I hesitate to express what I believe to be shortcomings in a book that does not purport to be anything that it is not. Ripping off a nice thriller once and awhile has always been a favorite activity. But "End in Fire" couldn't quite decide what it was going to be. There are seeds of several excellent stories but I believe that the author unintentionally blunted the impact of each thematic opportunity by sacrificing characterization to the demands of action and plot. The author is trying too hard. Great artists make the work look effortless. Great authors have a story so finely developed that you know exactly what the characters are doing and why; crucially, the reader cares why. Otherwise, it is as if you are watching a TV movie where you know that everything will wrap up with a nice satisfactory ending in time for the 11:00 news broadcast.

The hugely relevant issue of what would happen in the event of a nuclear exchange would have itself been a very interesting premise. It is about time someone revisited the issue: Brinkley's "The Last Ship" comes to mind and here we have the perspective of astronauts rather than sailors. Some serious thought went into the framing of the nuclear exchange, interesting observations included the importance of ham radio operators, the dependence of society on satellites, vulnerability to EMP, etc. I admire an author willing to push the button as it were, but the opportunity to make any conclusions or to develop the theme was missed.

The characterizations were also rife with missed opportunity. None of the characters developed during the story. Our proud, self-sufficient mother-astronaut who shouldn't have left her baby didn't learn anything from her journey. The others who accompanied her at various times were little more than shadows. The more I read and the older I get the more I appreciate a finely-drawn character. You can put such characters in the most outrageously contrived situations and the story will move along nicely--Neal Stephenson has a gift for that.

SPOILER WARNING! There was an entire book lurking in the space rescue, which was horribly abbreviated. Sure, the whole thing smacked of dramatic hyperbole--but hey, a dramatic space rescue is what kept me reading. Here it pushed the bounds a bit much--reentry is difficult enough with all of the computers. Apollo 13 would have provided a little foundation for the framing of a crisis situation. All you need is a little hole in the craft. Reengineering a reentry vehicle on the fly--in space no less--was just over the top. As for reentry itself... I won't go there. Suffice it to say that it is reminiscent of the cartoon with scientists at a chalk board full of equations and the words at the bottom corner "Then a Miracle Occurs" and one scientist says to the other something to the effect of "there needs to be a little more detail here."

I will watch Ms. Mitchell's future efforts as I do think that the seeds of some excellent writing are present--but can't get past 3 stars on this one.

I was looking forward to this read but if it had not been for the fact that I took it on an international flight, it is unlikely that I would have got more than 50 or so pages into it before giving up. All the characters are terribly stereo-typed, the racist military pilot, the inscrutable Chinese "taikonaut" and the honour-obsessed Japanese. None of these characters ring true and the others are equally over the top cliches. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong to the nth degree until it all becomes absurd and stupid. Then there are the ridiculous coincidences that beggar belief and completely ruin any hope of a useful conclusion. I loved The Changling Plague and Technogenesis but this is very disappointing.

Syne Mitchell's "End In Fire" was an excellent novel for a dreary afternoon. I was in the mood for a real-space novel, and while this was set in a slightly extrapolated future, it fit the bill close enough.

In the novel, Claire, the central focus, is assigned to the American space station Reliance (successor to the International Space Station) and is working on her life's dream, a solar collector that will help to eliminate America's dependence on fossil fuels. If successful, the solar array will be the first of many beaming microwave electricity back to earth.

Of course, in true Science Fiction style, she's not, and all hell breaks loose.

Through the remainder of the story, we experience the trials and travails of Claire, both in orbit and in her heart, as she fights to help her crewmates and her young son and husband survive the cataclysim that is unfolding beneath their feet.

There are several suprises in this book, places you don't quite expect things to go, but the book is a very good read.

In terms of shortcomings, certain scenes are written way too briefly. Things that take hours come across as instantaneous occurences (it would take quite some time to deorbit from MEO, but the event passes in about half-a-page in the novel), but in fairness, they are places in the story that really have nothing to elaborate on.

Regardless of the shortcomings, "End In Fire" is a good novel that I would recommend to anyone, even if the afternoon isn't dreary.

I was born in 1950, so I grew up with science fiction during the Cold
War. I found End in Fire to be an odd blend of SF from then and now,
especially since SF then tended to look beyond the insanity of the
time at hand to successfully dealing with future challenges. Modern
SF seems to extrapolate the way things are going and often winds up
some place I'd rather not be.

Still, End in Fire is worth reading, for the warning of a possible
future, for the hands-on jury rigging of tin cans to get home, and for
a decent stab at handling various personalities and nationalities
thrown together in situations that weren't in the training manual.

Ultimately, people will look back at this as a bit of a sidestep in
Mitchell's development as a SF writer. One's firstborn can do that
to you....

...unfortunately the writing falls a bit short.

The characters were rather cartoonish, and the dialogue was juvenile.

Spend a few hours with this book and enjoy it for what it is worth, just don't expect too much.