Wolf Streak Beta: Awareness
A daring crew undertakes an adventure from which there can be no return in the exciting science fiction novel Wolf Streak Beta: Awareness.
In M. G. Brown’s science fiction novel Wolf Streak Beta: Awareness, the small, tight-knit crew of an exploratory vessel seeks long-lost colonists and adventure in the far reaches of space.
Long after humans abandoned Earth, specialists in space travel train from a young age to endure the rigors of long-term voyages. The crew of Wolf Streak Beta is ready to prove themselves as champions of humanity, competing with other crews to go forth and find the colonists who explored the outer reaches of space lifetimes ago. The crew comprises two adults and six teenagers: a doctor and her husband, the captain, two brash pilots, two prodigy technicians, and a young trickster.
As their vessel approaches the Sexto System and trades messages with their sometimes rivals, Fox Flash Alpha, the crew of Wolf Streak Beta begins to encounter unforeseen dangers. Energy pulses and unexplained phenomena threaten the crew from without, while inexplicable psychic phenomena begin to manifest within some of them. As the technologies they rely on to survive start to fail, the crew reckons with dangerous circumstances that require their bravery and sacrifices.
Sophisticated slang (“cherp” for good and “vulch” as an expletive) punctuates the crew’s conversations, in which identifications of who is speaking are sometimes omitted to distracting effect. And as the teenagers on the crew trade insults and speculate about their maturing bodies, the story loses its momentum further. Other conversations also impede the book’s forward motion: often, there is more talking than doing when the crew ends up in dangerous situations.
The technology used to suppress the teenagers’ hormonal development and sexual maturation allows them to endure the dangerous conditions of space, but their psychological development is crucial as well; even the youngest crew members are expected to be ready to make life-or-death decisions in an instant. The discrepancy between the teenagers teasing each other over who smells the most sweaty and then pivoting to pilot the spacecraft when their lives are at risk is jarring. Some of their attitudes about life, sex, death, and the divine are inconsistent, too: sex is heralded as a form of bonding but also something that can be induced by alien forces. And even as the teenagers struggle to handle the weight of accountability for the survival of the entire crew, the burdens of responsibility wear on the adults.
After much space travel, the crew encounters hostile forces, but there remains uncertainty as to whether there are humans or aliens behind the attacks. Stranded on an unfamiliar planet, their attempts to unravel these mysteries end in tragedy for some and are not resolved by the book’s close. Dangling enigmas (as of whether psychic phenomena exist and whether the colonists have settled in this star system) remain.
Intergalactic travelers evolve, becoming courageous and self-sacrificing, in the science fiction novel Wolf Streak Beta: Awareness.
Reviewed by
Jeana Jorgensen
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
