Crew of Exiles

by Neal Holtschulte

Overview

A bitter transcendent being. A naive gamer with no extra lives. A discarded human shell. The last people left on Earth.

In 2500 A.D. an immortal has ended its own life. Beryl, a misanthropic transcendent being, is accused of assisting in the suicide. Banished to a human body by his peers, Beryl is sentenced to a 1,000-year exile on the depopulated Earth.

If misery is his fate, Beryl would rather suffer it alone. Instead he's adopted by Fife, a plucky virtual reality gamer who is eager to go adventuring in the real world.

Fife drags Beryl along to a crashed starship where they meet Nesh, the lone survivor of the crash and an orphan of Beryl's crime. Beryl's past hounds his every step and puts his newfound friends in mortal danger. How can they survive the wrath of vengeful transcendent beings?

The solution lies in Nesh's deep-buried memories-but only if Beryl can face his past and rekindle his humanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798985894806
Publisher:	Haste Publishing
Publication date:	09/30/2022
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.91(d)

Editorial Reviews

2022-07-22
A quartet of misfits reluctantly team up for a near-impossible mission of survival in Holtschulte’s SF novel.

The titular crew is made up of four very different beings living in the year 2500: Beryl, who was exiled into a human body by his fellow, immortal Transcendent after he committed what they considered to be a heinous act; Fife, a video gamer who spent much of her life in virtual reality before deciding to tackle the real world; Nesh, who served as a vessel for missing Transcendent master Water and whose ship had just crashed on Earth; and Ohnsy, a maintenance worker on the ship Quicksilverwhose captain has disappeared. When they all meet on Earth, Ohnsy gets conscripted by Fife, Beryl, and Nesh,who need the Quicksilverto escape the planet before Nesh’s ship explodes. The four must learn to get along quickly, as the ship comes under attack, first by settlers on Luna, Earth’s moon, and then by the Transcendent, because Beryl violated a condition of his exile by leaving Earth. Beryl convinces his sibling Lium to let him appeal to a jury of Transcendent to save the lives of his companions, who are sentenced to death for helping him. Holtschulte’s strength in his quirky debut novel is his full-bodied character development; all the major players convincingly grow as their circumstances change. The most likable is Fife, who’s been training all her life for the leadership role that’s thrust upon her, and readers may wish for more of her; her foil is the fallen Beryl, who spends too much of the book wallowing in his own misfortune, even when his teammates require more of him. However, readers will find that the haughty Transcendent, who look down upon humanity, make the self-involved Beryl appear positively empathetic by comparison. The narrative drags somewhat during the meandering philosophical digressions, which frequently boil down to the notion that narcissistic Transcendent are bad and enterprising humans are good. However, this metaphysical bent does result in a satisfying conclusion to this offbeat tale.

Memorable characters make this narrative’s sometimes-bumpy ride worthwhile.

Kirkus Reviews