Review: Great Surprise Ending
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 13, 2013
"A Matter of Survival" by Linda Hull is a must-read for Sci-Fi fans. In a far distant future, Earth has learned to visit other planetary systems. Many such "visits" are primarily for resource mining, but a few are simply to inventory other planets to determine suitability for either future resource extraction or perhaps settlement. This story is about one of the inventory visits to another planet known as K24B.K24B was a beautiful planet, not unlike a pristine Earth. Unfortunately, it was populated by wildlife species that were bigger, more aggressive, and hungrier than similar species on Earth. Donna Rivera has dreamed her whole life of being a wildlife biologist who traveled to far planets to inventory the wildlife, and this assignment couldn't be better as far as she was concerned. The other members of the exploratory crew didn't feel quite that way, for the simple reason that they kept getting killed and eaten.The original 9-person crew has been whittled down to just 2 survivors when we are brought into the story. It back-tracks so we can learn what became of the other 7, then continues to unfold after the crew has been reduced to 2. Trapped in one of 2 mobile stations, the 2 decide they need to take their chances, and make a run for the Base Station some 10 kilometers distant. Things don't work out quite the way they had hoped.Donna wakes to a nightmare existence. What happened? Where is her one remaining crew member? When she realizes the truth, she is stunned. You will be, too. Definitely a must-read for Sci-Fi fans, just like I said at the start. You'll be very surprised at the end of this tale.