Customer Reviews

Kea's Flight

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kea's Flight is one of those novels that depart from the typical. To
say it is a work of science fiction, set in a distant future where
space travel is the norm, is not to do the novel justice. True, that
is the setting and the general description of the novel, but apart
from that very general description, Kea's flight conforms to none of
the stereotypical plot conventions of the science fiction genre. It is a
pioneering departure in more ways than one. The atmosphere and the
future it creates is original and previously uncreated. And yet it
is also the first novel, complete, polished and written for the
mainstream, that deals with important social questions, including
mainstream attitude to those with Austism and Asperger's Syndrome.

If you are, like me, a fan of Isaac Asimov and his ability to create
alternate realities--so real that you feel like a tourist on holidays,
every time you pick up one of his books--then you will surely love
Kea's Flight.

Being my first exposure to Hammerschmidt, as a fiction writer, Asimov
is the writer whose style I have seen most resemblance. Much like
Asimov, Hammerschmidt and Ricker demonstrate their power to form
alternate realities with the complexity and attention to detail
necessary to allow the reader to suspend their disbelief. This gives
the novel such a "real" feel, that I find myself attracted, once
again, to the novel, after having read it. The setting and characters
were described so skillfully, and their reality is so tangible, that I
have found myself missing Kea and her friends, and feeling a powerful
urge to re-visit them in the "flying dustbin", which is their ship.

Hammerschmidt takes care to develop her characters, to a level of
breathing realism, and her dialog is strong and believable. Given
this, however, her first few chapters, much like Asimov's tend to be,
are involved with character development and setting the scene. So, if
you are the type of reader who requires immediate action and a great
deal of violence or earth-shattering explosions, to keep your
attention, you may prefer a book written with more violent action and
less character development. Whereas, if you are more a fan of
classical literature, then you will appreciate the author's
attention to detail. The pace of the book is leisurely, to begin
with, but it is more than compensated for, in the later chapters, when
the plot begins to quickly and impressively take form. Most good
dialogists, such as Hammerschmidt, lack skill with plot. But the plot
twists of Kea's Flight, in spite of their slow maturation, are
skillfully woven, to the extreme, and no mystery is left unsolved. At
some points in the novel, the resolution to a given plot point was so
unexpected and so clever that I couldn't help but laugh in wonderment.
This is something few authors have been able to do to me.

Kea's Flight is a pioneering work, in that it creates a new world,
unlike other science fiction worlds so far invented. That is, to my
mind, the clearest definition of "pioneering science fiction." But it
is also a pioneering work in that it is the first science fiction
novel, in my knowledge, to deal with questions of prejudice against
those with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome or any other diagnosis termed a
"disability" by mainstream culture. It puts this question into a
highly entertaining and well-written piece of fiction; it is written
by authors who, themselves, have been diagnosed on the Autism
Spectrum; it offers solutions to these social problems that leave you
wishing, at the end of the book, that you could be on the ship with
Kea and her friends, instead of this world, where these illogical
prejudices still prevail; it is not afraid to broach controversial
social issues, such as birth control and alternative lifestyle
choices.

For the pioneering reasons above, I rank Kea's Flight as one of the
most memorable reads I have had in a long time and I recommend it,
particularly to anyone who likes to explore new vistas of science
fiction writing, anyone interested in autism/asperger rights and
anyone who is a fan of Isaac Asimov, like myself.

If classic science fiction is about imagining different futures and exploring their implications, then this is science fiction at its classic-est. The book tells an intriguing story set in a believable future where "abnormal" embryos are discarded but not killed. What is life like for "differently-abled" kids raised by criminals and robots, isolated from "normal" people?

It does a great job of revealing the humanity of autistics and other neuro-atypical people, showing both their strengths and weaknesses. I found this rare view really interesting, but also the source of my one complaint: parts of the book can seem a bit preachy about the value of such people to society.

The story itself is interesting and develops nicely, with background woven in as necessary. There's a lot more plot and character development than action, and by the end of the book, you feel like you really know the main characters. The authors manage the tension level expertly, gradually building to the climactic events. When an event happens as you expect it to, the characters expected it, too. And when something catches the characters off-guard, it's a surprise to the reader, too.

I highly recommend this book for fans of classic science fiction, and anyone open to a little better understanding of people on the autism spectrum.

When I read the synopsis for Kea's Flight it definitely got me interested, but I had no idea what an awesome book it would turn out to be. And by awesome, I definitely mean awesome - this is already one of my favorite books of the year.

I'm not usually one for sci-if/futuristic space adventures, but there was just something about this novel that made it incredibly appealing. The characters were probably what did it for me, they were so well-drawn and felt very real. The characters are all teenagers who had been into space for having genes on the Autism Specter and I think it would have been easy to let them all blur together until they were all too similar. However, this is far from the case. The authors, Erika and John, have succeeded in creating relatable and flawed characters - Kea with her love of languages, Draz with his computer knowledge and emotional issues, Chris and his anger management troubles. I could go on forever, but the point is, I haven't read characters such as these in a long time.

The plot was also great, with just the right amount of dialogue and action. There was a lot to wrap my head around in this novel, but the authors succeeded in creating a world that was believable and fairly easy to grasp. Some of it is quite daunting - for example, the computer knowledge involved - but I felt that it was all explained extremely well. There are a lot of ethical issues tackled in Kea's Flight, and the authors did a great job with coming coming up with unique perspectives. The novel really made me think about a lot of things, and I loved all the differing opinions on some very real issues.

Overall, I honestly don't think Kea's Flight could have been better. It's a self-published novel, but it certainly doesn't read like one - I only managed to pick up a couple of spelling/grammar errors. For any 500 page book that's an achievement! With richly drawn characters, and a plot to rival many of the novels out there at the moment, you really don't want to miss this book. I highly recommended Kea's Flight.

