Goodbye Milky Way has an engaging plot – the world faces an extinction level threat from an approaching black hole and a secret organization gets together to create a complicated solution. But as engaging as the plot is, the lack of depth in the characterization and the overly complicated exposition add flaws to the narrative that ultimately detract too much to make this completely enjoyable.

What I mainly loved about the book was the core concept and the ideas that float around it. Firstly, I loved the idea of the creation of the universe with the Guardians and the Elders. The universe building that surrounds the story is intriguing both in concept and discussion. I like the way it addresses religion and Darwinism by placing a science that we don’t understand at the heart of the explanations. I like the character of the Guardian left behind to help his charges in trying to find a solution to the approaching end of the world; the character is quirky and pokes fun at the idea of naked aliens.

I also loved the idea of the Aieda, the first sentient computer program who explores her femininity. Just the idea of the sentience that is out of the realm of the Guardian’s experience and something brand new is an exciting twist in the plot. Aieda’s burgeoning personality comes through in fits and starts in the book but it is one of the more captivating ones. The loss of her in the final resolution is a brave one because the character is very appealing.

There was also a lot to like about what is actually the core plot: the Earth being destroyed by the gravity pull of a black hole. It does make a change from asteroids and I liked the originality of that. However, it’s this idea that doesn’t quite hold up in terms of the underlying science of the book. If the earth is being affected by gravitational forces of a black hole then I’m pretty certain that things would have deteriorated on a much greater scale weather and disturbance wise than described in the book in the run up to the extinction event itself.

I also got lost in the scientific explanations quite often and found myself skimming to get to the next piece as my brain went “too complicated! Can’t think this hard!” when hitting the various descriptions of solutions and impending disaster. Personally, I think the amount of exposition that a reader can take is a matter of individual taste and for me there was too much exposition, and not enough of it simplified to the point where I could easily absorb it given I was reading for pleasure not to learn about engineering. There is a sense there is too much plot here, too much going on that needs explanation and detailed description to be understood; that this is an epic tale and the book has provided only the Cliff notes, a summary. As a result it does sometimes come across as disjointed.

This is one of the major flaws of the book for me but the other is the characterization. There are a host of characters but no single “lead” character and that makes for scant characterization throughout. As a woman I had issues with the presentation of the female characters. On the one hand, they’re presented as strong women with good careers and there is a nod to the inherent sexism of Western civilization and difference between the sexes in some of the narrative. On the other hand, one of the first presentations of Amanda is as a woman happy to have an affair with a married man before very quickly bagging herself a rich husband, and Marla, who appears much later, goes googley-eyed over a male character immediately. It detracts from their professional strengths (Marla is supposed to be a Lt. General) and undermines their characters. The most likeable female character is Aieda, who is ambiguous at best in her nascent sentience and who also has romantic feelings mentioned in passing.

To be fair though, most of the male characters are equally not drawn in any depth to give them substance. Tom, the dashing Action hero of the piece, for example, suffers from being a caricature of an action hero rather than a character who the reader really gets to know and roots for. The exception is the character of Jon who despite being sketched thinly is sketched well through his relationship with his houseman Harry to become somewhat real. The most poignant part of the book is when Harry dies. I think had Makaon fastened on a single character point of view and allowed the reader to really get to know them, the book would have been much more interesting and captivating.

Overall, this isn’t a bad read; the writing style is similar to Clive Cussler and Matthew Reilly. The plot is engaging and I was interested to know where it was going. But the characterization of the every-day humans failed to pull me in, and it was left to the more quirky ideas of the Guardian and Aieda to keep me reading.

   -- Rachel Day