Title: Fluency
Author: Jennifer Foehner Wells
Publisher: Blue Bedlam Science Fiction (June 18, 2014) ISBN: 978-0990479826
Category: Science Fiction: Space Opera, First Contact, Action-Adventure, Alien, Romance Tour
Date: March 2-April 30, 2015
Available in: Print, ebook, 373 Pages
NASA discovered the alien ship lurking in the asteroid belt in the 1960s. They kept the Target under intense surveillance for decades, letting the public believe they were exploring the solar system, while they worked feverishly to refine the technology needed to reach it.
The ship itself remained silent, drifting.
Dr. Jane Holloway is content documenting nearly-extinct languages and had never contemplated becoming an astronaut. But when NASA recruits her to join a team of military scientists for an expedition to the Target, it’s an adventure she can’t refuse.
The ship isn’t vacant, as they presumed.
A disembodied voice rumbles inside Jane’s head, "You are home."
Jane fights the growing doubts of her colleagues as she attempts to decipher what the alien wants from her. As the derelict ship devolves into chaos and the crew gets cut off from their escape route, Jane must decide if she can trust the alien’s help to survive.
5/5 stars
Fluency is one of the best books I’ve read this year so far. It had every potential to amaze me and indeed it did. The story kept me on the edge of my seat, I enjoyed every second of it.
I liked that it had a classic sci-fi feel to
it: seemingly abandoned alien spaceship, a story within the story about the
tragic demise of the crew, malicious space slugs, mysterious illness– what’s
not to like here?
The characters were spot on, they had depth and
every one of them was important their own way. I liked Varma, the doctor,
because she was very rational and always listened when she was asked to listen.
I didn’t like Walsh, because he did just the opposite. I think a good leader is
willing to hear and consider the opinions of the members of his team and, since
he wasn’t able to make compromises at all, he was anything but a good leader.
The dynamics of Jane and Alan’s relationship were
pretty interesting. I was rooting for them and.. ugh… I was so frustrated when
it didn’t want to work out for them no matter how much they both wanted the other.
I found the story of the Sectilius quite
fascinating and I think the story idea that alien races might need human help to
get rid of a hostile race is pretty unique.
All in all Fluency was a cool read and it
deserves five stars. I recommend this book to every sci-fi lover. You’ll have
so much fun if you decide to pick it up!
Praise for 'Fluency':
"Author Jennifer Wells' writing genius comes from her vast knowledge of the highly technical subject matter and her ability to put the reader in the middle of it without losing him/her in technical jargon while creating characters that seem completely natural and believable."- Jean Fisher for Independent Publisher News
"With her first novel, Jennifer Wells adds a fresh voice to the sci-fi genre and distinguishes herself as an author to watch." -Theresa Kay, author of Broken Skies
"One of the runaway sci-fi hits on Amazon this year has been Jennifer Foehner Wells’ space thriller Fluency and quite frankly it’s a welcome addition to the genre.
Fluency moves at a breakneck pace in a very cinematic fashion, the narrative mostly linear with some minor flashbacks to fill in gaps in the back story. Wells does a fine job of dealing with the technical side of proceedings without resorting to complicated jargon (I know I know, some geeks love the jargon but not this one!) The human technology is believable and the alien technology while advanced, is also impressively practical.
While the strong female character has become a bit of a cliché in sci-fi over the past few years, it’s worth noting that many of these female characters have been written by men. What makes Fluency so refreshing is that Holloway’s character develops in a much more believable fashion given her circumstances. Sure she has to eventually toughen up and fight, but she’s much more than that. She’s a brilliant mind faced with a life-changing event and not just her life but the entire planet’s and her decisions will have monumental consequences. Her ability to focus is paramount and though it may seem she is being manipulated at times, she quickly takes control of her relationship with Ei’Brai. As the story reaches its gripping conclusion it also lays the groundwork for an exciting continuation of this rapidly unfolding saga.
Littered with plenty of nods and winks to classic sci-fi and some clever pop culture references, Fluency is a thrilling, bumpy ride that rarely falters and firmly cements Jennifer Foehner Wells’ standing in the indie scene as an innovative and refreshing new voice in modern sci-fi."- Eamon Ambrose, Eamo The Geek
"A book that is just as appealing to women as it is to men. I’ll admit, I saw the beautiful cover and thought it was going to be old-school, hardcore sci-fi with lots of technobabble and women in service roles rather than command ones. By the time we got into space I was hooked, and only got more engrossed the further I went.
There’s no flab in this book. It starts out strongly and each scene is carefully considered in how it develops the characters and advances the plot. The pitch rises gradually until leveling off at the end, just as it should.
The prose is straightforward and lets the reading just flow. Dialogue made sense and there weren’t too many narrative sequences. Again, Jennifer Foehner Wells has taken care in crafting a balance of elements.
This is a pretty special book. It’s a modern take on sci-fi, and has a lot to offer. There’s a light romantic subplot, a first-contact scenario, and a high-stakes situation that seems unclear, then clear, then unclear again. This story isn’t predictable and it doesn’t rely on any timeworn tropes. Fluency is something new in fiction, and that always excites the hell out of me."-Zen, Women of Badassery
Interview with the author:
1. If you were asked to recommend three scifi books what would they be?
Ernest Cline Ready Player One
Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow
Octavia Butler Dawn
I could list about 20 more…but these were three that I read recently
that had the most impact on me.
