and enemies, and ultimate selfishness and altruism. You are drawn along as the time for the lander to depart nears. Having spent time with the life and moral struggles of the 22 humans I’m still not sure which 12 I would have chosen. Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this.

This book wasn’t awful but at the same time, it didn’t do anything for me.
Alright, The Chosen Twelve, is 20 or so ‘kids’- but not actually kids, basically senior citizens- running around an abandoned ship in space. As the last humans to essentially exist, that we are aware of, they are in a constant power struggle with everyday objects that also harbor artificial intelligence. Essentially, these humans were born with a single purpose, return back to Earth and bring humans back from the brink of extinction. The only obstacle is a handful of invasive species and the fact that all the kids are unbelievably unexceptional and stupid. Honestly, the most frustrating part of this story is having to remember it’s a bunch of old ass adults who cannot do a single thing for themselves. Now don’t think you’re going to get to witness them even attempt to actually revive the population because the reality is the whole plot happens on this huge empty ship.
Now for my nit-picking, I wish that we would’ve had more of an opportunity to connect with the characters because, even by the end, I had a hard time rooting for any singular person (except Spenser). Another thing, death happened way too casually for how impactful it was upon certain characters. Because there wasn’t one single main character, and instead a handful, personalities weren’t always consistent- one of my biggest pet peeves in a story. There is a difference between character development and inconsistency that manifests into an almost split personality disorder.
In conclusion, I finished this book in like a day so it wasn’t that bad, right? I think that if I would’ve enjoyed even an aspect of the plot I'd rate it higher, but I was really just bored.

A colony ship is moored on a moon above the target planet, which is thoroughly inhospitable. The intended colonists have been frozen as 12 year olds for decades while they struggle to prepare themselves for the task of surviving and proliferating once they land. There are 22 candidates for 12 places on the lander for the one way trip. How will the places be allotted, what are the essentials for real leadership? These are the ingredients for a sort of Lord of the Flies in space. Its a complex and ingenious plot which asks some harder questions tham you might have imagined at the outset.

Thank you to James Breakwell, netgalley and Rebellion (Solaris) for allowing me access to this ARC.

I enjoyed this, it was fun, faced paced and amusing at times. However, I do feel the blurb has let the book down. A lot of readers will pick this up expecting Douglas Adam's level of humour, Hunger Games level of action and Phillip K Dick's thought out Sci-Fi. This is none of those. I feel it will suffer as a result of it's hyped blurb. When it could just be marketed as a fun sci-fi and find it's correct audience.

So as the front says, 22 candidates with only 12 seats. I don't think the reader should be told this.

As the characters do not learn this till about halfway through the book and I spent the first half of the book waiting for daily spaceship life to change into the action plot I'd been led to expect. The action does eventually hit about 2/3rd's of the way through.

This book has a fun concept, human embryo's raised and kept young by digital life. Training them to conquer and repopulate a planet without the hassle of ageing or teenage angst. This is not the digitals first try so we have some level of fear for our 12-year-old humans.

The humans are all named after characters in the Greek Alphabet, Alpha, Beta, Gamma etc. This does at times get confusing as this is a plot driven story, so the characters are very under-developed, but there are an awful lot of them. It is extremely easy to mix up Pi, Phi and Psi for example, or forget who Iota is when she isn't bouncing a blue ball.

I felt I knew the digital characters better.

This book left me with lots of questions that needed answering.

Who was in the coffee machine?
How do the dispensing machines pick when to dispense and to whom?
Who is Spenser really???
Why are the kids not better friends to each other? Why do they not have more common ground?

This was everything I hoped it would be.

This book follows Gamma, Delta and the remaining humans on a colony ship on the moon. These humans have been tasked by AI to prepare themselves for landing on hostile earth. The only issue is that there is 25 of them and only 18 seats on the lander.

One thing I liked about this book was the age of the protagonists. They did act with the naivety of 12-year-olds and you can see them begin to mature and grow. They also all had their interests and acted in a childish way that was realistic but not annoying which I liked.

This did however lead to the issue of their relationships. Although they are adults through time they're in the body of 12-year-olds and have not gone through puberty and also have been brainwashed into thinking they're 12. It just felt very off to me.

I did however like the way AI was represented and also the politics and the simulations. It all felt very realistic and the power dynamics are very clear. You'd have to read it to understand that better.

Overall I enjoyed this a lot. I liked the ending, I liked the philosophy and weirdly made me think.

The Chosen Twelve opens with a bang and rarely slows down. Things happen on the last interstellar colony ship. Robots "deleted" some humans, but 22 of them are still breathing. The problem? Only 12 seats on the lander needed to colonize the planet below and reboot the species.

Humans, named by letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Phi, Sigma, Omicron, etc.), tend to focus on all the wrong things and ask too many questions. Robots, on the other hand, are programmed to kill each other. Not to mention that AI has taken over human education, and protagonists don't think like us. Nor do they follow the same moral code.

As expected, the conflict between the humans starts to boil. Expect casualties. Delta, one of the top-performing humans, has her view on things, and the story revolves around her plans (more or less - there are A LOT of characters).

