The awarding of the 2020 Minotauro Prize for the best unpublished Science Fiction, Horror or Fantasy Novel included the publication of the same, in addition to the economic amount as an advance on sales. so we could meet dark frontier by Sabino Cabeza, which we now recover in this review, while waiting for the publication of his second novel, Takarabune, scheduled for September.
Florence Schiaparelli and the Banshee
Astrophysics is fascinating. It is the development and study of physics applied to astronomy. It is dedicated to observing the stars, planets and other astronomical objects, including their composition and evolution. A compendium of laws and formulas that seeks to explain the properties and phenomena of stellar bodies. Sabino Cabeza Abuín (Seville, 1965) feels precisely this fascination and imports it into his novel, creating his own physics to explain many of the behaviors that we are going to see throughout Dark Frontier, when the Banshee enters the Event Horizon. of a large black hole, an object that the captain of the ship has baptized as the “Eye of God”.
Florence Wilhelmina Schiaparelli is not a native of Earth, although she is human. She has already seen how her race expanded through the cosmos and she herself has lived an entire existence in space. Her work is not the most pleasant of those that other larger ships within the Federal Fleet can carry out, but she is the one she enjoys more than anyone.
Like many of his generation, he has grown up hearing about the exploits of Ursa Krasnaia and the crew of the Necromancer, vanishing pioneers of space research who all rose to legendary status. Not even in his wildest dreams could he glimpse a situation like the one he is going to have to experience, finding himself squarely with Commander Krasnaia’s ship, right there, as if frozen in time, under circumstances that are entirely logical when we talk about a environment in which time works in a very different way.
Ursa and the merry seven
If we asked the author himself, he would refer us to the movie Interstellar, one of his favorites in the science-fiction genre, although when he talks about Captain Kathryn Janeway, from Star Trek Voyager, his eyes light up in a special way. The characters that Schiaparelli and his crew are going to meet are far from believing themselves to be more special than being pioneers, they do not have that concept of themselves, time has not passed for them. The temporary paradox that we are witnessing thanks to the black hole will allow us to see a tremendous evolution of each character, very well defined and with their own fears and insecurities.
Now we are about to see how a myth is helped to be undone, how a journey that did not have the best of endings has the chance to be completed, to have the homage it deserved in its own time and to change the lives of all its members. protagonists forever, without hardly altering the consideration of heroes of those known colloquially as Ursa and the merry seven… although the story will still have to alter a number by chance.
Dark Frontier works perfectly as a lengthy Star Trek chapter., where ingenuity and work prevail over threats that have to be shot, where engineers use their brilliant minds to obtain solutions that do not require the strength of an arm striking the face of an irreconcilable enemy. They are women and men facing problems that are difficult to solve, but without a doubt they will do everything on their part to function as a single team.
Escape the pull of gravity
The author has in his curriculum various experiences prior to his foray into the field of literature. He is a military officer, a non-commissioned officer of the Air Force and Space Force, still active, although Space, despite everything, does not end up entering his exquisite vocabulary. He also has a degree in Psychology, works as a psychoanalyst, working with words to investigate the unconsciousness of his patients, helping to return what the person has repressed.
Within the Air Force, he has gone through different destinations in which he has made a difference, but his latest job has powerfully linked him to the work of Ground Security. Absolute fan of science fiction in general, his knowledge of great works of the genre, with references such as Carl Sagan, Ursula K. Leguin, Ray Bradbury and even Jules Verne (with Tomás Salvador and Domingo Santos among the Spaniards), and of the greatest film and television sagas, make having a conversation with him bring out our most geeky version, either talking about Star Wars or Star Trek, although he touches many more sticks.
His literary portrayal places him very close to hard science fiction, the kind that tries to be supported by realistic explanations, even if they are supported by simple theories yet to be demonstrated or based on physics creations that are perfectly credible as real. For this he requested the supervision of Gerardo Mora (and even more so in the future Takarabune), Physics professor at the University of Valencia, which is one of the explanations why he feels so trustworthy.
It has engaged an entire system of society focused on the stars for several generations, structured to investigate the immensity of the universe and its mysteries, which manages to unite, around the event horizon of a black hole, the legends of the past with those who tell them. revered as heroes of exploration, more than three hundred years after their disappearance. An adventure that needs no enemies when the greatest force of nature known threatens to steal the lives of the two crews involved.
Also highlight the designs that the graphic designer, Daniel Aguilar made for the beginning of each chapter of the novel, where simplicity was the best weapon to understand the approach of the Banshee to the black hole. Waiting for Takarabune is going to be a process, although not very long in time (between three and four months), which is going to be long. A more extensive work that embarks us on a journey of a thousand years aboard a ship, moved by a gravitational engine, which seeks to reach a distant planet in which to establish a new colony of humanity. But the society that has had to be formed is no longer the same as the one that left our beautiful blue planet. I really want to sink my teeth into it.
dark frontier
Title: : dark frontier
URL : Planet of Books
Author : Sabino Cabeza Abuín
Format : Paperback
Publication date : 2020-10-06
ISBN : 9788445008102
Description : In the year 2560 humanity has managed to spread over eight thousand planets thanks to the anagravonic motors that allow Inspacio-Space jumps. Captain Florence Schiaparelli, known in the Federal Fleet as Florence Half-Life, and the crew of the Banshee are on a mission to obtain as much data as possible from the black hole that she herself has named the God’s Eye. But when an unidentified ship trapped near the black hole’s Event Horizon is detected, Captain Schiaparelli must decide whether to risk losing everything to save the crew of the mysterious ship.
Jesus Salvador Gomez
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