2. Were you given the chance,
would you embark on a space mission you wrote about?
Absolutely! Yes! If I didn’t have children to care for, I would go in a heartbeat. I would be terrified, but I would go.
3. Do you believe in the existence
of aliens? If so, do you think they are driven by their instincts or that they
are intelligent and/or creatures of emotion?
That’s a fascinating question. Yes, I do. There are just so many
exoplanets out there—it’s impossible for me to believe otherwise. As to what drives them? I
can’t even begin to know. But I suspect there is much diversity among
them, just like there is here on Earth.
Sentience may be more rare—but life—life, I am
certain, exists in abundance. I can only guess that there are species that are
better than us in some ways and worse than us in others. They may have evolved
under other environmental pressures.
Our own cultural history contains long periods of cooperative
sharing (when we were hunters and gatherers) and a more selfish approach toward
each other (once we began to use agriculture) and this dichotomy still wars
inside modern humans in the form of capitalist greed, not planning for the
future environmentally, the way we marginalize people by sexual preference,
race, gender, poverty, religious beliefs, and the urge to horde against bad
times vs. benevolent intentions. I imagine that life on other worlds may have
faced these challenges as well as many others.
I started by reading autobiographies of various astronauts. Then I
began to learn about the space program—first the most general information and then
diving deeper and deeper into specific categories to glean important details. I
might have begun on a wikipedia page and then followed the links to NASA pages
with more specific information.
I was interested in: what space suits are like to wear, what NASA
food is like, what being in microgravity for extended periods of time does to a
person, what kinds of precautions NASA would take regarding human sexuality,
what kind of ship would my crew inhabit—size, shape,
interior space, and many, many other things.
That was just the start. I researched intensely for about a month
and then as I was writing, topics would come up and I would stop the writing
process to research them, often to figure out how a character would solve a
specific problem. So, I’d have to educate myself to whatever level of
knowledge I felt they would have that a general reader could understand and
then follow where that led. Sometimes that directs the narrative into new and
unexpected places.
Some writers just put in a placeholder in the text and keep writing.
I’ve never been able to do that because I often feel that what I find
in my research will inform my writing so much that I may end up having to
re-write a scene after the research is done. I’m not one to
waste time that way, though sometimes research can turn into a rabbit hole of
interesting topics that’s hard to crawl back out of and get back to
writing!
5. Tell us about your writing
process! Do you have a writing routine?
I make a very rough outline before I start writing. I always know
where I’m going. Essentially I divide my work into a 4-act story structure
with plot points that I’m aiming to hit. I plot out what all of those
will be before I start. That is the framework of my story. The armature, if you
will. Then I start writing and flesh it out.
I try to write according to Rachel Aaron’s
recommendations to optimize word counts. I don’t have a ton of free
time since I have two small children. So, before I sit down to write a scene I
daydream about it for a bit and then I write out longhand a little sketch about
what it’s about. Sometimes I just write down what each character wants in
the scene and how he or she is feeling. That’s enough to get
me going and I can write a little more quickly then.
My writing routine is to get my kids off to school, then quickly
check to make sure I have nothing pressing in the email to attend to, then i
write most of the morning. I take a break around lunchtime for about an hour
then I write until my kids come home from school. After they are settled with
homework and snacks then I try to catch up on other things. I may write more in
the evening after everyone else has gone to bed. It makes for long days.
Unfortunately I’m a very slow writer. It just is what it is.
It can take me 6 hours to produce 2000 words. Other authors can do much more. I
envy that. I hope to gain some speed as the years go by.
On weekends I try to always work at least an hour or two of writing
in each day. I aim to write every day. it doesn’t always work
out, but that’s my goal. Always pushing forward.
6. What do you think your reaction
would be to Ei’Brai when you saw him for the
first time?
My reaction would be very much like Jane’s. I would think
he was beautiful to the point of being moved to tears. There’s a
reason that I chose to use a character like him in this story. I’ve
long been enamored of creatures of his type. As long as I can remember. The
research for using him as a character only fueled that interest into an obsession!
7. Will there be a second book?
How long do we have to wait for it? ☺
Yes! I’m working on it now. Book Two in the Confluence Trilogy will be
called Remanence and I’m planning to release it in June of 2015.
This winter has been extremely difficult for writing, but I’m
still hopeful I can pull it off.
About Jennifer Foehner Wells:
Jennifer Foehner Wells lives an alternately chaotic and fairly bucolic existence in Indiana with two boisterous little boys, a supportive husband, a mildly unhinged Labrador retriever, and three adorable pet rats as housemates. Having studied biology, Jen's possessed with a keen interest in science and technology. She's 100% geek and proud of it. FLUENCY was Jen’s debut. It spent weeks in the Kindle Top 100, going as high as number 4. It remains prominent in several Science Fiction categories. It has garnered 848 five star reviews, to date.
Website: www.jenniferfoehnerwells.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jenthulhu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferFoehnerWells?ref=bookmarks Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/110012412930597513254/110012412930597513254/posts
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