Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury SmithMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a 2 star "did not finish" review.
The hook for this book is that the world has been destroyed and the only pockets of humanity left alive are on airships. The airships send out skydivers....well Hell Divers (roll credits)....to scavenge for equipment/parts that are in short supply.
Part of the ability to suspend disbelief is the fact that there are other believable elements to the story. By chapter 5 I had more than enough plot holes that could not be filled except by just accepting that this was just a story.
A reader that just wants a cool read might well enjoy this book. The writing/grammar is fundamentally good. It's just that the plot holes drove me out of it early and often.
- So the promotional reading indicated multiple airships. There are two, so the plural is accurate....barely.
- Everything is in short supply on these airships. Yet the hell divers are ready to knife their way out of their parachute harnesses. Also, they don't spend much time recovering the useful gear of a diver that dies on the way down.
- Nuclear fuel is heavy. Nuclear fuels are very dense. They pack a lot of energy into very little space. But it still requires tons of the stuff to power a reactor that can power a city. One hell diver finds a "case" of nuclear fuel cells that weighs 40 lbs. This is supposed to be enough to power the airship for years if not decades. There isn't enough energy in 40 lbs of nuclear fuel to do that.
- Nuclear fuel is radioactive. Yet the hell diver opens the case to see what is inside.
- Again, things are in short supply. But when the hell diver returns to the airship via a balloon inflated using helium, they just let the helium escape.
- And the hell diver "steers" the balloon into the open bay of the airship by pulling ropes/lines like they were steering a parachute or a kite.
- Early on it is established that none of the hell divers has seen any significant signs of surviving down on the polluted/radioactive surface of the world. Yet the two teams that go down instantly run across semi-humanoid lifeforms.
- The divers have binoculars. Things that should have existed before the world was destroyed. Binoculars are normally used close to the eyes to get the focal length right. Yet the divers wear masked helmets. The shouldn't be able to use the binoculars effectively.
- The divers wear helmets and suits that seem to be uniquely well suited for jumping into a poisoned and radioactive environment. Yet it is established that no one knows who started the war that ended the world. Why would those suits exist on those airships before the world ended? How could they have been manufactured on an airship suffering from scarce resources after the world ended?
There were just too many plot holes for me to bother reading any further.
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