The ‘Io Encounter’ is the third in a series of novels by science fiction author Brandon Q. Morris concerning the voyage of the spaceship ‘International Life Search Expedition’ or ILSE. In ‘The Enceladus Mission’ (Reviewed in my post of 16 October 2019) a robotic space probe on Enceladus sends back data confirming the existence of life on that distant moon of Saturn. In response the world’s space agencies organize the ILSE mission to discover what kind of life inhabits that icy world. In ‘The Enceladus Mission’ the mission is successful but not without loss to the crew of ILSE.
‘The Titan Probe’, the second book in the series (Also reviewed in my post of 16 October 2019) begins while ILSE is still in orbit around Enceladus. Another probe on the surface of Saturn’s larger moon Titan is also sending back data indicating that something is going on there so ILSE is ordered to go and investigate. Again the mission is successful thanks to the ingenuity of the ILSE crew.
I liked both ‘The Enceladus Mission’ and ‘The Titan Probe’; both are hard science fiction based on well established science. In both novels the crew use their training and knowledge to overcome the obstacles that author Morris throws at them. I also liked the extraterrestrials in both books, they were really alien while at the same time being understandable.
Which only makes ‘The Io Encounter’ that much more of a letdown. The novel starts with ILSE having left Saturn and on its way back to Earth. On the return trip the ship will make a flyby of Jupiter in order to get a boost from the giant planet’s gravity.
As they are approaching Jupiter however the crew discover that something is happening on the moon Io so they decide to stop and take a look! After all how hard can that be!
Well space missions are usually designed with very little margin for detours of any kind. That side trip to Titan when the crew where at Enceladus would have required a delta vee of no more than about 3 kilometers per second. A space journey to Saturn would probably have that kind of spare fuel so in ‘The Titan Probe’ I was more than willing to go along for the sake of the story.
Going from a Jupiter flyby to orbit around Io however would require a delta vee of at least 7 km/sec, about as much as getting into Earth orbit. And then you would need another 7 km/sec when you leave Io to continue on to Earth. But it gets worse because, without giving away any of the plot elements, midway through the novel the ILSE turns around and starts back to Saturn! And then later on the ship stops midway between the two giant planets to once again head back to Io. After being so detailed and logical about how everything works in the first two novels Mr. Morris seems to have just given up on reality and simply has the ship do whatever he wants in order to keep the plot moving.
Not that the plot of ‘The Io Encounter’ is really worth it. Morris simply brings out the tired old cliché of ‘military elements’ in the US and Chinese governments who want to kill the creature that the ILSE crew discovered back on Enceladus. All in all it’s not a good finish for what had been an interesting series of stories.
Reading ‘The Io Encounter’ I couldn’t help but wonder if Brandon Q. Morris hadn’t been rushed to complete the novel. It seems to me that a lot of times an author will take 2, 3 or even more years to complete a first novel that turns out to be popular. Then their publisher hounds them to finish another story while they’re hot with the result that the follow up is nowhere near as good as the first story where they took their time to do it right.
I guess what I’m saying is that ‘The Io Encounter’ isn’t a bad story, it just seems like a really rushed story.