(I received this novel free from the author for review. This in no way affected my review.)

Kea's Flight is definitely a very different read. I liked the different characters who were, at times, vulnerable, relatable and enjoyable to read about.

I really liked the idea behind the story and you can really learn a lot from this book, however, for me it was one of those reads that start of great but then loses it's steam.

I started to feel like there was no basic plot line...not that there wasn't a plot but that there were so many things happening that led on to another happening that it just became too much. I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it either...it just wasn't for me.

I do recommend this book for others though. It was a really clever read at times and it surprised me at points. It was just one of those times when I found myself losing interest...it happens.

I usually do not have the patience for novels and prefer reading popular science and travel literature. But when the authors offered me a review copy of this book, I found I could not turn it down. The prospect of heroes diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in a science fiction setting was too good to pass up. We all know people with Asperger's but rarely think of them as central characters in a book, or in our own lives, for that matter. I spent 3 weeks reading (and re-reading) the novel, but it was well worth my time.

In the 25th century humans have done away with abortion, but now are removing and freezing an unwanted fetus. Reasons for doing so vary, but neo natal genetic testing and social pressure encourages parents to get rid of children who are not "optimal." In addition, Earth now has a single dictatorial government, based on loosely right wing religious principles, and it is easy for them to simply send away children who will not readily fit into society. Karen Anderson, a language savant, born with tendency towards autism spectrum disorders, has never lived on earth. Her entire life has been spent on a ship she calls the "flying dustbin" under the care of domineering and paternalistic BGs (benevolent guardians). Feeling isolated and routinely punished for minor violations of unwritten ship rules, Karen eventually finds other passengers with similar backgrounds, including Draz, a computer savant, with whom she forms a romantic bond. This small cluster of passengers quickly discover that the ship is not very well constructed, and the planet they are being sent to is not capable of sustaining life. They hatch a plot to try to save themselves and the other passengers.

The plot of the book is fairly well constructed, though I found the motivation of the central villain in the novel to be a little inadequate. I was also a little disappointed in a computer character, whom I alternatively thought should have been given an either greater role or toned down. But these are minor criticisms of an otherwise well written novel. These cavils also miss the bigger point of the book, for the novel is really a vehicle for the author(s) to introduce readers to what people with Aspergers Syndrome feel and experience. Indeed, the central characters of the novel are clearly the authors themselves, and the social struggles they describe in the context of the novel are all too real experiences for many people with Aspergers. At times the novel almost became didactic, and difficult to follow. Still, the characters were all very realistic, precisely because they were so typical of what people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) regularly experience. I know a little about that, and am sad to say that I recognized a lot of myself in one of the less pleasant characters who surrounds Karen Anderson, the eternally pessimistic (and combative) Chris.

All too often fiction assumes characters who are "normal" but face the everyday challenges of life in unique ways; think "Are you there God, It's me, Margaret." The characters in science fiction are for the most part similar: very like us, but responding to challenging situations in a futuristic setting. Only rarely do we see people society would label as disabled playing a leading role in science fiction or fantasy. It may be that the reason the X-men, for example, are so popular is because they include a hero confined to a wheel chair (to say nothing of that rarest type of human being, a nationalistic Canadian, but I digress). It's refreshing to read a novel where characters with Aspergers are at the heart of the action. I hope I can see more fiction like this, with less of an emphasis on the didactic purpose for doing so.

I have fallen in love with this book, and already miss its adventure. The writing style flows like water, painting pictures that seem to float off the page. The main characters are interesting and deeply drawn, serious issues are bridged, suspense is held, and the book unravels to a suitably satisfactory and less than expected end.
A wide spectrum of readers should be as affected as I am, from Young Adult to "Seen-it-All" Veterans of a thousand books. We see the story through the eyes of a slowly maturing young girl who starts life in the deeps of autistic isolation, and follow her as she develops her savant skills in language and learns to interact with her peers. We are on a space-ship that is physically divided between a great number of variously handicapped children, living dormitory lives, and their controllers, the BGs, who "run" the ship. The novel seems to me to so well describe existence amongst the variously handicapped and marginalised, with their sometimes useful gifts. I am sure the insights and deep connections we feel with this bunch of "rejected humanity" would have felt less strong, if it were not for the fact that the authors have a particular closeness to autistic spectrum handicaps themselves.
This book is not just a must for those with an interest in science fiction, but should also be on the reading list of those who aren't naturally sympathetic to that genre. As a writer of speculative fiction I started reading with high expectations, otherwise I would not have chosen this one from a pile of hundreds. It was one of the best totally undirected reading decisions I have even made.
There are a lot of social and philosophical issues covered in this story, from prejudice to individual rights, from the needs of society to equality of opportunity and the future of mankind. There are also many of the more familiar scientific and technological ingredients that are the grist of SF writing. All are blended into a plausible adventure that takes place on a cheaply produced tin can of a spacecraft, run with variously obsolete equipment, as it powers towards a predetermined destination. This is a destiny that needs avoiding if our unlikely crew and passengers are going to have much of a future. A thick fog of expectant failure grabs at us as we follow the story of this unlikely bunch of discordant friends, and get glimpses of their tenuous, unidentified supporters. So many varying emotional strands often weaken, but sometimes strengthen, any hope of survival. We have love, hate, paranoia, fear, pain, inferiority complexes, totalitarian venom, distrust and blind support all rearing their heads in a threatening to be tragic soup. And of course, with having so many classical elements of science fiction, even artificial "intelligence" raises its electronic head.
I really hope there is a sequel to this fine novel, as I really can't abide the idea of missing out on the future adventures of Karen Anderson and Zachary Drazil.