It's pitched as "The Hunger Games meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and "Lord of the Flies meets Philip K Dick." Sounds good, but it's not accurate. Although to be fair, it has dark and absurd humor and contestants fighting for a limited number of seats.

I enjoyed quick pacing, funny dialogues, and Breakwells' inventiveness. Even though the story often borders on the absurd, it's still thoughtful and exciting. On the other hand, I didn't care for characters with 22 people and a relatively narrow focus on each of them. Spencer or Delta get more screentime and are pretty fun, though.

The Chosen Twelve is many things, including sci-fi, survival, and dark comedy. There's a hell of a lot going on here, but it had me gripped. Most of the time.

what initially drew me into this novel was its ambitious concept— i love a good competition, maybe some exploration of human nature or whatever— but i found it incredibly bland. it had so much potential, but the author chose to go about it differently and he failed miserably. i could be nicer about this and could have given this 2 stars but looking back on my reading experience, i did not enjoy a single page of this novel. thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC!

i struggled reading because there are too many characters to keep up with and only a couple really stood out. most of the characters can be defined by one trait, and it was honestly lazy characterization. it could've explored a range of character dynamics or could've highlighted the competition more, but the book focused more on their training instead, which was an utter bore. i was led to believe that the characters are smart and competitive, but they are instead frustratingly dumb and incredibly juvenile. yes, they are kids, but not really !!!! so it was an opportunity wasted. how could they have gone through college 6 times yet be so fucking stupid? it was annoying.

i appreciate the attempt at the scifi atmosphere, but it just was not working. it has the common scifi themes, but the exploration of said themes are half-hearted and unsatisfying. i also found the writing to be too simple and rigid. there was an attempt at humor, but it felt so out of place (and irritating even).

what it really lacked though— and probably its most glaring offence— is its lack of creativity and imagination. IT'S SCIFI FFS! but it only contributed to the tried and true scifi themes, and offered nothing new to the genre. the author got carried away with the "funny" dialogue instead of building something new and substantial. it was 100-150 pages too long; entire chapters did not add anything new to the plot and only dragged out the story, which did not make for an enjoyable reading experience. i understand the desire to offer more information about the world the author created, but the filler chapters gave absolutely nothing. and i think because of this, i did not feel urgency or the importance of their goal. and the narrative voice did not help things either. it is so bland and predictable, despite the number of character POVs shoved into this. the plot was tedious and meandering, and then the action was compressed into the last 10 chapters— and at that point, i had already given up hope for an exciting story.

so at some point (around 60%) i looked up the author because this novel was obviously written by someone inexperienced, and i was not at all surprised to find out that the author is a comedian. it's nice that he is branching out to other genres, i just wish i wasn't here for it. the jokes didn't hit at all and i feel sorry.

anyway, i feel cheated because it promised me a good time and it gave me the opposite. see, when you comp hunger games, hitchhiker's guide, lord of the flies— and even mention pkd— you better deliver! but this was the plainest, most uninspiring scifi experience of my life. i was thoroughly bored, and only finished it out of sheer stubbornness. good luck to the author, but i sincerely hope he never writes another book in this genre again.

Space, robots, artificial intelligence, an apocalyptic world and 22children what could go wrong? This sci-fi dystopian thriller really captured human nature in a funny yet hauntingly sober way that has readers pondering their existence but not in a serious way.

“Rho knew from her histories that patrons on Earth who didn’t return library books were set on fire, so clearly it was a serious issue.” James Breakwell - The Chosen Twelve

Set in a base on some other planets moon, the children are brought up byArtificial intelligence embodied in robots of all kinds. From coffee makers too vacuums all to ensure the survival of no, not humanity but of ArtificialIntelligence or as they call them Digitals.

The children are all aged 12 but have been kept at that age by some very advanced technology for many years, so in essence they are really really old 12year old’s. And since being brought up by robots they lack the full understanding of where they are and why. The digitals only give them enough information to keep them at a certain level of understanding and stop them from questioning the digitals intensions. Their quest is to colonies the planet who’s moon they are on but to get them ready to do that the children need to learn using a simulator and boy oh boy, the thing these kids came up with, pure childlike creativity.

“Edubot said organics had fought four world wars. That was absurd. Surely mankind would have learned its lesson after one.” James Breakwell - The Chosen Twelve

While all this is going on in the space station it’s overrun with dangerous robots infiltrated by artificial intelligences, each wanting to be the supreme intelligence thus creating a chaotic, dangerous world for the children to navigate, from robots that just want to kill organics a.k.a humans to automatic door with a vendetta against anything crossing its path.

The story is quirky and often showcases crude humor among the more serious topics of violence, ethics and what it means to be human. The plot was engaging and somewhat confusing as it jumps around a lot between so many characters which made it hard to keep track of at some points but somehow the story keeps the reader going to find out how it all ends.

The characters though not all fully developed were fun to interact with and infuriating at times as they lack basic knowledge that we take for granted.The Digitals were the most infuriating, how can you have so much knowledge yet know so little at the same time. By the end of the story the organics (the children) crept into your heart, and it ends on a surprisingly deep note full of heartbreak and understanding.

