Title: The Last Day of Captain Lincoln
Author: EXO Books
Publisher: EXO Books
Release date: November 15th 2016
Format: eARC
Pages: 133
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Captain Lincoln’s last day is the hardest day of his life.

An old, onetime Captain of the interstellar spaceship USNAS Hope Eternal, Lincoln always knew that this day would come. For just as birthdays are carefully planned, so are deaths. And although he must reckon with his fate, this is not a somber story. It is a tale of love and sacrifice, told in the context of the most advanced civilization ever to exist—a society that has taken to the stars in an effort to save all that is best in humanity.

Follow Lincoln through his internal struggles, his joy in having lived, and his journey to peace.

The End is just the beginning.

Knowing the date of your death from the start does not make things easier.

After a long and healthy life aboard the starship, Captain Lincoln has reached the end of his journey. Surrounded by the love of his life, his friends, his brothers and sisters, and every other generation since his birth, he must face the last day of his life.

I am very happy to have been contacted by the author to read and review this story because I could not have picked it myself, and I would have missed a very important day.

Words like interstellar spaceship scare me. The only one I would willingly get on is the Tardis, and only if Ten were inside. Still, I jumped with both feet into the adventure and the narration of a man’s final 24 hours.

Life on the ship is good. You were born, you get very cool technological extra features, a job, and a set numbered of years free of health issues. It is a pretty nice deal. Despite his life being quite different from ours, I had no problem connecting with Lincoln and the other characters. Times have changed, human feelings remain the same. No one wants to go before the end of the movie. Except life is a very long movie (I suspect it to be a Japanese movie: long, weird, and you never make sense of what’s happening) and the ship cannot stand too many people at once.

To make me believe in a life on a spaceship, you need to make it real enough so that I can imagine myself living it. It never happens. I am so skeptical that I find flaws in everything. Except this once I cannot. The author crafted a brilliant ship and gives you enough details to make it real. In my opinion, this is sci-fi at its best.

“It’s all about escape, places where the mind can go to hide from the fear because the alternative – nothing at all – is much worse.”

The author manages to merge a sci-fi novel with a deep observation of the human condition and the fears that come with it. Every feeling is so spot-on and coming at the perfect time you could believe we are talking about a man walking on Earth in 2016, except for small details like the food or the lack of iPod to listen to music (they have a much better way to enjoy music.) I could not stay detached as I read Lincoln’s struggles to go through his fateful day. I was overwhelmed with a wave of emotions I did not know could be triggered by an old man living among the stars. Everything said in this book is bound to resonate with you. No, you are not in for a hundred pages of a maudlin description of a dying man walking to his grave. You’re in for the essence of life: a thousand emotions in one day, a reminder of the importance of friendship and love, parties, games, and memories.

This is a book you take your time reading in order to truly appreciate the weight of every word and the awesomeness of the life created in the story. I will certainly be reading it again. I was moved, I believed in everything I read, and I was close to tears when I finished. Congratulations to Exo Books for setting a new record with me: making me feel for an old man, enjoy life on a spaceship, and cry without me being mad about it (I really hate being sad because of a story!)

The book is available on Amazon

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This review is my thank you to the author for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.