Boldly going…to their graves.

Set in the near future where space is the final forgotten frontier The Explorer is a suspenseful temporal thriller that keeps readers guessing until the end. Cormac Easton, a journalist attached to the first manned expedition into deep space, is seen by the crew as an appeasement to the media and private corporations who funded the expedition. Useless and without any other role except to record the ships and its crew’s progression in this monumental undertaking, he is suspect. However, things go from bad to worse on the journey, and the crew begin dying one by one, seemingly by accident, until Cormac is the only one remaining whilst the ship continues onwards.Jumping from the past to the present and back again Smythe weaves an intricate tale about what it means to explore the final frontier and Cormac’s journey from observer to wounded hero. The writing is clear and flows seamlessly between both time and space as the clues that lie in the ships peril are contained within the past and Cormac’s recollections. Cormac, as a character is well thought out and instantly relatable as someone who does not belong and his crew mates act as fully fleshed out counterparts to his narrative, each with their own history, hopes and eventual deaths. The Explorerleaves the reader feeling satisfied, yet hungry for answers to the bigger questions that are revealed at the book’s climax, and paves the way for the second book The Echo book two in the ‘Anomaly Quartet’. This is a must read for sci fi fans and lovers of psychological thriller!