While the book is chaotic at times, it’s filled with just the right balance of humour and action to make it a good read. It also hid a few very philosophical and deeply meaningful quotes in there which made me wonder…

“Humans are flawed, but they evolve into better people and overcome adversity.” James Breakwell - The Chosen Twelve

Now I don’t know if I’m just too serious of a person but at some points it felt like the book was a commentary on all the flaws of humanity and its quest to grow and conquer indefinitely. But maybe that’s just me.

Thank you NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for the ARC. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.

Wow. That was intense.

In an effort to survive, digital beings have been raising 24 humans who they hope will expand humanity, colonize Dion, mine metal and keep digital beings going.

What this looks like is 24, 12 year olds kept at 12 for decades. The machines intended to be a help for people instead are often our to get them, resulting in the death of two of the 24.

The digital supreme leader takes over the education of the group and announces only 12 can land on Dion to start colonizing.

This begins intense distrust and competition. And a lot of manipulation from the digitals.

Will any of them survive to make the landing? Can they survive on Dion? Will they trust each other enough to make it.

The Chosen Twelve follows a similar idea a number of novels and other media has begun to popularise in recent years but has put a slightly different science fiction twist. The novel starts with a group of children who are told they are the last members of the human race and they have a task to repopulate and cultivate a wild planet. The children are led by a robot who attempts to teach the children what they need in order to succeed but only a twelve of them can go on the lander to the new planet. This is story line begins the hungry games style all-for-one concept which is a little predictable at times within the story. The twist however is what makes the story stand out just a little bit extra - the humans are told they are to obey their robotic overloads. They aren't your classic terminator style bad ass robots, more sarcastic and clearly suffering from small man syndrome.

One thing to consider with this novel is the volume of characters - there are a lot and at times can sometimes be tricky to remember who is who and what makes them different from each other. There are a couple of stand out character - Delta and Gamma are the two most memorable to myself. The trouble with the characters is how the author has chosen to name them. They are follow mathematical language such as psi, epsilon, etc and this makes it hard sometimes to follow who is who, or even truly care about the different characters because the names didn't feel personal. There are some great relationships between characters and some sweet, thoughtful moments but again these are lost in the maze of characters. They are to be enjoyed within the scene and then lost within the pages. I did enjoy the robots in the story - their arrogance was interesting and believable within the world.

The setting itself is what I really loved about this novel. The concept that the human race has been wiped out, machines have decided that we aren't responsible enough to save our own futures and only a select through are good enough to be chosen. You'd expect the characters to fight amongst themselves but in the immediate the bonds are strong and the breakdown is slow. This is a different pace to stories like Red Rising and The Hunger Games, taking its time to forge relationships before breaking them down into the climax within the novel. This is aided by the world they live in - the characters are all contained within the main ship but lying outside is a dangerous mix of hazards and killer robots (who once had normal responsibilities). This split of settings is part of the dynamic between the characters. Some are willing to explore and survive, whereas others prefer to live in safety.

Overall I did enjoy this read, I am loving the variety within the Science Fiction genre and The Chosen Twelve contains a slight twist on a battle royal style story. The characters have their moments but I failed to fall in love with any in particular.

If Lord of the Flies took place in space with robots it would read a lot like this book. The humans in question are 12 years old (sort of 😉) and full of quirks and, well, kind of useless. They run VR simulations daily to train on how to land on the planet below. And the ineptitude from most of them is hilarious—I mean, genetically engineered elephants with chronic diarrhea?? But as the tests wind down and the candidates come to the forefront it was interesting to see how that changed the group dynamics. Especially in the two rival leaders, to see how they interpreted what being a leader is. The only reason I didn’t give this book 5 stars is because there is very little world building or background given in the story, and I had too many unanswered questions about the colony ship, the robots, previous landing expeditions, etc. Even just five or ten pages of background would have helped immensely. But I still really really enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley & Rebellion Publishing for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

James Breakwell's The Chosen Twelve is a fascinating SF survival tale that feels reminiscent of Lord of the Flies crossed with just enough humor and psychology to bring it up a step. Breakwell's characters feel vivid and unique, with the circumstances, traits and flaws separating each human and AI into such distinct persons that it's easy to picture their interactions beyond just the text. With that development comes attachment, and Breakwell does a masterful job of making you care about the outcome of his story and the protagonists therein. The Chosen Twelve does feel much more cerebral than action-driven, so comparisons to other dystopian YA novels (such as The Hunger Games or Divergent) feel forced; the comparison with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy feels much more apt. This is definitely one worth reading, but be ready to think and be forced to examine your thoughts on morality and humanity.

This book should be relabeled us Endless Ender’s Game meets immortality. Interesting plot, unique children, you won’t be able to put it down.

A very readable sci-fi book, with inspiration from lots of classics in this field. The last 24 humans alive on a distant space station, stuck at age 12 for decades,, and what happens when it comes to choosing the 12 that get to land on the potentially dangerous planet below (and who gets left behind)

I'm long over The Hunger Games, and never liked Hitchhiker's, so that part of the blurb didn't appeal to me. But I liked this overall, although I didn't love it. I'm sure this will find an audience. 3.5 stars rounded up.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!