Book Review: One Way

[Joey Stark]

Title of the book: One Way
Authors: S.J. Mordon
Series: (Frank Kitteridge #1)
Genres: Sci-fi, Mystery

One Way is a futuristic sci-fi mystery that falls short of expectations.

We follow convict Frank, who is in prison for life after shooting his son's drug dealer (for nonsensical reasons). Approached by the mysterious XO company, Frank signs up to be part of program that aims to colonise Mars using lifers as the initial labourers. Trained in just 6 months amongst a team of fellow convicts, Frank tries to bond the group together as they are arrive on Mars and the difficulty of staying alive everyday behooves trust within the group. But trust is hard to come by when accidents start happening and especially when the accidents start to seem deliberate.

I had a lot of issues with this book. The overall premise is a bit of stretch and similar plot points are glossed over at times, which is frustrating. Morden is a scientist himself and it seems like he did his research for the book, but at times (a lot of the time actually) over-describes. Frank's job within the group is construction and the amount of tedious detail about the construction of the Mars base, both during training and when on Mars, was excessive and really boring. I had to take breaks to get through these parts. It was also completely unnecessary, a quarter of that information was needed to provide description and move the story along. It just made me desperate for the mystery part of the story to begin but the overarching mystery of the book - who is causing the accidents, I guessed very early on. I'm not a person who usually guesses plot points easily but this seemed obvious. I found myself frustrated at the characters for not catching on as quickly.

The characters themselves were also a weak point. Frank wasn't a very sympathetic character, considering he's positioned as the book's moral compass. The reasons for him being in prison he justifies as being 'for the right reasons' and for 'love' but objectively, it doesn't come across that way. The other cons in the group were not developed very much at all and came across as 2-dimensional characters who didn't really draw much empathy. Potentially emotive moments were missing as a result.

There were a few areas that Morden drew me back a bit; the science seemed very self assured (if a bit overdone) and last few chapters of the book definitely got my heart rate up. There was a well-created claustrophobic atmosphere compounded by the idea of being trapped and pursued somewhere as remote as another planet, where the smallest change in pressure or a hole in your suit puts you in danger fast.

Overall, although I ended up enjoying the ending of the book, even if much of the mystery was guessed beforehand, One Way was a disappointing execution of a promising premise. The pace was all off and unimportant aspects emphasised whilst characters and plot points explored too fleetingly. I will definitely wait for reviews of the sequel to come out before I consider reading it and likely won't read anymore unless the issues from this book have been addressed