In Our Stars (The Doomed Earth, Book One) by Jack Campbell (2024)
A soldier is hurtled back in time 40 years by Earth’s destruction. There, she meets a disgraced officer and together, they must escape corrupt military officials while trying to prevent the horrific future that she’s experienced. Jack Campbell’s In Our Stars is far from terrible, but his writing style — which feels, for lack of better terms, simplistic and casual (there’s even an honest-to-goodness “I’m a doctor” joke straight out of Star Trek) — never grabbed me. The fact that one character is partly alien does add some interesting dynamics — she struggles with a constant sense of alienation and foreboding as our two heroes inevitably fall in love — but that’s not enough to carry the entire novel. As for the book’s criticism of racism, classism, and corrupt systems, that’s nice to see, but it also gets rather heavy-handed at times. Some might appreciate the book’s earnest and optimistic tone, but for all of the danger that our two protagonists face, not to mention the high stakes (e.g., preventing the Earth’s destruction), In Our Stars is very safe, predictable, and boring.
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