Do You Dream of Terra-Two? Release Date: 7th March 2019 Add it: Goodreads
Rating:
When an Earth-like planet is discovered, a team of six teens, along with three veteran astronauts, embark on a twenty-year trip to set up a planet for human colonization—but find that space is more deadly than they ever could have imagined.
Have you ever hoped you could leave everything behind?
Have you ever dreamt of a better world?
Can a dream sustain a lifetime?
A century ago, an astronomer discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. She predicted that one day humans would travel there to build a utopia. Today, ten astronauts are leaving everything behind to find it. Four are veterans of the twentieth century’s space-race.
And six are teenagers who’ve trained for this mission most of their lives.
It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years locked in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.
And something always goes wrong.
I’m not sure what I was expecting with Do You Dream of Terra Two? but I think this book managed to both meet my expectations and be a completely different story to the one I thought I was getting.
Terra Two is about a group of young adults who head off to space towards a new Earth-like planet that they’re planning to live on. They’re leaving their lives behind and travelling for around 23 years, living only with each other and senior members of the team in that time.
This sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing I enjoy, although I think most of my enjoyment would come from the events after landing on the planet, which isn’t really what this book is about. That said, I still really enjoyed reading about these characters as they came to terms with (or not) what they were leaving behind and what they were about to go through.
This book covers a short period of time, comparatively. It’s not about the whole 23 year journey, as it only really covers the first year of trials and struggles. There’s a lot of talk about mental health, which I am glad about, because too often books show people going off on space adventures without a care in the world. I did find it a little bit unrealistic that there were issues with every single one of the characters, but perhaps it was more realistic because they’re in a heightened environment. Plus, they’re all still quite young and barely had time to figure things out. Anyway…
Despite what the blurb says, I wouldn’t really say this is much like The 100. It’s more like Across the Universe (anyone remember that?) but with slightly older characters.
Some scenes had me on the absolute edge of my seat. Space stuff tends to freak me out, and possible explosions and collisions in space freak me out even more. Understandably. I felt very claustrophobic throughout most of the book, so I think the author did a really good job creating an atmosphere there.
This is a very character focused book, and I think some people may be put off by that. However, I think the author’s writing style lent itself perfectly to the type of book it is, and I appreciated getting a glimpse into characters who were going through all of this.
I really liked this one. While it’s not an all time favourite, I do hope that the author continues to write similar sci fi books because I like what they’re adding to the genre!
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